Daft OSS: New Governance Model

As the Daft community has grown, from a handful of contributors to a community of developers, users, and organizations, we've reached a point where our informal processes no longer match the scale of what we're building together. Today, we're introducing a formal governance model for Daft. It formalizes role definitions for Contributors and Maintainers and expands the number of modules eligible for merge privileges without Eventual team approval.

Why Governance Matters

Open-source projects thrive when their communities have clear expectations about how decisions are made, how contributions are reviewed, and how leadership evolves. Until now, Daft has operated with a relatively informal structure. That worked well in our early days, but as the project matures and more people depend on it, we owe it to our community to formalize the paths for contribution, recognition, and decision-making.

Our goal is straightforward: make it clear how to get involved, how decisions get made, and how contributors can grow into leadership roles within the project.

The New Governance Model

We're adopting a tiered governance structure with three distinct roles, with a further distinction within the Maintainer tier:

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  Contributor: Anyone who has made a contribution to the Daft project. This includes code, documentation, bug reports, community support, and more.

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  Maintainer: A recognized contributor who has demonstrated sustained, meaningful contributions over time. Maintainers are nominated by existing Maintainers or PMC members and approved by a majority PMC vote.

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  PMC (Project Management Committee): The highest governance tier, responsible for the overall direction of the project. The PMC has full authority over project decisions, including the nomination and approval of new Maintainers, release processes, and strategic direction.

Within the Maintainer tier, we distinguish between two levels of access:

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  Maintainer/Reviewer: Recognized contributors with review and approval permissions, but without merge access. These are trusted voices in code review who help shape the quality of the project.

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  Maintainer/Merge: Maintainers with merge access to the repository. They carry the additional responsibility of ensuring that what lands in main meets the project's standards.

What This Means for Contributors

If you're already contributing to Daft, nothing changes about how you work day-to-day. What does change is that there's now a transparent, documented pathway from your first contribution to project leadership with a wider opportunity for ownership. We want contributors to know that sustained, quality work is noticed and rewarded with increased responsibility and trust.

We're also working on formalizing the criteria for Maintainer nominations in a follow-up update, so the process will be as clear and objective as possible.

Looking Ahead

This governance update is a starting point. Our next priority is formalizing the selection criteria for new Maintainers so the nomination process is as clear and objective as possible. Beyond that, we'll continue evolving our processes based on community feedback, including how we recognize contributors for their work. This includes official badges that contributors can showcase on their digital resumes and socials.

We drew inspiration from other open-source projects that have successfully navigated this transition, including the  Apache Software Foundation as described in the the Apache Way.

Get Involved

The governance documents are now part of the Daft repository. You can review the full details in our PR.

If you have questions, feedback, or want to get more involved, open a Discussion on GitHub or reach out to us directly. This governance model belongs to the community, and we want it to reflect the community's values.