The Open Source Steering Committee (OSSC) represents the OpenFn integration toolkit community of end users and implementers. It reviews and gives feedback on major roadmap decisions, new designs, specifications, features, and protocol changes. See the Governance Overview for more information on the OSSC’s place in the OpenFn integration toolkit project and community.
OFG’s mission is to scale the world’s most promising health and humanitarian interventions via data integration, interoperability, and automation solutions.
The OSSC was conceived of in 2020 by OFG and will be first convened in 2021 thanks to funding from Digital Square under a “Notice E0, Shelf Readiness” grant.
OFG recognizes that until 2019, while OpenFn “platform” usage has grown significantly, uptake of the open source integration toolkit outside of the platform itself has been low. They believe that by formalizing the “transfer of ownership” of this DPG to representatives of the community that benefits from its use will lead to greater strategic participation and, ultimately, more useful products.
OSSC membership will be determined via a public application process. The application requirements will focus on relevant experience, contributions to the suite ecosystem, and availability to provide technical direction to the suite.
Members will be elected by a 2/3rds (rounded up) majority of the current OSSC and serve for a term of 12 months, unless they resign or are removed.
The OSSC must have at least three members, but there is no fixed size. The expected target is between 6 and 12, from a minimum of 3 separate organizations, to ensure long-term sustainability, adequate coverage of important areas of expertise, and ability to make decisions efficiently.
There is no specific set of requirements or qualifications for OSSC membership beyond these rules.
The OSSC may add additional members by a regular decision at a duly called meeting (see below). An OSSC member may be removed by voluntary resignation, or by a 2/3rds majority (rounded up).
OSSC members are expected to regularly participate in OSSC activities. Members who have not consistently taken meaningful actions as OSSC members in the past 3 months will be considered for removal. Examples of meaningful actions are participating regularly in calls, reviewing code, committing code, providing technical mentorship, leading working groups, etc.
No more than 1/3 of the OSSC members may be affiliated with the same organization. If removal or resignation of an OSSC member, or a change of employment by an OSSC member, creates a situation where more than 1/2 of OSSC membership belong to the same organization, the situation must be immediately remedied by the resignation or removal of one or more OSSC members affiliated with the over-represented organization(s).
Changes to OSSC membership should be posted in the agenda, and may be suggested as any other agenda item.
The current OSSC members are listed on the OpenFn Community.
The OSSC will meet regularly (generally every 2 months). The meeting will be run by a facilitator chosen by the OSSC and each meeting will be conducted and published to a publicly accessible platform (e.g., YouTube). Meeting frequency, times, agenda, and notes will also be published to a publicly accessible platform (the OpenFn Community, Google Docs).
The OSSC will default to working in public, but sensitive topics (e.g., pre-disclosure security problems, confidential pre-agreement discussions with third parties, personal conflicts among personnel) should only be discussed on private channels.
Any community member or contributor can ask that a matter be considered at a
OSSC meeting by writing a forum post with the OSSC tag. It is the meeting
facilitator’s responsibility to collect these items together and consider them
for addition to the agenda or add them to a list of topics for future
consideration.
The facilitator must share the meeting agenda on the forum at least three days prior to the meeting.
The OSSC may invite non-members to participate in a non-voting capacity. These invitees will be listed on the agenda.
Meeting minutes will be kept and shared publicly.
The OSSC follows a consensus-seeking decision-making model. When an agenda item has appeared to reach a consensus, the facilitator will ask “Does anyone object?” as a final call for dissent from the consensus.
If an agenda item cannot reach a consensus, an OSSC member can call for either a closing vote or a vote to table the issue to the next meeting. The call for a vote must be approved by a majority of the OSSC or else the discussion will continue. If all members of the OSSC are not present during the meeting for contentious issues, the final vote should happen asynchronously (e.g., via email). Simple majority wins.
This a derivative work of the ODK Tab Governance, which is itself derivative of Node.js Project Governance. This work is licensed under the MIT license with copyright held by Node.js Website WG contributors.