This project is led by a project lead and managed by the community. That is, the community actively contributes to the day-to-day maintenance of the project, but the general strategic line is drawn by the project lead. In case of disagreement, the project lead has the last word. It is the project lead’s job to resolve disputes within the community and to ensure that the project is able to progress in a coordinated way. In turn, it is the community’s job to guide the decisions of the project lead through active engagement and contribution.
Josh de Leeuw (@jodeleeuw), the founder of the project, serves as the project lead of jsPsych.
The project lead has the final say in all aspects of decision making within the project. However, because the community always has the ability to fork, this person is fully answerable to the community. It is the project lead’s responsibility to set the strategic objectives of the project and communicate these clearly to the community. They also have to understand the community as a whole and strive to satisfy as many conflicting needs as possible, while ensuring that the project survives in the long term.
In many ways, the role of the project lead is about diplomacy. The key is to ensure that, as the project expands, the right people are given influence over it and the community rallies behind the vision of the project lead. The lead’s job is then to ensure that the core team members (see below) make the right decisions on behalf of the project. Generally speaking, as long as the core team members are aligned with the project’s strategy, the project lead will allow them to proceed as they desire.
Members of the core team are contributors who have made multiple valuable contributions to the project and are now relied upon to both write code directly to the repository and screen the contributions of others. In many cases they are programmers but it is also possible that they contribute in a different role, for example community engagement. Typically, a core team member will focus on a specific aspect of the project, and will bring a level of expertise and understanding that earns them the respect of the community and the project lead. The role of core team member is simply a position that influential members of the community will find themselves in as the project lead looks to them for guidance and support.
Core team members have no direct authority over the overall direction of the project. However, they do have the ear of the project lead. It is a core team member’s job to ensure that the lead is aware of the community’s needs and collective objectives, and to help develop or elicit appropriate contributions to the project. Often, core team members are given informal control over their specific areas of responsibility, and are assigned rights to directly modify certain areas of the source code. That is, although core team members do not have explicit decision-making authority, they will often find that their actions are synonymous with the decisions made by the lead.
Contributors are community members who either have no desire to become core team members, or have not yet been given the opportunity by the project lead. They make valuable contributions, such as those outlined in the list below, but generally do not have the authority to make direct changes to the project code. Contributors engage with the project through communication tools, such as GitHub issues, pull requests and discussions.
Anyone can become a contributor. There is no expectation of commitment to the project, no specific skill requirements and no selection process. To become a contributor, a community member simply has to perform one or more actions that are beneficial to the project.
Some contributors will already be engaging with the project as users, but will also find themselves doing one or more of the following:
- Supporting new users (current users often provide the most effective new user support)
- Reporting bugs
- Identifying requirements
- Programming
- Assisting with project infrastructure
- Writing documentation
- Fixing bugs
- Adding features
As contributors gain experience and familiarity with the project, they may find that the project lead starts relying on them more and more. When this begins to happen, they gradually adopt the role of core team member, as described above. Contributors who would like to be core team members are encouraged to contact the project lead to discuss the role.
Users are community members who have a need for the project. They are the most important members of the community: without them, the project would have no purpose. Anyone can be a user; there are no specific requirements.
Users should be encouraged to participate in the life of the project and the community as much as possible. User contributions enable the project team to ensure that they are satisfying the needs of those users. Common user activities include (but are not limited to):
- evangelizing about the project
- informing developers of project strengths and weaknesses from a new user’s perspective
- providing moral support (a ‘thank you’ goes a long way)
- providing financial support through Open Collective
Users who continue to engage with the project and its community will often find themselves becoming more and more involved. Such users may then go on to become contributors, as described above.
Major changes to the project are discussed by the core team, which aims to come to consensus about what kinds of changes are implemented. In case of disagreements that cannot be resolved through consensus-building, the project lead model does not need a formal conflict resolution process, since the project lead’s word is final.
Anyone can contribute to the project, regardless of their skills, as there are many ways to contribute. For instance, a contributor might be active in the project discussions and issue tracker, or might supply pull requests. All forms of contribution must be performed in accordance to the project's Contributor Code of Conduct.
All participants in the community are encouraged to provide support for new users within the project management infrastructure. This support is provided as a way of growing the community. Those seeking support should recognize that all support activity within the project is voluntary and is therefore provided as and when time allows. A user requiring guaranteed response times or results should therefore seek to purchase a support contract from a vendor. (Of course, that vendor should be an active member of the community.) However, for those willing to engage with the project on its own terms, and willing to help support other users, the community support channels are ideal.
This governance document is based upon the Vue.js governance, which itself is based on the Benevolent Dictator Governance Model by Ross Gardler and Gabriel Hanganu, both of which are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This document is also licensed under the same license.