RFC Process Inspiration from BORS

Development RFCs
1

I’ve done my first bors RFC, and previously had authored nixos RFCs. Here is my impression.

First things first, I really liked the bors’. Here is why:

  • There are different RFC categories for procedural, feature and informational aspects of requesting comments in order to emerge a consensus. This is an important acknowledgment of the types of consensuses we can nurse out of an RFC and removes the current perceived implicit bias towards tech-only aspects in the Nix process.

  • The whole process feels a little more lightweight and “fun”. That just seems associated to how the whole thing comes about in BORS compared to in Nix.

  • The template has really very actionable instructions and good structure.

  • I especially liked that it encourages visionary and open ended content as a tool to shape discussion in a generally positive/exploratory outlook. As a general “vibe”, this is something our RFC process seems not to be desigend around. Rather to the contrary.

https://bors.tech/rfcs/

I consider it worthwhile to analyze how RFCs are practised over there. If this sparks interest, people might gather around an RFC to inject some new life and soul into our own current RFC process.

2 Likes
2

For what it’s worth, I did said RFC, please see by:

https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/93

It’s still draft as I’d like to have a little “protected” time to incorporate feedback before undergoing “full scrutiny” mode.

Let’s see if there is enough support for formalizing our discussions and consensual decision making around organizational aspects.

I’m convinced that it’s absolutely essential as the community grows. And also recent heated discussions support that point of view.

In a way quite some RFC are actually already implicit “process” or “informational” RFCs. A prominent and recent example is the matrix RFC.