2007-07-07 The Decision-Making Policy of the scripts.mit.edu Project: We, the creators of the scripts.mit.edu infrastructure, wish to define a policy for how decisions of the scripts.mit.edu project will be reached in order to avoid confusion on this subject among future contributors to the project. We particularly want to avoid a situation in which the leadership of the project is unclear after we leave MIT. In general, we believe that all contributors to the project should have a say in how the service is run in approximate proportion to their contributions. We furthermore believe that strong agreement among the project's principal contributors is highly important to the project's future, and so, whenever possible, the project's principal contributors should reach near-unanimous agreement about how the project should proceed. Ultimately, the decisions of a project of this nature need to be made by the people who are making the project happen. Unfortunately, reaching unanimous agreement among all of the contributors to the project might not always be possible. This document establishes two leadership positions for the scripts.mit.edu project in order to entrust decision-making authority to specific individuals. These leaders are ultimately entrusted with the project, although they are expected to take significant pause before using their authority to end a disagreement before consensus of the principal contributors has been reached. These leadership positions are based in part on the roles of "producer" and "director" described in Frederick P. Brooks' _The Mythical Man-Month_. The "scripts team leader" is an MIT student who: - "assembles the team, divides the work, and establishes the schedule" - "acquires and keeps on acquiring the necessary resources" - "establishes the pattern of communication and reporting within the team" - "ensures that the schedule is met, shifting resources and organization in order to respond to changing circumstances" The team leader is responsible for ensuring that the project continues to make regular progress. The team leader is entrusted with arbitrating decisions regarding the organization of the scripts team and the focus of its ongoing development efforts. For example, the team leader may remove individuals from the project who are deemed to be having an overall negative influence on the project. The "scripts architect" is an MIT student who: - "provides unity and conceptual integrity to the whole design" - "serves as a limit to system complexity" - "invents solutions for [large-scale technical problems] or shifts the system design as required" The architect is responsible for ensuring the technical quality of the scripts.mit.edu service. The architect is entrusted with arbitrating decisions regarding the scope, design, and operation of the service. As the guardian of the technical integrity of the service, the architect may arbitrate all decisions regarding the project's production hardware and software. Both positions may select their own replacement, and, in the case of a vacancy, either position may select a replacement for the other position. Before an individual assumes either position as a replacement, that individual should be confirmed for that position by the SIPB Executive Committee. A single individual may hold both positions simultaneously if every individual who has significantly contributed to the project within the last one calendar year agrees. Any objections must occur before the Executive Committee has confirmed the appointment. The creator of the scripts.mit.edu project, Jeff Arnold, will serve as the first team leader and architect. Any part of the scripts.mit.edu decision-making policy may be modified as necessary by agreement between the scripts team leader and the scripts architect. When changing the scripts.mit.edu decision-making policy, as with any major decision, near-unanimous agreement among the project's principal contributors should ideally be reached. The scripts.mit.edu project is affiliated with SIPB, and while the project remains affiliated with SIPB, the project will follow appropriate SIPB procedures for projects. This policy should be distributed to contributors to the project so that they may decide not to contribute if they are dissatisfied with it. ____________________________________ jbarnold ____________________________________ presbrey ____________________________________ hartmans As contributors to the scripts.mit.edu project, we have contributed to the creation of this written decision-making policy and we fully support it. ____________________________________ tabbott ____________________________________ andersk ____________________________________ geofft