OSL is a project of the Academy Software Foundation and relies on the ASWF governance policies, supported by the Linux Foundation.
There are three primary project roles: Contributors submit code to the project; Committers approve code to be included into the project; and the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) provides overall high-level project guidance.
The OSL project grows and thrives from assistance from Contributors. Contributors include anyone in the community who contributes code, documentation, or other technical artifacts that have been incorporated into the projects repository.
Anyone can be a Contributor. You need no formal approval from the project, beyond the legal forms.
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Review the coding standards to ensure your contribution is in line with the project's coding and styling guidelines.
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Sign the Individual CLA, or if you are employed by an organization that might have any claim to IP you create, have your organization sign the Corporate CLA.
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Submit your code as a PR with the appropriate DCO sign-off.
Project Committers have merge access on the OSL GitHub repository and are responsible for approving submissions by Contributors.
Typical activities of a Committer include:
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Helping users and novice contributors.
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Ensuring a response to questions posted to the osl-dev developer mail list
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Contributing code and documentation changes that improve the project.
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Reviewing and commenting on issues and pull requests.
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Ensuring that changes and new code meet acceptable standards and are in the long-term interest of the project.
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Participation in working groups.
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Merging pull requests.
Any member of the OSL community (though typically an existing Committer or TSC member) may nominate an individual making significant and valuable contributions to the OSL project to become a new Committer. To nominate a new Committer, open an issue in the OSL repository, send mail to the TSC mail list, or raise the issue at a TSC meeting.
The TSC may periodically review the Committer list to identify inactive Committers. Past Committers are typically given Emeritus status. Emeriti may request that the TSC restore them to active Committer status.
The Technical Steering Committee (TSC) has final authority over this project. As defined in the project charter, TSC responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
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Coordinating technical direction of the Project.
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Project governance and contribution policy.
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GitHub repository administration.
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Maintaining the list of additional Committers
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Appointing representatives to work with other open source or open standards communities.
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Discussions, seeking consensus, and where necessary, voting on technical matters relating to the code base that affect multiple projects.
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Coordinating any marketing, events, or communications regarding the project.
Within the TSC are two elected leadership roles to be held by its members and voted on annually. Any TSC member can express interest in serving in a role, or nominate another member to serve. There are no term limits, and one person may hold multiple roles simultaneously. Should a TSC member resign from a leadership role before their term is complete, a successor shall be elected through the standard nomination and voting process to complete the remainder of the term. The leadership roles are:
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Chair: This position acts as the project manager, organizing meetings and providing oversight to project administration.
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Chief Architect: This position makes all the final calls on design and technical decisions, and is responsible for avoiding "design by committee" pitfalls.
The chair role is assumed to rotate annually (though there are no term limits, so the TSC may reelect an existing chair). The chief architect position should be a source of stability and coherent design vision, so the TSC is encouraged to choose an architect who can serve for many years and only change architects when it is necessary for the health of the project and its community.
At the time of election, the TSC will also agree upon which of these two leaders will serve as the OSL ASWF (Academy Software Foundation) TAC (Technical Advisory Council) representative for the term. This member represents the project at all ASWF TAC meetings.
Current voting members of the TSC are:
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Chair and TAC representative: Chris Kulla - Epic Games
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Chief Architect: Larry Gritz - Sony Pictures Imageworks
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Luke Emrose - Animal Logic
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Eric Enderton - NVIDIA
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Stephen Friedman - Pixar
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Nicolas Guiard - Isotropix
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Clint Hanson - DNEG
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Adrien Herubel - Autodesk
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Lee Kerley - Sony Pictures Imageworks
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Mitch Prater - Laika
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Brecht Van Lommel - Blender
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Alex Wells - Intel
Any proposal for additional members of the TSC may be submitted by Committers, TSC members, or other major stakeholders of the OSL community by opening an issue outlining their case or raising the issue at a TSC meeting. New TSC members are accepted or rejected by majority vote of the TSC.
If a TSC member is for an extended period not regularly participating or performing the responsibilities expected of TSC members, the TSC may by majority vote request an alternate TSC member be submitted by that organization, or remove the inactive member from the TSC.
A voting member of the TSC may nominate a successor in the event that such voting member decides to leave the TSC, and the TSC, including the departing member, shall confirm or reject such nomination by a vote. In the event that the departing member's nomination for successor is rejected by vote of the TSC, the departing member shall be entitled to continue nominating successors until one such successor is confirmed by vote of the TSC. If the departing member fails or is unable to nominate a successor, the TSC may nominate one on the departing member's behalf.
TSC membership is presumed to be retained by the individual even if they change employers. The TSC may take action to ensure that organizational stakeholder representation not become severely disproportionate, for example by urging an organization that loses its sole TSC representative to nominate a new member, or to limit the total number of voting members from any one organization if too many members all move to the same organization.
Any meetings of the TSC are intended to be open to the public, except where there is a reasonable need for privacy. The TSC meets regularly in a voice conference call, at a cadence deemed appropriate by the TSC. The TSC Chair moderates the meeting, or appoints another TSC member to moderate in his or her absence. Meetings may also be streamed online where appropriate; connection details will be posted to the osl-dev mail list in advance of the scheduled meeting.
Items are added to the TSC agenda which are considered contentious or are modifications of governance, contribution policy, TSC membership, or release process, in addition to topics involving the high-level technical direction of the project.
The intention of the agenda is not to approve or review all patches. That should happen continuously on GitHub and be handled by the larger group of Committers.
Any community member or Contributor can ask that something be reviewed by
the TSC at the meeting by logging a GitHub issue. Any Committer, TSC member,
or the meeting chair can bring the issue to the TSC's attention by applying
the TSC label.
Prior to each TSC meeting, the meeting chair will share the agenda with members of the TSC. TSC members can also add items to the agenda at the beginning of each meeting. The meeting chair and the TSC cannot veto or remove items.
The TSC may invite additional persons to participate in a non-voting capacity.
The meeting chair is responsible for ensuring that minutes are taken and archived in the project repository.
Due to the challenges of scheduling a global meeting with participants in several time zones, the TSC will seek to resolve as many agenda items as possible outside of meetings on the public mailing list.