Coordinators for subprojects and other roles in a SIG

[Davanum Srinivas]

Dear Steering,

Queueing this for discussion in the next meeting. Based on an old issue [1] and newer efforts to allow SIGs to create more roles in a SIG [2][3][4]. Here are my thoughts and a proposal.

PR:

https://github.com/kubernetes/community/compare/master...dims:coordinators-for-subprojects-and-other-roles-in-a-sig

Thoughts:

- A sig should be able to document a role in their own space 

- A sig should be able to nominate/assign one or more people as a "coordinator" for the said role

- A sub project in a sig should have coordinators as well

In the example above:

- Jordan is a coordinator for "architecture-and-api-governance" sub-project, which is defined in sig-architecture/README.md

- Lauri is a coordinator for "program-management" which will be defined in sig-release/README.md

Why will this help?

- We promote the definition of new roles which will take the load off the sig chairs and tech leads

- We increase the leadership of a SIG which will be healthy for the SIG and the project in general

- SIGs get to own the definition of a role

- Celebrations, when new folks are named as coordinator the community rallies around to celebrate and also thank the ones stepping down as well

- New folks can understand what specifically to do for a specific role as it is documented and aspire to it.

- Folks can advocate in their own companies/organizations to carve out time in SIGs as they have a named role and can point to how exactly they can make a difference in the project

- When there is no need for a role, a SIG can wind it down and drop it from their README and sigs.yaml

Cons:

- E_TOO_MANY_ROLES?

WDYT?

thanks,

Dims

[1] https://github.com/kubernetes/steering/issues/200

[2] https://github.com/kubernetes/community/pull/5563

[3] https://github.com/kubernetes/community/pull/5565

[4] https://github.com/kubernetes/community/pull/5566

--

Davanum Srinivas :: https://twitter.com/dims

[Nikhita Raghunath]

Dims,

This is great, thanks for starting the discussion again!

Few questions:

1. What are the responsibilities of the coordinator role?

2. Can a coordinator make decisions on behalf of the subproject? What powers would this role have?

There's also some prior art for introducing a subproject "Owner" (à la SIG TL) and "Project Manager" (à la SIG Chair) that might prove helpful for carving these out: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/pull/3413#issuecomment-473687678

-- Nikhita

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[Davanum Srinivas]

Nikhita,

Maybe I was not as clear as i should have been :)

for 1, "document a role" implies that the expectations/boundaries for the coordinator will be documented in the SIG's README.md.

for 2, See above ^, anything else not documented will remain with the existing Chair/TL roles.

thanks,

dims

[Aaron Crickenberger]

TBH "coordinator" sounds a lot like what I thought the intent was for "chair" and splitting leads into chairs/tech-leads.  I would want to understand more about what burdens this removes from chair role.

What about:

- finally admitting that a bunch of OWNERS files don't unambiguously define subproject owners

- allow subprojects and WGs to have chairs/techleads instead of "organizers" or "coordinators"

This allows for consistency in terminology/roles across the project.

SIGs defining their own roles sounds good, and I think is covered by steering approval of  "deviations from governance" within a SIG's charter.

- aaron

[Paris]

I’d like to read and think some more to initial but having a chair to drive large subprojects and release some of that from main chairs. (+1 to second bullet in Aaron’s response)

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