oRFC: 1 The Collective Code Construction Contract (C4)
The Collective Code Construction Contract (C4) is an evolution of the
github.com Fork + Pull Model,
aimed at providing an optimal collaboration model for free software
projects. This is revision 1 of the C4 specification.
Language
The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”,
“SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119[#f1]_.
Goals
C4 is meant to provide a reusable optimal collaboration model for
open source software projects. It has these specific goals:
- To maximize the scale of the community around a project, by
reducing the friction for new Contributors and creating a scaled
participation model with strong positive feedbacks;
- To relieve dependencies on key individuals by separating different
skill sets so that there is a larger pool of competence in
any required domain;
- To allow the project to develop faster and more accurately, by
increasing the diversity of the decision making process;
- To support the natural life cycle of project versions from experimental
through to stable, by allowing safe experimentation, rapid failure,
and isolation of stable code;
- To reduce the internal complexity of project repositories, thus
making it easier for Contributors to participate and reducing
the scope for error;
- To enforce collective ownership of the project, which increases
economic incentive to Contributors and reduces the risk of hijack
by hostile entities.
Design
Preliminaries
- The project SHALL use the git distributed revision control system.
- The project SHALL be hosted on github.com or equivalent, herein
called the “Platform”.
- The project SHALL use the Platform issue tracker.
- The project SHOULD have clearly documented guidelines for code
style.
- A “Contributor” is a person who wishes to provide a patch, being a
set of commits that solve some clearly identified problem.
- A “Maintainer” is a person who merge patches to the project.
Maintainers are not developers; their job is to enforce process.
- Contributors SHALL NOT have commit access to the repository unless
they are also Maintainers.
- Maintainers SHALL have commit access to the repository.
- Everyone, without distinction or discrimination, SHALL have an
equal right to become a Contributor under the terms of this contract.
Licensing and Ownership
- The project SHALL use the GPLv2 or a variant thereof (LGPL, AGPL).
- All contributions to the project source code (“patches”) SHALL
use the same license as the project.
- All patches are owned by their authors. There SHALL NOT be any
copyright assignment process.
- The copyrights in the project SHALL be owned collectively by all
its Contributors.
- Each Contributor SHALL be responsible for identifying themselves
in the project Contributor list.
Patch Requirements
- Maintainers and Contributors MUST have a Platform account and
SHOULD use their real names or a well-known alias.
- A patch SHOULD be a minimal and accurate answer to exactly one
identified and agreed problem.
- A patch MUST adhere to the code style guidelines of the project
if these are defined.
- A patch MUST adhere to the “Evolution of Public Contracts”
guidelines defined below.
- A patch SHALL NOT include non-trivial code from other
projects unless the Contributor is the original author of that code.
- A patch MUST compile cleanly and pass project self-tests on
at least the principle target platform.
- A patch commit message SHOULD consist of a single short (less than
50 character) line summarizing the change, optionally followed by
a blank line and then a more thorough description.
- A “Correct Patch” is one that satisfies the above requirements.
Development Process
- Change on the project SHALL be governed by the pattern of accurately
identifying problems and applying minimal, accurate solutions to
these problems.
- To initiate changes, a user SHOULD log an issue on the project
Platform issue tracker.
- The user SHOULD write the issue by describing the problem they
face or observe.
- The user SHOULD seek consensus on the accuracy of their observation,
and the value of solving the problem.
- Users SHALL NOT log feature requests, ideas, suggestions, or any
solutions to problems that are not explicitly documented and provable.
- Thus, the release history of the project SHALL be a list of
meaningful issues logged and solved.
- To work on an issue, a Contributor SHALL fork the project repository
and then work on their forked repository.
- To submit a patch, a Contributor SHALL create a Platform pull request
back to the project.
- A Contributor SHALL NOT commit changes directly to the project.
- To discuss a patch, people MAY comment on the Platform pull request,
on the commit, or elsewhere.
- To accept or reject a patch, a Maintainer SHALL use the Platform
interface.
- Maintainers SHALL NOT accept their own patches.
- Maintainers SHALL NOT make value judgments on correct patches.
- Maintainers SHALL merge correct patches rapidly.
- The Contributor MAY tag an issue as “Ready” after making a pull request
for the issue.
- The user who created an issue SHOULD close the issue after checking
the patch is successful.
- Maintainers SHOULD ask for improvements to incorrect patches and
SHOULD reject incorrect patches if the Contributor does not respond
constructively.
- Any Contributor who has value judgments on a correct patch SHOULD
express these via their own patches.
- Maintainers MAY commit changes to non-source documentation directly
to the project.
Creating Stable Releases
- The project SHALL have one branch (“master”) that always holds the
latest in-progress version and SHOULD always build.
- The project SHALL NOT use topic branches for any reason. Personal
forks MAY use topic branches.
- To make a stable release someone SHALL fork the repository by copying
it and thus become maintainer of this repository.
- Forking a project for stabilization MAY be done unilaterally and
without agreement of project maintainers.
- A stabilization project SHOULD be maintained by the same process as
the main project.
- A patch to a stabilization project declared “stable” SHALL be
accompanied by a reproducible test case.
Evolution of Public Contracts
- All Public Contracts (APIs or protocols) SHOULD be documented.
- All Public Contracts SHOULD have space for extensibility and
experimentation.
- A patch that modifies a stable Public Contract SHOULD not break
existing applications unless there is overriding consensus on the
value of doing this.
- A patch that introduces new features to a Public Contract SHOULD
do so using new names.
- Old names SHOULD be deprecated in a systematic fashion by marking
new names as “experimental” until they are stable, then marking the
old names as “deprecated”.
- When sufficient time has passed, old deprecated names SHOULD be
marked “legacy” and eventually removed.
- Old names SHALL NOT be reused by new features.
- When old names are removed, their implementations MUST provoke an
exception (assertion) if used by applications.
Project Administration
- The project founders SHALL act as Administrators to manage the set
of project Maintainers.
- The Administrators SHALL ensure their own succession over time by
promoting the most effective Maintainers.
- A new Contributor who makes a correct patch SHALL be invited to
become a Maintainer.
- Administrators MAY remove Maintainers who are inactive for an extended
period of time, or who repeatedly fail to apply this process accurately.
Further Reading
- Argyris’ Models 1 and 2 -
the goals of C4.1 are consistent with Argyris’ Model 2.
- Toyota Kata - covering the
Improvement Kata (fixing problems one at a time) and the Coaching Kata
(helping others to learn the Improvement Kata).
References
License
Original content licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
(c) Copyright (c) 2007-2011 iMatix Corporation and Contributors.