2025-04-09 TC Roles and Responsibilities

1 min

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@Jakub Skoczen is next, followed by @Joshua Greben

Reminder:  Please copy/paste the Zoom chat into the notes.  If you miss it, this is saved along with the meeting recording, but having it here has benefits.

Revote on voting rules

Monday we need to vote again on voting rules because of changes introduced by PC. Please review the current version of the rules. The new version is here: https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/895549450/2024%20FOLIO%20Governance%20Review%20-%20Clarifications%20Proposal%202025-03-24.docx?api=v2  and description of the changes is here: 2025-03-24 Community Council Meeting Minutes

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TC Roles and Responsibilities

All

Table: Technical Council Charter review 2025

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Background:

During discussions following the decision to adopt Eureka/close the RFC, we acknowledged that it might be a good idea to revisit the TC charter and evaluate/discuss whether or not some of the roles and responsibilities listed there are things which the TC has been doing, can realistically start doing, etc.  

Notes:

Want to keep Guiding Principles in mind

• Provide guidance to help keep the FOLIO community aligned on technical goals and directions, which are informed by the original vision of the FOLIO project, community requests, development needs, technical council expertise, etc.

  • Is this being done?: Sometimes. (what is original vision)

    • In order to do this, you have to know where you are going. Challenge has been that the FOLIO community is not aligned on goals and directions.

    • Some concern or disagreement whether we are doing this in a way that meets the needs of the community. 

    • Underlying need is to keep the community aligned on goals and directions, it's unclear 

      • Thought that guidance should be a two-step process: is this a need, and 

• Develop and maintain an architectural blueprint supporting the long-term vision, coherence, continuity, and stability of the FOLIO LSP.

  • Sponsors WOLFcon talk, but spend little time on architecture

  • Possibly just strike "an architectural blueprint supporting"

  • Eureka is the largest architectural change. Line suggests TC is responsible, do we want to get rid of that or keep?

    • NOTE: TC had very little to do with this change

  • Architectural blueprint

    • TC had tried keeping the architectural blueprint and chart future, but has never panned out.

    • NOTE: There is no single group who, at a practical level, maintains such a blueprint. Maybe first step is to acknowledge this?

      • Several groups have looked at aspects of architecture, such as applications and authentication.

  • Is this being done?: No, or sort of (in a passive sense)

    • The language is stronger here than above, this is worked as more active but we are doing this in a more reactive way

    • May be some disagreement on degree of passivity, discussion centered on RFCs and guidance vs enforcement.

• Develop and maintain documentation of FOLIO project technical decisions, code contribution requirements, and development practices.

  • Is this being done?: 

• Proactively identify technical issues and resourcing needs that the project will need to deal with, including tracking and reporting on technical debt.

  • Is this being done?:  

• Provide technical investigation/advice at the request of the other councils. 

  • Is this being done?: Doing this

• Facilitate communication with the infrastructure team (DevOps) to ensure best practices are followed, and smooth functioning of FOLIO project infrastructure.

  • Is this being done?: 

• Facilitate discussion and communication with development teams to ensure the FOLIO project's technical standards are upheld.

  • Is this being done?: 

• Welcome and help onboard FOLIO community members and organizations that are trying to contribute functionality to FOLIO apps or modules so that the FOLIO project’s technical standards can be upheld pragmatically.

  • Is this being done?: Delegated to Developer Advocate

• Arbitrate disputes amongst the community on technical matters and make final decisions when necessary. 

  • Is this being done?: 

• Maintain oversight of the FOLIO project's security group and other working groups to which the Technical Council delegates specific responsibilities.

  • Is this being done?: 

• ...

• General themes and Actions

  • Propose changes?

    • Keep or drop points?

    • Alternative: is there a middle ground that's just "we're the authority" or "not us", but "what we want to do"?

  • Community dynamic does not support the governance structure

    • Central governance does not have the authority to do some of these things

    • Community does not seem to be ready to talk about some of these things

    • Most major technical changes to FOLIO have come from outside of TC, driven by individual organizations or groups of organizations

    • Summary (MJ):

      • Issue is beyond just TC resourcing and 

      • First step is acknowledging what we are not doing today

      • Next may be what we cannot do in the future

      • Related: See this from F2F meeting in DC:

        • Program Plan for Developing a Blueprint for FOLIO Community & Software Ecosystem (Summit Outcomes, #3)

        • Comment: Hard question is how do you get the community to agree on the guardrails of whoever is directing any shared development?

  • Need to first understand what's going on here. Need to go line-by-line and ask whether this is 

  • Big challenge: to lead somewhere, you need to know where you are going. Community has never aligned on goals and directions. Long-standing alignment challenge.

  • Discussion of how TC accepts/rejects changes, related also to guiding principles

    • TC rarely rejects something, but has in some significant cases (Note: this can come with political consequences.)

    • TC accepting can also be a form of maintaining equitability.

  • Reviewing these points should be two-step process:

    1. what is goal being expressed and is it a goal we believe in?

    2. how are we doing in meeting the goal?

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Zoom Chat

10:24:54 From Jenn Colt to Everyone:
Going to reference this during my turn