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| 1 | +Decision-Making Process in the Git Project |
| 2 | +========================================== |
| 3 | + |
| 4 | +Introduction |
| 5 | +------------ |
| 6 | +This document describes the current decision-making process in the Git |
| 7 | +project. It is a descriptive rather than prescriptive doc; that is, we want to |
| 8 | +describe how things work in practice rather than explicitly recommending any |
| 9 | +particular process or changes to the current process. |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +Here we document how the project makes decisions for discussions |
| 12 | +(with or without patches), in scale larger than an individual patch |
| 13 | +series (which is fully covered by the SubmittingPatches document). |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +Larger Discussions (with patches) |
| 17 | +--------------------------------- |
| 18 | +As with discussions on an individual patch series, starting a larger-scale |
| 19 | +discussion often begins by sending a patch or series to the list. This might |
| 20 | +take the form of an initial design doc, with implementation following in later |
| 21 | +iterations of the series (for example, |
| 22 | +link:https://lore.kernel.org/git/0169ce6fb9ccafc089b74ae406db0d1a8ff8ac65.1688165272.git.steadmon@google.com/[adding unit tests] or |
| 23 | +link:https://lore.kernel.org/git/ [email protected]/[config-based hooks]), |
| 24 | +or it might include a full implementation from the beginning. |
| 25 | +In either case, discussion progresses the same way for an individual patch series, |
| 26 | +until consensus is reached or the topic is dropped. |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +Larger Discussions (without patches) |
| 30 | +------------------------------------ |
| 31 | +Occasionally, larger discussions might occur without an associated patch series. |
| 32 | +These may be very large-scale technical decisions that are beyond the scope of |
| 33 | +even a single large patch series, or they may be more open-ended, |
| 34 | +policy-oriented discussions (examples: |
| 35 | +link:https://lore.kernel.org/git/ [email protected]/[introducing Rust] |
| 36 | +or link:https://lore.kernel.org/git/ [email protected]/[improving submodule UX]). |
| 37 | +In either case, discussion progresses as described above for general patch series. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +For larger discussions without a patch series or other concrete implementation, |
| 40 | +it may be hard to judge when consensus has been reached, as there are not any |
| 41 | +official guidelines. If discussion stalls at this point, it may be helpful to |
| 42 | +restart discussion with an RFC patch series (such as a partial, unfinished |
| 43 | +implementation or proof of concept) that can be more easily debated. |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +When consensus is reached that it is a good idea, the original |
| 46 | +proposer is expected to coordinate the effort to make it happen, |
| 47 | +with help from others who were involved in the discussion, as |
| 48 | +needed. |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +For decisions that require code changes, it is often the case that the original |
| 51 | +proposer will follow up with a patch series, although it is also common for |
| 52 | +other interested parties to provide an implementation (or parts of the |
| 53 | +implementation, for very large changes). |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +For non-technical decisions such as community norms or processes, it is up to |
| 56 | +the community as a whole to implement and sustain agreed-upon changes. |
| 57 | +The project leadership committe (PLC) may help the implementation of |
| 58 | +policy decisions. |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | + |
| 61 | +Other Discussion Venues |
| 62 | +----------------------- |
| 63 | +Occasionally decision proposals are presented off-list, e.g. at the semi-regular |
| 64 | +Contributors' Summit. While higher-bandwidth face-to-face discussion is often |
| 65 | +useful for quickly reaching consensus among attendees, generally we expect to |
| 66 | +summarize the discussion in notes that can later be presented on-list. For an |
| 67 | +example, see the thread |
| 68 | +link:https://lore.kernel.org/git/ [email protected]/[Notes |
| 69 | +from Git Contributor Summit, Los Angeles (April 5, 2020)] by James Ramsay. |
| 70 | + |
| 71 | +We prefer that "official" discussion happens on the list so that the full |
| 72 | +community has opportunity to engage in discussion. This also means that the |
| 73 | +mailing list archives contain a more-or-less complete history of project |
| 74 | +discussions and decisions. |
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