Steering committee establishment

GOVERNANCE.md

@@ -1,3 +1,246 @@
-## Kuadrant Governance
+# Steering Committee Governance
 
-Governance for the Kuadrant project is still a work in progress. You can participate in discussions via our project [slack channel](https://kubernetes.slack.com/archives/C05J0D0V525).
+The Kuadrant Steering Committee is the governing body of the Kuadrant project,
+providing decision-making and oversight pertaining to the project bylaws,
+sub-organizations, and financial planning. The Steering Committee also defines
+the project values and structure.
+
+This governance is an open, living document, and will continue to
+evolve as the community and project change.
+
+## Values
+
+The Kuadrant and its leadership embrace the following values:
+
+* Openness: Communication and decision-making happens in the open and is discoverable for future
+  reference. As much as possible, all discussions and work take place in public
+  forums and open repositories.
+
+* Fairness: All stakeholders have the opportunity to provide feedback and submit
+  contributions, which will be considered on their merits.
+
+* Community over Product or Company: Sustaining and growing our community takes
+  priority over shipping code or sponsors' organizational goals.  Each
+  contributor participates in the project as an individual.
+
+* Inclusivity: We innovate through different perspectives and skill sets, which
+  can only be accomplished in a welcoming and respectful environment.
+
+* Participation: Responsibilities within the project are earned through
+  participation, and there is a clear path up the contributor ladder into leadership
+  positions.
+
+## Charter
+
+The following responsibilities and powers belong to the Steering Committee.
+
+Technical governance is expected to be performed by the Maintainers of the
+various project areas and subprojects, as defined in the appropriate OWNERS files.
+
+* Delegate ownership of, responsibility for and authority over areas of the
+  project to specific entities.
+* Define, evolve, and defend the vision, mission and the values of the project.
+* Charter and refine policy for defining new community groups, and establish
+  transparency and accountability policies for such groups
+* Define and evolve project and group governance structures and policies.
+* Act as a final escalation point for disputes in any project repository or
+  group.
+* Request funds and other support from the CNCF (e.g. marketing, press, etc.)
+* Coordinate with the CNCF regarding usage of the Kuadrant brand and deciding
+  project scope, core requirements, and conformance, as well as how that brand
+  can be used in relation to other efforts or vendors.
+* Decide, for the purpose of elections, who is a member of standing, and what
+  privileges that entails.
+* Control and delegate access to and establish processes regarding all project
+  repositories, resources, and assets.
+* Appointing the members of the Code of Conduct Committee in order to ensure
+  responsiveness, diversity, and good judgement.
+
+## Example decisions
+
+* Decides to expand the project's scope to include new functionality related to data analytics, setting the strategic vision for the next major release.
+* Decides that the project should support an additional Gateway API provider for a specific set of Kuadrant policies
+* Decides to set up a special interest group to investigate and prototype a new type of policy focused on LLM integrations
+
+## Delegated authority
+
+The Steering Committee may choose to delegate its authority to other committees
+as-needed. The committee currently recognizes this delegated authority for:
+
+- n/a
+
+## Committee Meetings
+
+The Steering Committee meets every 2 weeks, or as-needed.
+Meetings are held online, and are public by default.
+
+Given the private nature of some of these discussions (e.g. privacy, private
+emails to the committee, code of conduct violations, escalations, disputes
+between members, security reports, etc.) some meetings are held in private.
+
+Meeting notes are available to members of the
+[kuadrant mailing list](https://groups.google.com/g/kuadrant).
+Public meetings will be recorded and the recordings made available publicly.
+
+Questions and proposals for changes to governance or community procedures are posted as
+[issues or pull requests in the governance repo](https://github.com/Kuadrant/governance), and
+the Steering Committee invites your feedback there.
+
+## Committee members
+
+Seats on the Steering Committee are held by an individual, not by their
+employer.
+
+The current membership of the committee is currently (listed alphabetically by
+first name):
+
+|                                                           | Member           | Organization |
+| -------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- | ------------ |
+
+[TODO: Pending elections]
+
+## Decision process
+
+The Steering Committee desires to always reach consensus.
+
+Decisions requiring a vote include: issuing written policy, amending existing
+written policy, creating, removing, or modifying a committee or SIG, all spending,
+hiring, and contracting, official responses to publicly raised issues, or any
+other decisions that at least two of the members present decide require a vote.
+
+Decisions are made in meetings when a quorum of more than half of the members
+are present (and all members have been informed of the meeting), and may pass
+with more than half the members of the committee supporting it.
+
+## Getting in touch
+
+Open an issue on [the governance repo](https://github.com/Kuadrant/governance) and indicate that you would like
+attention from the steering committee.
+
+## Composition
+
+The steering committee has 3 seats. These seats are
+open to any project contributor. See
+[candidate eligibility](#candidate-eligibility) for a definition.
+
+## Election Procedure
+
+### Timeline
+
+Steering Committee elections are held annually. Six weeks or more before the
+election, the Steering Committee will appoint Election Officer(s) (see below).
