0010: Update PMCR vote as project-wide decision

Summary

PMCRs are decisions that, by definition, affect the project as a whole, and should therefore be decided by every team member. As we are evolving towards better democratic decision-making, having the PMCR vote be decided just by the “Core Contributors” or future legal-entity “Board” goes against the ethos of the project.

Motivation

In addition to better align the PMCR process with the project needs, the PMCR process, by design, needs input and knowledge from many different angles. This has resulted in, at times, having the CCs not being the most fit people to make certain decisions. A lot of time has been spent discussing how an “ideal” committee for the approval of PMCRs could look: whether the committee selects people best fit for a certain decision, whether the decision gets delegated to a specific-committee automatically, how to select those committees and so on. In the end, we identified that setting up that structure while we are still a medium-sized project is overkill and would lead to us going endlessly in circles.

Instead, let’s make it simple: by definition, PMCRs are changes that affect the whole project or its users in a remarkable way. It is therefore simplest to have PMCRs be approved as project-wide decisions.

Consequences

Changing the voting process should have the following consequences:

  • Spread responsibility over the team and stop gate-keeping by the Core Contributors. This is relevant when, in the future, the Core Contributors might be the Board of a legal entity whose role would be representing the project.

  • Make sure that those that have expertise in a topic also get a say.

  • If PMCRs do not get enough interest from the team, the vote might be rejected out of a lack of quorum. That might mean the problem at hand was probably not PMCR worthy.

Implementation plan

Change the README of this project to include a project-wide decision instead of a vote during a Core Contributors’ meeting. Due to the importance of these decisions, the vote for PMCRs should be open for voting for 2 weeks instead of 1.

Given the previous discussions that have happened about the potential need for committee decisions on PMCRs, and to future-proof this change, include the possibility to change the voting process by requiring a vote, but not a complete PMCR.

For more details see the changes to the README as proposed in this same MR.

The proposer

@pabloyoyoista, postmarketOS Core Contributor