[bug#74736] [PATCH v7] Add Guix Common Document process.

[Simon Tournier <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com>]

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Hi,

Based on v6 and integrating various comments.  Changes:

 • Instead of “Supporter”, the rename is “Sponsor”.

 • Instead of Request-for-Comments (RFC), the rename is Guix Common
   Document (GCD).

 • Fix header: id and SPDX-License-Identifier, adjust sponsor and date.

 • Section “How the Process Works”, point 2. adjust 000-template.md in
   agreement with XYZ.  Mention “Submission Period” and info-guix.

 • Section “Sponsor”: Add paragraph mentioning the role of sponsor.

 • dot graph: Replace ’comments’ by ’discussion’ and ’final’ by
   ’accepted’.

 • Section “Submission Period”: tweak paragraph.

 • Section “Deliberation Period”: tweak “I disapprove” paragraph; Add
   paragraph about deliberating member.

 • Fix trailing dot and replace ornaments by syntax although ornaments
   sound better to my French. ;-)


Please proofread and comment. :-)

WDYT?

Cheers,
simon
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title: Guix Common Document Process
id: 001
status: submitted
discussion: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/74736
authors: Simon Tournier, Noé Lopez, Ludovic Courtès
sponsor: ?
submitted: 2024-12-08
date: 2025-01-15
SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only
---

# Summary

This document describes the _Guix Common Document_ (GCD) process of the
Guix project.  The GCD process is intended to provide a consistent and
structured way to propose, discuss, and decide on major changes
affecting the project.  It aims to draw attention of community members
on important decisions, technical or not, and to give them a chance to
weigh in.

# Motivation

Day-to-day work on Guix revolves around informal interactions, peer
review, and consensus-based decision making.  As the community grows, so
does the stream of proposed changes, and no single person is able to
keep track of all of them.

The GCD process is a mechanism to determine whether a proposed change is
“significant” enough to require attention from the community at large
and if so, to provide a documented way to bring about broad community
discussion and to collectively decide on the proposal.

A change may be deemed “significant” when it could only be reverted at a
high cost or, for technical changes, when it has the potential to
disrupt user scripts and programs or user workflows.  Examples include:

- changing the `<package>` record type and/or its interfaces;
- adding or removing a `guix` sub-command;
- changing the channel mechanism;
- changing project governance policy such as teams, decision making, the
  deprecation policy, or this very document;
- changing the contributor workflow and related infrastructure (mailing
  lists, source code repository and forge, continuous integration, etc.).

# Detailed Design

## When to Follow This Process

The GCD process applies only to “significant” changes, which include:

- changes that modify user-facing interfaces that may be relied on
  (command-line interfaces, core Scheme interfaces);
- big restructuring of packages;
- hard to revert changes;
- significant project infrastructure or workflow changes;
- governance or changes to the way we collaborate.

Someone submitting a patch for any such change may be asked to submit an
GCD first.

Most day-to-day contributions do *not* require an GCD; examples include:

- adding or updating packages, removing outdated packages;
- fixing security issues and bugs in a way that does not change
  interfaces;
- updating the manual, updating translations;
- changing the configuration of systems part of project infrastructure
  in a user-invisible way.

These day-to-day contributions remain governed by the process described
by the manual in its “Contributing” chapter.

## How the Process Works

1. Clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix/guix-common-document.git #TODO:
2. Copy `000-template.md` to `XYZ-short-name.md` where `short-name`
   is a short descriptive name long and `XYZ` is the sequence number.
3. Write your GCD following the template’s structure.  The GCD must not
   be prospective; it must formalize an idea and sketch a plan to
   implement it, even if not all details are known.  If it intends to
   deprecate a previously-accepted GCD, it must explicitly say so.
4. Submit the GCD as a patch to `guix-patches@gnu.org`.
5. Announce your GCD at `guix-devel@gnu.org` and look for *sponsors*:
   one or more people who will support the GCD and participate in
   discussions by your side (see below).

The GCD is *submitted* once it has at least one sponsor in addition to
the author(s).  See “Submission Period” below.

Submitted GCD is announced at `info-guix@gnu.org`.

## Sponsors

A sponsor is a contributor sufficiently familiar with the project’s
practices, hence it is recommended, but not mandatory, to be a team
member.  Sponsors do not have to agree with all the points of the GCD
but should generally be satisfied that the proposed additions are a good
thing for the community.

Sponsors help the author(s) by participating in discussions, amending
the document as it is being discussed, and acting as timekeepers.

As sponsor, please make sure that all have the time and space for
expressing their comments.  The GCD is about significant changes, thus
more opinions is better than less.

