@dcxp/root/GOVERNANCE.md

DCX: Decentralized Credential Exchange. DWN protocol for verifiable credential exchange.

# TBD Open Source Project Governance

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- [TBD Open Source Project Governance](#tbd-open-source-project-governance)
  - [Contributors](#contributors)
  - [Maintainers](#maintainers)
    - [Maintainer activities](#maintainer-activities)
  - [Governance Committee](#governance-committee)

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## Contributors

Anyone may be a contributor to TBD projects. Contribution may take the form of:

* Asking and answering questions on the Discord or GitHub Issues
* Filing an issue
* Offering a feature or bug fix via a Pull Request
* Suggesting documentation improvements
* ...and more!

Anyone with a GitHub account may use the project issue trackers and communications channels. We welcome newcomers, so don't hesitate to say hi!

## Maintainers

Maintainers have write access to GitHub repositories and act as project administrators. They approve and merge pull requests, cut releases, and guide collaboration with the community. They have:

* Commit access to their project's repositories
* Write access to continuous integration (CI) jobs

Both maintainers and non-maintainers may propose changes to 
source code. The mechanism to propose such a change is a GitHub pull request. Maintainers review and merge (_land_) pull requests.

If a maintainer opposes a proposed change, then the change cannot land. The exception is if the Governance Committee (GC) votes to approve the change despite the opposition. Usually, involving the GC is unnecessary.

See:

* [List of maintainers - `MAINTAINERS.md`](./MAINTAINERS.md)
* [Contribution Guide - `CONTRIBUTING.md`](./CONTRIBUTING.md)

### Maintainer activities

* Helping users and novice contributors
* Contributing code and documentation changes that improve the project
* Reviewing and commenting on issues and pull requests
* Participation in working groups
* Merging pull requests

## Governance Committee

The TBD Open Source Governance Committee (GC) has final authority over this project, including:

* Technical direction
* Project governance and process (including this policy)
* Contribution policy
* GitHub repository hosting
* Conduct guidelines
* Maintaining the list of maintainers

The current GC members are:

* Ben Boeser, Technical Partnerships Lead, TBD
* Angie Jones, Head of Developer Relations, TBD
* Julie Kim, Head of Legal, TBD
* Nidhi Nahar, Head of Patents and Open Source, Block
* Andrew Lee Rubinger, Head of Open Source, TBD

Members are not to be contacted individually. The GC may be reached through `tbd-open-source-governance@squareup.com` and is an available resource in mediation or for sensitive cases beyond the scope of project maintainers. It operates as a "Self-appointing council or board" as defined by Red Hat: [Open Source Governance Models](https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/understanding-open-source-governance-models).