Decision-making processes

Various decision-making processes

New Release

Technical Steering Committee (TSC) decides when a new release is needed since they lead the specification development and have the best knowledge of changes and maturity of the development version.

The Technical Steering Committee is responsible for release quality, while the Strategy Group is responsible for the long-term roadmap and making sure the release fits in the plan.

Alignment phase

  1. TSC creates a proposal for a new release for the Strategy Group (SG) to review. In the proposal, TSC lists the changes and expected added value for consumers. The proposal also contains information is this minor or major release. The proposal contains also planned roadmap to release with timetable. Patches can be pushed to the production version without SG review.

  2. The release proposal is discussed at the SG meeting and possible comments will be provided to TSC to consider. SG reviews the release proposal to align it with the strategy, which SG is responsible for.

  3. SG can stop the release process but the reasons must be very solid and most commonly additional discussion is needed between TSC and SG. We seek always alignment, not power struggles.

Release phase

After SG's review, TSC starts executing the accepted and aligned release plan. The default minimal process contains following steps:

  1. A Release Candidate from development version is created and development version is closed. Stopping development is needed, so that focus can be given for the release. Release the RC to Github as repository.

  2. RC is open for comments for 14 days

    1. After commenting TSC processes the feedback.

    2. If changes are needed before release, then after implementing the changes, a new Release Candidate is published (RC1). Again commenting is open for 14 days.

  3. The above is repeated until no changes are requested and we have strong alignment about the new release.

  4. Finally, RC is published as a new version of ODPS.

  5. After this new development version is derived from the release and new development version is opened for pull requests.

  6. Opendataproducts.org website is updated regarding the versions part to match the current situation and versions.

Accepting new Technical Steering Group members

Anyone can participate Technical Steering Group meetings as an observer. Observers have no right to participate in decision-making but are allowed to observe and comment the meeting items when Chairman invites all to express themselves.

TSC Chairman can invite full members to the committee. New member is accepted as long as none of the existing members have justified reasons not accept new member. Full members have 1 vote and can suggest items to the meeting agenda (observers do not have this privilege)

Accepting new Strategy Group members

Also Strategy Group meetings are open for anyone to participate as observers.

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