Hello Governance folks, I've been working with Mitchell and some other folks over the past few months to better reflect Firefox technical leadership in the module ownership system. I think we're at a point where we're ready to make the first proposal:
Introduction ========= The Mozilla Module system was historically structured with the assumption that Brendan Eich was responsible for the software side of technical decisions (as the former owner of the Module Ownership System). Brendan is also listed as the current owner of the top-level directory module (with no peers), but is no longer involved in Mozilla engineering. The result has been a lack of clarity about technical decision making, and some avoidance of decisions when escalation paths are unclear. It seems clear that the module system should document ownership for the technical side of Firefox code, development practices, and tools. We propose to restructure the Firefox-related modules under control of a new “Technical Leadership Module Committee” (TLMC), as described below. FTLM Scope and Operation ===================== The FirefoxTLM is responsible for engineering coordination and escalation among the modules that make up Firefox. The TLMC (described below) would generally try to avoid day-to-day involvement in module operation, but would be involved in case of either decisions which are explicitly cross module or issues cannot be resolved at lower levels, such as: * Resolution of decisions that don’t fall clearly into any specific module or set of modules * Escalation of disputes beyond the module owner level In addition, the Module Ownership System module would delegate its responsibilities for the modules that make up Firefox to the FTLM. This delegated authority includes topics such as those listed below. Escalations regarding this set of issues would escalate to the Module Ownership System module. * Filling vacant roles where appropriate * Ensuring module owners are fulfilling their responsibilities, and replacing those who are not * Creating and staffing new modules where new parts of the project evolve. * Figuring out what to do if a module isn't getting enough attention * Resolving conflicts among module owners The TLMC decision making process would be to attempt to form consensus among stakeholders, with the committee empowered to resolve disputes when that consensus cannot be reached, and the chair empowered when consensus can’t be reached within the committee. FTLM Proposed Structure ==================== Instead of a single owner, the Technical Leadership would be governed by a Technical Leadership Module Committee (TLMC) consisting of the DE/Fellow/CTO cohort and the head of Firefox Engineering. Additional members will be selected from the technical staff as needed to reach a six member minimum and ensure a broad coverage of domain knowledge. These additional members will serve two-year terms. The initial proposed members are: * Eric Rescorla (Firefox CTO) - Chair * Dave Camp (Vice President, Firefox Engineering) * Boris Zbarsky (DE) * David Baron (DE) * Dave Townsend * Luke Wagner If any of the existing members cease to be active, or upon the expiry of the non-DE members’ two year terms, new replacement members would be proposed by the remaining members and selected by the Module Ownership System module owner (currently Mitchell Baker). Appendix: Proposed List of Applicable Modules * Firefox * Toolkit * Core * Submodules * Browser * Tier 1 Platforms * Other: - Add-On SDK - Android Background Services - Firefox for Metro - BrowserID - Firefox Accounts - Devtools - Fennec - SyncLoop - MLS - Mozstumbler - URL Classifier - Tree Sheriffs * Governance - Security Policy - CA Certificate Policy - Code Review Policy - Performance Regression Policy - CA Certificates - Commit Access Policy _______________________________________________ governance mailing list governance@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