+Four weeks or more before the election, the Election Officer(s) will issue a
+call for nominations, publish the list of voters, and open the call for
+exceptions. Three days before the election the call for nominations and exceptions
+will be closed. The election will be open for voting not less than two weeks and
+not more than four. The results of the election will be announced within one
+week of closing the election. New Steering Committee members will take office on
+October 1st of each year.
+
+### Election Officer(s)
+
+Six weeks or more before the election, the Steering Committee will appoint
+between one and three Election Officer(s) to administer the election. Elections
+Officers will be community members in good standing who are eligible to
+vote, are not running for Steering in that election, who are not currently part
+of the Steering Committee and can make a public promise of impartiality. They
+will be responsible for:
+
+- Making all announcements associated with the election
+- Preparing and distributing electronic ballots
+- Judging exception requests
+- Assisting candidates in preparing and sharing statements
+- Tallying voting results according to the rules in this charter
+
+### Eligibility to Vote
+
+Anyone who has at least 10 contributions in the last 12 months is
+eligible to vote in the Steering election. Contributions are defined as opening PRs,
+reviewing and commenting on PRs, opening and commenting on issues, writing
+design docs, commenting on design docs, helping people on community forums, participating
+in working groups, and other efforts that help advance the project.
+
+[This dashboard](https://kuadrant.devstats.cncf.io/d/8/dashboards?orgId=1&refresh=15m)
+shows only GitHub based contributions and does not capture all the contributions
+we value. We expect this metric not to capture everyone who should be eligible
+to vote. If a community member has had significant contributions over the past
+year but is not captured in Devstats,
+they will be able to submit an exception form to the Elections Officer(s) who
+will then review and determine whether this member should be eligible to vote.
+All exceptions, and the reasons for them, will be recorded and saved by the
+officers.
+
+The electoral roll of all eligible voters will be captured in the [./elections](./elections) folder, as will the voters’ guide.
+
+We are committed to an inclusive process and will adapt future eligibility
+requirements based on community feedback.
+
+### Candidate Eligibility
+
+Community members must be eligible to vote in order to stand for election (this
+includes voters who qualify for an exception). Candidates may self-nominate or
+be nominated by another eligible member. There are no term limits for Steering
+Committee members. Nothing prevents a qualified member from serving on both Steering
+and other groups simultaneously.
+
+To run for a seat, a candidate must additionally be at least a
+project maintainer as defined in
+[ROLES.md](./ROLES.md).
+
+### Voting Procedure
+
+Elections will be held using a time-limited
+[Condorcet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method) ranking on
+using the IRV method. The top vote-getters will be elected to the open seats,
+with the exceptions for company representation discussed below.
+
+### Limitations on Company Representation
+
+When feasible, no more than 1 seats may be held by employees of the same organization (or
+conglomerate, in the case of companies owning each other). If an
+election results in greater than 1 employee of the same organization being
+selected, the lowest vote getters from any particular employer will be removed until
+representation on the committee is down to two.
+
+If employers change because of job changes, acquisitions, or other events, in a
+way that would yield too many seats being held by employees of the same
+organization, sufficient members of the committee must resign until only 1
+employee of the same employer are left. If it is impossible to find sufficient
+members to resign, all employees of that organization will be removed and new
+special elections held. In the event of a question of company membership (for
+example evaluating independence of corporate subsidiaries) a majority of all
+non-involved Steering Committee members will decide.
+
+## Vacancies
+
+In the event of a resignation or other loss of an elected SC member, the
+candidate with the next most votes from the previous election will be offered
+the seat, provided that person otherwise qualifies to join the SC. This process
+will continue until the seat is filled.
+
+In case this fails to fill the seat, a special election for that position will
+be held as soon as possible, unless the regular SC election is less than 7 weeks
+away. Eligible voters from the most recent election will vote in the special
+election. Eligibility will not be redetermined at the time of the special
+election. Any replacement SC member will serve out the remainder of the term for
+the person they are replacing, regardless of the length of that remainder.
+
+## Changes to the charter
+
+Changes to this charter may be proposed via a PR on the charter itself.
+Amendments are accepted with majority consent of the committee as per the
+[decision process](#decision-process) outlined above.
+
+Proposals and amendments to the charter are available for at least a period of
+one week for comments and questions before a vote will occur.
+
+## Authority, Facilitation, and Decision Making
+
+Ideally most decisions will be made at the lowest possible level within the
+project: within individual working groups. When this is not possible, Steering
+can help facilitate a conversation to work through the contended issue. When
+facilitation by the SC does not resolve the contention, the SC may have to
+make a decision.
+
+Note that if the committee is called to resolve contended decisions regularly, it is a
+symptom of a larger problem in the community that will need to be addressed.