## Timeline

The lifetime of an GCD is structured into the following recommended
periods:

![diagram.svg](Diagram of the GCD process.)

```dot
digraph "GCD Timeline" {
    submission  [label=<Submission Period<br />up to 7 days>]
    discussion  [label=<Discussion Period<br />30–60 days>]
    deliberation[label=<Deliberation Period<br />14 days>]
    withdrawn   [label=Withdrawn, shape=rectangle]
    accepted    [label=Accepted, shape=rectangle]
    
    submission -> discussion
    submission -> withdrawn
    discussion -> deliberation
    deliberation -> withdrawn
    deliberation -> accepted
    
    withdrawn -> submission [label="New version"]
    
    discussion -> withdrawn
}
```

The subsections below detail the various stages and their duration.

### Submission Period (up to 7 days)

Anyone can author and submit an GCD as a regular patch and look for
sponsor (see below). The GCD is *submitted* once one or more people
publicly reply “I sponsor” and volunteers to be sponsors; the next
step is the *discussion period*.

Author(s) may withdraw their GCD at any time; they can resubmit it again
later, possibly under a new GCD number.

### Discussion Period (at least 30 days, up to 60 days)

Once submitted, the GCD is publicly discussed; authors are encouraged to
publish updated versions incorporating feedback during the discussion.

Once the discussion settles, at the latest after 60 days, the author(s)
publish a final version, leading to the *deliberation period*.

### Deliberation Period (14 days)

All members of any team of the Guix project can participate in
deliberation and are encouraged to do so.

Once the final version is published, team members have 14 days to send
one of the following replies on the patch-tracking entry of the GCD:

- “I support”, meaning that one supports the proposal;
- “I accept”, meaning that one consents to the implementation of the
  proposal;
- “I disapprove”, meaning that one opposes the implementation of the
  proposal.  A team member sending this reply must have actively
  cooperated with for discussing the RFC during the discussion period.
  See “Decision Making”.

The GCD is *accepted* if (1) at least 25% of all team members send a
reply, and (2) no one disapproves.  In other cases, the GCD is
*withdrawn*.

Deliberation aims at consolidating consensus; see “Decision Making”
below.

Anyone who is a team member is a deliberating member and is asked
to contribute to the deliberation.  Team members are defined by the
file etc/teams.scm (see “Teams” in the manual).

GCD acceptance is not a rubber stamp; in particular, it does not mean
the proposal will effectively be implemented, but it does mean that all
the participants consent to its implementation.

Similarly, withdrawal does not necessarily equate with rejection; it
could mean that more discussion and thought is needed before ideas in
the GCD are accepted by the community.

## Decision Making

Contributors and even more so team members are expected to help build
consensus.  By using consensus, we are committed to finding solutions
that everyone can live with.

Thus, no decision is made against significant concerns; these concerns
are actively resolved through counter proposals.  A deliberating member
disapproving a proposal bears a responsibility for finding alternatives,
proposing ideas or code, or explaining the rationale for the status quo.

To learn what consensus decision making means and understand its finer
details, you are encouraged to read
<https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/consensus>.

## Merging Final GCDs

Whether it is accepted or withdrawn, a committer merges the final GCD
following these steps:

1. filling in the remaining metadata in the GCD headers (changing the
   `status` to `accepted` or `withdrawn`; adding the URL of the
   discussion in the `discussion` header; updating the `date` header; if
   previously-accepted GCDs are deprecated by this new GCD, change the
   `status` header accordingly);
2. committing everything;
3. announcing the publication of the GCD.

All the GCDs are dual-licensed under the [Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike
4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) license and the
[GNU Free Documentation License 1.3, with no Invariant Sections, no
Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
Texts](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html).

## GCD Template

The expected structure of GCDs is captured by the template in the file
`000-template.md`, written in English with Markdown syntax.

## Cost of Reverting

The GCD process described in this documented can be amended by
subsequent GCDs.

## Drawbacks

There is a risk that the additional process will hinder contribution more than
it would help.  We should stay alert that the process is only a way to help
contribution, not an end in itself.

Discussions could easily have a low signal-to-noise ratio.  We will
collectively pay attention to over- and under-representation of voices
and notably avoid repeating arguments, avoid using exclusionary jargon,
and solicit opinions of those who remained silent.

## Open Issues

There are still questions regarding the desired scope of the process.
While we want to ensure that technical changes that affect users are
well-considered, we certainly don’t want the process to become unduly
burdensome.  This is a careful balance which will require care to
maintain moving forward.