197 lines
7.4 KiB
Markdown
197 lines
7.4 KiB
Markdown
# Decision making in the curl project
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A rough guide to how we make decisions and who does what.
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## BDFL
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This project was started by and has to some extent been pushed forward over
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the years with Daniel Stenberg as the driving force. It matches a standard
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BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life) style project.
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This setup has been used due to convenience and the fact that it has worked
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fine this far. It is not because someone thinks of it as a superior project
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leadership model. It also only works as long as Daniel manages to listen in to
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what the project and the general user population wants and expects from us.
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## Legal entity
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There is no legal entity. The curl project is just a bunch of people scattered
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around the globe with the common goal to produce source code that creates
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great products. We are not part of any umbrella organization and we are not
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located in any specific country. We are totally independent.
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The copyrights in the project are owned by the individuals and organizations
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that wrote those parts of the code.
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## Decisions
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The curl project is not a democracy, but everyone is entitled to state their
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opinion and may argue for their sake within the community.
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All and any changes that have been done or are done are eligible to bring up
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for discussion, to object to or to praise. Ideally, we find consensus for the
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appropriate way forward in any given situation or challenge.
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If there is no obvious consensus, a maintainer who's knowledgeable in the
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specific area takes an "executive" decision that they think is the right for
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the project.
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## Donations
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Donating plain money to curl is best done to curl's [Open Collective
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fund](https://opencollective.com/curl). Open Collective is a US based
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non-profit organization that holds on to funds for us. This fund is then used
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for paying the curl security bug bounties, to reimburse project related
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expenses etc.
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Donations to the project can also come in the form of server hosting, providing
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services and paying for people to work on curl related code etc. Usually, such
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donations are services paid for directly by the sponsors.
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We grade sponsors in a few different levels and if they meet the criteria,
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they can be mentioned on the Sponsors page on the curl website.
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## Commercial Support
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The curl project does not do or offer commercial support. It only hosts
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mailing lists, runs bug trackers etc to facilitate communication and work.
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However, Daniel works for wolfSSL and we offer commercial curl support there.
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# Key roles
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## User
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Someone who uses or has used curl or libcurl.
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## Contributor
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Someone who has helped the curl project, who has contributed to bring it
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forward. Contributing could be to provide advice, debug a problem, file a bug
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report, run test infrastructure or writing code etc.
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## Commit author
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Sometimes also called 'committer'. Someone who has authored a commit in the
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curl source code repository. Committers are recorded as `Author` in git.
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## Maintainers
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A maintainer in the curl project is an individual who has been given
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permissions to push commits to one of the git repositories.
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Maintainers are free to push commits to the repositories at they see fit.
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Maintainers are however expected to listen to feedback from users and any
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change that is non-trivial in size or nature *should* be brought to the
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project as a Pull-Request (PR) to allow others to comment/object before merge.
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## Former maintainers
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A maintainer who stops being active in the project gets their push permissions
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removed at some point. We do this for security reasons but also to make sure
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that we always have the list of maintainers as "the team that push stuff to
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curl".
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Getting push permissions removed is not a punishment. Everyone who ever worked
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on maintaining curl is considered a hero, for all time hereafter.
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## Security team members
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We have a security team. That is the team of people who are subscribed to the
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curl-security mailing list; the receivers of security reports from users and
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developers. This list of people varies over time but they are all skilled
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developers familiar with the curl project.
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The security team works best when it consists of a small set of active
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persons. We invite new members when the team seems to need it, and we also
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expect to retire security team members as they "drift off" from the project or
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just find themselves unable to perform their duties there.
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## Core team
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There is a curl core team. It currently has the same set of members as the
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security team. It can also be reached on the security email address.
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The core team nominates and invites new members to the team when it sees fit.
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There is no open member voting or formal ways to be a candidate. Active
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participants in the curl project who want to join the core team can ask to
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join.
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The core team is a board of advisors. It deals with project management
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subjects that need confidentiality or for other reasons cannot be dealt with
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and discussed in the open (for example reports of code of conduct violations).
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Project matters should always as far as possible be discussed on open mailing
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lists.
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## Server admins
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We run a web server, a mailing list and more on the curl project's primary
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server. That physical machine is owned and run by Haxx. Daniel is the primary
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admin of all things curl related server stuff, but Björn Stenberg and Linus
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Feltzing serve as backup admins for when Daniel is gone or unable.
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The primary server is paid for by Haxx. The machine is physically located in a
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server bunker in Stockholm Sweden, operated by the company Glesys.
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The website contents are served to the web via Fastly and Daniel is the
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primary curl contact with Fastly.
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## BDFL
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That is Daniel.
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# Maintainers
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A curl maintainer is a project volunteer who has the authority and rights to
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merge changes into a git repository in the curl project.
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Anyone can aspire to become a curl maintainer.
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### Duties
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There are no mandatory duties. We hope and wish that maintainers consider
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reviewing patches and help merging them, especially when the changes are
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within the area of personal expertise and experience.
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### Requirements
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- only merge code that meets our quality and style guide requirements.
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- *never* merge code without doing a PR first, unless the change is "trivial"
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- if in doubt, ask for input/feedback from others
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### Recommendations
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- we require two-factor authentication enabled on your GitHub account to
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reduce risk of malicious source code tampering
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- consider enabling signed git commits for additional verification of changes
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### Merge advice
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When you are merging patches/pull requests...
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- make sure the commit messages follow our template
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- squash patch sets into a few logical commits even if the PR did not, if
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necessary
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- avoid the "merge" button on GitHub, do it "manually" instead to get full
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control and full audit trail (GitHub leaves out you as "Committer:")
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- remember to credit the reporter and the helpers.
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## Who are maintainers?
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The [list of maintainers](https://github.com/orgs/curl/people). Be aware that
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the level of presence and activity in the project vary greatly between
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different individuals and over time.
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### Become a maintainer?
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If you think you can help making the project better by shouldering some
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maintaining responsibilities, then please get in touch.
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You are expected to be familiar with the curl project and its ways of working.
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You need to have gotten a few quality patches merged as a proof of this.
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### Stop being a maintainer
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If you (appear to) not be active in the project anymore, you may be removed as
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a maintainer. Thank you for your service.
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