Discovery Governance

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)

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Premise[edit | edit source]

  • Multiple data centers now involved in the various Discovery services.
  • Issues related with interoperability, distributed centers, different standards.

Goals[edit | edit source]

  • Want open and interoperable Discovery standard
  • We should agree on a process. Then follow it.

Process[edit | edit source]

We have adopted a governance process similar to the Open Provenance Model governance.

The governance process encompasses the following:

  • Submission of new proposals
  • Forum to review proposals
  • Author revision based on feedback
  • Voting on change proposals
  • Ratification or rejection by editors

Notes:

  • Changes to existing standards are done as change proposals.
  • All steps are posted to the mailing list and wiki.

See the Discovery Governance Process Steps for more info.

Discovery Change Proposal (DCP)[edit | edit source]

All changes to the Discovery specifications must go through the governance process starting with a Discovery Change Proposal (DCP). Each DCP must include the following context for reference:

  • A unique identifier. An incrementing number is commonly used in these types of community-based processes.
  • Timestamp of when proposal was submitted.
  • Proposal review period (implies a deadline)
  • Current governance step (submitted, proposal review, revision, vote, final review, ratified, rejected)
  • Background
  • Problem addressed
  • Proposed solution
  • Rationale for the solution
  • Validation for specification (where appropriate. e.g. XML Schema validator)

See the Discovery Change Proposals list.

Editors[edit | edit source]

Editors on the governance board coordinate the governance process. The responsibilities may include:

  • Working with the community on accepting input for change proposals
  • Drafting the proposals
    • Writing up proposed specifications
  • Coordinating the discussions
  • Coordinating the voting process
  • Ratifying the proposal
  • Implementing some of the changes

See the current Discovery Editors.

Documentation[edit | edit source]

All governance processes shall be transparent. All discussions will be available on the Discovery mailing list and Discovery Cluster wiki.