Amend terms: definition of abandonment [due Feb 25]

[ebullient]

Starting as an open discussion. I'll open a PR for voting once I have a general idea of what we collectively consider reasonable.

@criccomini and @aalmiray raised questions about the ramifications of this statement:

Project leaders must be easily reached and respond to communication from the Sponsor regarding project activities and financial needs.

I think that is also related to additional terms:

Limited Interference:
While the Sponsor retains the right to intervene, every effort will be made to contact Signatories and designated maintainers or operational contacts to resolve concerns collaboratively before taking action.

Our preference is to facilitate transfer of project things to a successor that the current project leadership chooses; but at what point is a project considered abandoned by the current leaders?

If there is any kind of activity heartbeat, then this doesn't apply. But if communication with any known project contacts goes dark, at what point do we consider a project abandoned? 90 days? 180 days?

cc: @commonhaus/cf-egc and @commonhaus/cf-egc-second

[aalmiray]

Note that there might be an activity heartbeat (commits, issues with status changes and/or comments by Signatories) yet communication between CF and Signatories may be stale, dark.

This could signal a problem between CF and Signatories while the project may still have a working community. If so, definitions should refer to Signatories alone? We don't have other official points of contact with Projects, do we?

Don't know if it's too specific.

[ebullient]

w/ terms as proposed, we do, here

I remember having something more specific somewhere (i.e. as part of discovery, we should have a list of folks to contact if/when things go sideways), but now I can't find it. 🙄

[gavinking]

at what point do we consider a project abandoned? 90 days? 180 days?

meh, too short.

[ebullient]

All I'm asking for is a hello.

"Yo, Gavin.. you alive?" "Yep"

"Domain renewal is due soon, any changes to tech contact?" "Nope"

Simple things. If I've heard nothing from you (or documented contacts) and domain renewal is due, what happens. This is literally the case where I get crickets, from all known parties.

[kenfinnigan]

I think 90 days is a reasonable expectation for a project leader to have communicated with the foundation

[henri-tremblay]

Agreed. 90 days seems enough to be alive.

[gavinking]

I think it's quite unreasonable, when the consequences are: OK, now we're taking your project away from you.

Cmon people, this has actually happened to me once before over at Eclipse. This is not a theoretical concern!

[gavinking]

For context: the Eclipse project shut down the Ceylon project, took its website offline, and threatened us with legal consequences if we even thought about using the name "Ceylon" afterward, just because Stef and I failed to respond to a couple of weird emails we didn't understand at all and had no idea were important. This is a real thing that can happen.

You need to fix this language, and I'm warning ya'll that I'm quite prepared to dig my heels in over this.

[maxandersen]

+1 that if needs to be a longer period and that probably need the be staggered approach.

Ie. 90 days of trying to reach directly. After that use public visible announce that one is trying to be reached with regular refreshes then give that 90 days before can pull the plug.

[kenfinnigan]

I like @maxandersen's suggestion of 90 days private, and a subsequent 90 days public.

[gavinking]

There must be a define procedure here. Not just "oh someone tried to send you an email 90 days ago and you didn't respond". With all due respect, that's just rubbish, and it's rubbish that you're even contemplating that this would be sufficient. It might be enough to act as a threshold for initiating the process of determining that a project is abandoned, but it's certainly insufficient to actually serve as the process itself.

At minimum, it should be clearly specified:

1. from whom such an email must originate,
2. that the email must give clear notice of the risk of the project being considered as "abandoned" if the email is not responded to, and
3. that the foundation must make a good faith effort to get in contact with the project owner by means other than email, in order to notify them of the possibility of being held to have "abandoned" the project.

C'mon, everyone, this is a very serious action to take, with very serious consequences, and requires due process. I don't think you're treating this seriously enough at all, and I'm quite disappointed in ya'll.

[gavinking]

And probably:

4. that such an action is subject to approval by the EGC, since it's an action that affects the whole CF community.

[ebullient]

I had this guideline in my mind originally, but I started questioning it, mostly as a matter of (hopeful/eventual) scale.

[aalmiray]

Evaluating abandonment should be (hopefully) rare, and pretty important considering the ramifications. Thus involving the EGC is a must IMHO.

[ebullient]

Which is why I had it there originally (and is why I agree in general). What I couldn't figure out is how that involvement would work. What %? Should we have friend projects or something? Do you want some % of projects that know nothing about yours?

[ebullient]

I think we should take a step back. I may have started this discussion without setting the right context. And I'd like to remind everyone that we are having this discussion to understand what all parties need and find a way forward. This isn't about the foundation asserting control - it's about ensuring projects remain healthy even when life inevitably throws curveballs. @gavinking raises excellent points about needing a well-defined procedure with appropriate safeguards. The Ceylon situation illustrates exactly why we need this discussion - to prevent those kinds of scenarios and ensure due process.

The terms already specify using all known communication channels, not just email, and reaching out to all Signatories and operational contacts, not just EGC representatives (see Administrative Access and Operational Continuity section). Maybe we should align the Communication section with the procedures in "Scope of Access and Intervention"?

We can state that if we haven't had contact from an EGC rep or Signatory within 6 months, we follow those procedures to verify project status. This would mean projects need to keep their contact information current and specify preferred communication methods (which we also already state as a responsibility).

This is, after all, a contract. The Foundation is delegating responsibility back to the Project (which is what we all want). Part of delegating that responsibility is an obligation that you (the Project Signatories) will work with us to ensure the project remains "healthy". This does not imply any cadence of releases or commit activity, but it does require some level of responsiveness.

[criccomini]

We can state that if we haven't had contact from an EGC rep or Signatory within 6 months, we follow those procedures to verify project status.

SGTM!

It strikes me that DNS registrars have a similar pattern and have a pretty well defined process. I think we should probably just mimic that. i.e. define a time window, define an email address from which the emails come, define the number of emails and cadence that they will be sent out, and so on... Whether it's 90 days, 6 months, or 1 year, I have no strong preference, though 90 days does seem short.