Hi,
The RFC Steering Committee (RFCSC) is responsible for managing the Nix RFC process, in particular finding shepherds for new RFCs. The SC usually has five members. The membership rotates on a yearly basis.
We are looking for people who are willing to join the RFCSC. You can nominate yourself or other people who you think are suitable! Ideally you’d ask them first if they’d be interested, so that we don’t have the burden of needing to ask everyone. For nominations just comment on this thread!
Generally the team holds a video conference meetings every two weeks of ~30mins, you should try and find enough time for that and also at least for the most part keep updated on open RFCs and the state of discussion.
Responsibilities of the RFCSC
The RFCSC is a team of people defined by RFC 36. This committee is responsible for forming an RFC Shepherd team from the available nominations on each RFC. This team also names the leader of the Shepherd team. This has to happen within 1 week after the PR has been opened. Until then the Steering Committee is responsible for guiding the discussion. In case of the Shepherding Team not doing its work the Steering Committee shall encourage them or step in and assign new Shepherds. They also are in charge of merging accepted and rejected RFCs. Generally by these expectations they should find time to meet every two weeks for about an hour.
They have no special responsibility with regard to the content of an RFC, they can weigh in on them, the same as any other community member, but are only in charge of:
- selecting the Shepherds unanimously
- supervising that the Shepherds are carrying out their work
- committing the final RFC
Rotation of the RFCSC
The RFC Steering Committee shall always have five members. If membership drops below five members (for example by resignation of a member as detailed below), a new member shall be elected without delay after a nomination period of at least two weeks (see below for nomination and selection process). If the number of members of the RFCSC drops below 4 people, it cannot proceed with shepherd team selections until new members have been selected.
The members chosen through the original implementation as specified in RFC 36 are regular members as specified in this RFC. They will stay on as members until replaced by new members as outlined below.
If a seat has to be filled earlier than at the yearly vote, the new member will only serve for the rest of the term.
Each year at the first meeting of the RFCSC in December (starting 2019, approximately a year after establishment in RFC 36) they unanimously decide on the succeeding committee members. If unanimous agreement cannot be reached, the RFCSC votes on each nominee, ranking them by votes in favour of the candidate and further holds run-off votes if there is a tie for the fifth & sixth spot. Nominations are open to anyone, and one can either nominate themself or any other person who accepts the nomination. Members of the previous RFCSC explicitly can stand again, but should reflect on their free time and commitment to their role. The nomination period starts at the beginning of November, a minimum of four weeks before election, and is announced on all relevant communication channels (discourse.nixos.org, Matrix, and NixOS Weekly). The new RFCSC takes over in the first week of January. In order to avoid conflict of interest there is an upper cap of appointing 2 members working for a single employer.