ROLES.md

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+# Roles
+
+## Contributor
+
+A contributor is any person who has at least 50 contributor 'Activities' in the Contributor Leaderboard for the last 12 months,
+or at least 5 pull requests merged in the last 12 months,
+as shown in https://insights.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/foundation/cncf/overview/github?project=kuadrant&repository=all&routedFrom=Github&dateFilters=Last%2012%20Months&dateRange=2023-08-02%20to%202024-08-01&compare=PP&granularity=month&hideBots=true
+
+## Maintainer
+
+The list of maintainers for the project is at [./MAINTAINERS.md](./MAINTAINERS.md).
+Generally, these people have the ability to create, approve and merge pull requests on any repository.
+
+[TODO: Decide & document rules for how someone can become a maintainer]
+
+### Component specific maintainers
+
+Some components have a subset of maintainers. The list of components and maintainers can be found in the [./MAINTAINERS.md#component-specific-maintainers](./MAINTAINERS.md#component-specific-maintainers) section.
+These people have the same permissions as maintainers.
+However, their role includes having domain expertise in those components.
+They can be thought of as technical leads in a smaller part of the overall project.
+There are no set rules for how a person can move from a maintainer role to a component specific maintainer role.
+Generally, if a person is sufficiently active in a particular area, they may add themselves, be added, or request to be added to the list for a component.
+
+[TODO: Decide & document rules for how someone can become a component specific maintainer]

elections/steering/2024/README.md

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+# 2024 VOTERS GUIDE - Kuadrant Steering Committee Election
+
+## Purpose
+
+The role of this election is to fill out the three (3) seats due for the first election on the Kuadrant Steering Committee.
+Each elected member will serve a two year term.
+
+## Election Platform
+
+[TODO: something like https://elekto.dev/ ? https://elekto.dev/docs/voting/]
+
+## Background
+
+This election will shape the future of Kuadrant as a community and project. The [Steering Committee Charter](../GOVERNANCE.md) covers the health of the project and community as a whole. Some direct responsibilities of steering members to consider as you are deciding whether to run or who to vote for:
+
+* Delegate ownership of, responsibility for and authority over areas of the
+  project to specific entities.
+* Define, evolve, and defend the vision, mission and the values of the project.
+* Charter and refine policy for defining new community groups, and establish
+  transparency and accountability policies for such groups
+* Define and evolve project and group governance structures and policies.
+* Act as a final escalation point for disputes in any project repository or
+  group.
+* Request funds and other support from the CNCF (e.g. marketing, press, etc.)
+* Coordinate with the CNCF regarding usage of the Kuadrant brand and deciding
+  project scope, core requirements, and conformance, as well as how that brand
+  can be used in relation to other efforts or vendors.
+* Decide, for the purpose of elections, who is a member of standing, and what
+  privileges that entails.
+* Control and delegate access to and establish processes regarding all project
+  repositories, resources, and assets.
+
+## Eligibility
+
+Please refer to the [Steering Committee Charter](../GOVERNANCE.md) for [Steering Committee Charter](../GOVERNANCE.md#eligibility-for-candidacy)
+
+### Schedule
+
+| Date                    | Event                                                                 |
+|:------------------------|:----------------------------------------------------------------------|
+| TBD                     | Steering Committee selects Election Committee                         |
+| TBD                     | Announcement of Election and publication of voters.yaml               |
+| TBD                     | Steering Committee Q+A for the candidates                             |
+| TBD                     | Candidate nominations due at the end of the day in AoE time           |
+| TBD                     | Election Begins                                                       |
+| TBD                     | Election Closes at the end of the day in AoE time                     |
+| TBD                     | Private announcement of Results to SC members not up for election     |
+| TBD                     | Private announcement of Results to all candidates                     |
+| Tue, October 1          | Public announcement of Results at Public Steering Committee Meeting   |
+| TBD                     | Election Retro                                                        |
+
+## Candidacy Process
+
+**Nomination**
+
+1. If you want to stand for the election, create an issue in this GitHub repo
+(kuadrant/governance) with the title `Steering Committee Nomination: Your Name (@yourgithub)`.
+If you want to nominate someone else, you may do so, but PLEASE talk to them
+first.
+
+2. After creating the issue, send an email to [email protected]
+with a link to the issue. The subject line of the email should be same as
+the title of the issue. This email should encourage people to second your
+nomination on GitHub, as +1s via email will not count. Here's an example email:
+
+    Hi! I'm nominating _candidate_ for steering committee this year.
+    If you are an eligible voter and think they should run, please add your +1 as
+    a comment on the issue _link_ and mention the organization you work for.
+    While supportive replies are very nice, only comments on the issue will count
+    towards their eligibility.
+
+3. If you wish to accept a nomination from someone else, reply to the nomination
+**issue** saying something like "I accept the nomination".
+
+4. Finally, the candidate closes the **issue** (`#NNN`) by opening a Pull Request
+to add their github id to the `candidates.yaml` file.
+
+## Voting Process
+
+[TODO]

elections/steering/2024/candidates.yaml

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+# 2024 Steering Committee Election
+candidates:
+- 

elections/steering/2024/voters.yaml

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+# 2024 Steering Committee Election
+eligible_voters:
+-