Governance
How decisions are made in Tessero, who makes them, and how to take part.
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Tessero is an open-source project run in the open. This document says who decides what and how that changes.
Roles
| Role | Who | Can |
|---|---|---|
| Contributor | anyone who opens an issue or pull request | propose changes, review, discuss |
| Committer | contributors with a record of good reviews and merged work, invited by maintainers | approve pull requests, triage issues |
| Maintainer | committers responsible for the project as a whole | merge, release, set the roadmap, invite committers and maintainers, enforce the Code of Conduct |
The current maintainers are listed in MAINTAINERS.md. The project's goal is at
least two active maintainers from different organisations. Until then, the
founding maintainer acts alone, and every decision below that needs two
maintainers is published as a public proposal with a 7-day comment period
instead.
Decisions
- Everyday changes (fixes, docs, tests, features within the existing
design) are decided by review: one approval, or two for changes to the
C kernel (
csrc/), the extension (ext/) or the ABI header. - Architecture changes need an ADR (
docs/architecture/adr/) merged with approval from two maintainers after at least 7 days of public discussion. - Breaking API changes after 1.0 need an ADR and a deprecation period of at least one minor release.
- Disagreements are resolved by discussion aiming at consensus. If that fails, maintainers vote. A simple majority decides, and ties keep the status quo.
Releases
Any maintainer can release by following RELEASING.md. Releases after 1.0
need two maintainers: one to prepare, one to verify and publish.
Becoming a committer or maintainer
Maintainers invite contributors who have shown sustained, careful work (code, reviews, docs, support). Invitations are agreed by the maintainers and announced publicly. Inactive maintainers (12 months) move to emeritus status and can return on request.
Funding and independence
The project may seek fiscal sponsorship (for example NumFOCUS affiliation) and grants. Money is spent transparently on maintenance, CI, security review and documentation, as decided by the maintainers and reported publicly. Sponsors do not get decision rights.
Code of Conduct
All participation is governed by CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. Maintainers enforce it.
Changing this document
By pull request, with approval from two maintainers after 14 days of public comment (or, while there is a single maintainer, after 14 days of public comment).