Draft Proposal Team

General principles for the draft proposal

1. Democracy: Decisions should be made by groups rather than individuals, and those groups will be centered around people that are actually doing the work (thus this form of democracy exhibits some meritocratic traits).

• 1.1 Collective decision making should be implemented for each individual work group (and at each management level) in the project. For example members of a team would contribute to decisions about their own team’s activities and way of working.

• 1.2 Higher level management groups would also make collective decisions regarding their own area of responsibility.

2. Open participation: The project should allow anyone that wants to contribute, and who has the necessary skills, to participate.

• 2.1 Participation in a team will be subject to having appropriate skills or experience. Teams should define their own rules and criteria for accepting new members.
• 2.2 Team members must remain active in order to retain their membership of said team. People that become inactive will lose their membership status, however, they can rejoin later on if they begin to contribute again. A periodic review of member activity (6 monthly) should be held, followed by publication of a revised (if necessary) member list.

• 2.3 The community should be free to propose establishment of new work groups to undertake new functions. The project management should also be able to close or suggest the combination of groups where voted desirable.

3. Simplicity: The organisational structure of the project should be as simple as possible.

• 3.1 Unnecessary hierarchies, levels of management and bureaucracy should be avoided.

4. Flexibility: The project should have provisions that allow for organisational change, in order to meet the evolving needs of the community.

Section 2: Work groups

2.1: Work group structure and responsibilities

The development of the project is proposed to be carried out by the formation of six work groups as listed below. A key responsibility of each work group will be to establish a mechanism by which the general community can participate in a team's ongoing projects, or submit contributions for review and incorporation in the project's online repositories, as appropriate.

While membership of work groups is open to active members of the community (refer section 2.2), work groups will also endeavour to draw on and consolidate the contributions of the wider community; ie. they will operate as open and collaborative development platforms, not 'closed shops'.

In order to provide for the evolution of the project, provisions will also be made to allow the community to propose new work groups should a need arise, or to make amendments to the existing workgroup structure as changing circumstances require.

2.1.1. Core Development and Code Standards

• Perform a thorough review of the security of the code base as a primary priority.
• Produce Development Road map in-line with community expectations and needs.
• Innovate and maintain core software to current technical and security standards.
• Resolve legitimate bugs submitted in the tracker.
• Enlist the best and brightest open source software developers through communication, innovation and integrity.
• Assist in the training and development of emerging developers for the XOOPS Project.
• Assist in preparation of documentation concerning the core, in partnership with the Documentation group.

2.1.2. Module Development and Distribution

• Maintain a module development forge as a collaborative work facility for community module developers.
• Maintain a high-quality repository of completed modules, addons and themes for distribution to the XOOPS community in cooperation with other work groups.
• Create and maintain module packs for different applications of XOOPS including a standard pack to be made available for download with the core XOOPS distribution.
• Publish and maintain documents outlining module design specifications, best practices and security/quality assurance standards.
• Assist in the training and development of emerging module developers for the XOOPS Project
• Assist in preparation of documentation concerning module development, in partnership with the Documentation group.
• Establish dialog to identify the most desired modules sought by the community.

2.1.3. Design

• Provide sample themes with the latest technology implementations to spur community creativity.
• Maintain theme packs for different applications of XOOPS including a standard pack to be made available for download with the core XOOPS distribution.
• Publish and maintain documents outlining theme design specifications, best practices and security/quality assurance standards.
• Assist in the training and development of emerging theme developers for the XOOPS Project .
• Assist in preparation of documentation concerning theme development, in partnership with the Documentation Group.
• Establish dialog to identify the most desired themes sought by the community.
• Standardize themes across official project sites.

2.1.4. Documentation

• Create and maintain 'Hacks' repository
• Produce documentation including manuals, tutorials and articles and FAQs on the use and customisation of the core XOOPS system, third-party modules and related technical issues.
• Assist Core Development and Code Standards, Module Development and Design groups to publish development-oriented documentation.
• Maintain a repository of completed documentation and translations on behalf of the project.

2.1.5. Project Support

• Maintain and moderate official project forums according to current acceptable use policies.
• Maintain and publish moderation rules, standards and procedures and the Code of Conduct.
• Foster working relationship with XOOPS end users that promotes creativity and professionalism.
• Resolve community disputes through consensus building, mediation and general common sense.
• Develop mechanism for acquiring community input for development road map, module development, theme design and community web site enhancements
• Maintain mechanism for distributing notices regarding security updates, site outages, maintenance windows and other issues to community members.
• Provide a forum for representation of and collaboration between the Project and Certified XOOPS Community Support Sites.
• Submit useful contributions of code, themes, translations and other useful resources developed by their communities to the main project’s repositories

2.1.6. Communication

• Maintain a list of contact points to facilitate distribution of information from the project to the community and international support sites.
• Maintain mechanism for distributing notices regarding security updates, site outages, maintenance windows and other issues to community members.
• Consolidate and and edit news stories, interviews and announcements from the project teams, community and international support sites for publication and redistribution.
• Engage the international sites to provide translations and timely release of news to the appropriate community sites.
• Prepare and publish a regular email newsletter for publication to subscribers and for distribution to community and international support sites.
• Promote XOOPS through preparation and circulation of promotional materials, organising XOOPS representation in events, competitions and other publicity opportunities.
• Maintain journalistic integrity that projects professionalism and truth to the community.
• Publish quarterly updates on the activities and accomplishments of all Project Groups.

2.1.7. ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES THAT APPLY TO ALL TEAMS

• Establish a mechanism by which the community can submit contributions for review. Incorporate useful contributions in the teams work or in the project’s online repositories, as appropriate.
• Utilize the Communications and Support teams to establish ties with similarly focused teams and contributors from the international XOOPS community.
• Contribute quarterly updates and accomplishments to the Communications Group for publication.
• Maintain working relationship with the whole community and other XOOPS teams.
• Actively recruit work group members from volunteers in the whole XOOPS community considering the capacity, workload and demonstrated disposition of potential candidates, maintaining a minimum of five active team members at all times.
• Publish and maintain a list of current team members and their responsibilities or projects.

2.1.8. OTHER FUNCTIONS

Systems administration

Technical maintenance and security of project servers will be undertaken by trusted systems administrators directly appointed by the management group. The systems administrators will be work directly to the management group but will not be a voting team. The systems administrators will perform the following functions:

• Maintain project servers and install systems in accordance with latest security and performance standards.
• Implement performance enhancements with meaningful impact to the community.
• Maintain proactive monitoring and patching to prevent system failures and breaches.
• Maintain maintenance windows and communication that provides the least impact on community and international sites.
• Develop and document backup and restore procedures with documented test results to provide community confidence in the Xoops infrastructure.
• Provide Work groups with the resources they require and have received authorization from the Coordination Council to receive.