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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: Advisory Board Update |
| 3 | +blogAuthors: ['tjfontaine'] |
| 4 | +category: advisory-board |
| 5 | +--- |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +A lot has been happening in Node.js, so I wanted to bring everyone up to date on |
| 8 | +where we are with regards to the advisory board, its working groups, and the |
| 9 | +release of v0.12. |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +The interim [advisory |
| 12 | +board](https://www.joyent.com/blog/node-js-advisory-board) has met three times |
| 13 | +since its creation. You can find the minutes from the advisory board meetings |
| 14 | +here: <https://nodejs.org/en/about/advisory-board/>. As |
| 15 | +we have more meetings and minutes, we will announce the dates and times for |
| 16 | +those meeting and their minutes here on the blog. The next meeting is this |
| 17 | +Thursday December 4th, at 1:30PM PST. We're looking to collect as much feedback |
| 18 | +and input from as many representatives of the community as we can, so it's |
| 19 | +important that we keep everyone up to date as much as possible. |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +The interim advisory board has been working through a series of topics (in |
| 22 | +general meetings as well as working groups) to further hone the scope of the |
| 23 | +board, as well as define the structure that the advisory board will use to |
| 24 | +conduct its meetings. Everyone on the board wants to make sure we're being as |
| 25 | +transparent as possible, so let me describe how things operate so far. The |
| 26 | +board is using a traditional two conference call structure, a public portion |
| 27 | +that is recorded and open for anyone to join, and a private portion that is |
| 28 | +only for board members. |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +The public portion is meant to provide an update of what happened in the |
| 31 | +previous meeting, as well as the status of action items from the previous |
| 32 | +meeting. At the end of each public session is a open comment section, where |
| 33 | +listeners are able to ask questions and the advisory board can respond. |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +Following the public portion the board dials into the private conference, |
| 36 | +further discussion happens during this time around specific agenda items, |
| 37 | +working groups providing updates, and facilitating conversations about those |
| 38 | +topics. These conversations are open and frank, and their content is recorded |
| 39 | +in the minutes. Those minutes are then published a few days after the meeting |
| 40 | +in the GitHub repository |
| 41 | +<https://github.com/joyent/nodejs-advisory-board>, |
| 42 | +as well as on the website |
| 43 | +<https://nodejs.org/en/about/advisory-board/>. |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +There are a few working groups so far, for instance one is focused on making |
| 46 | +sure the membership of the board is representative of the community Node.js |
| 47 | +serves. While the board was initially bootstrapped with its existing |
| 48 | +membership, we want to quickly move to a model that fully represents our |
| 49 | +community. We want the board to represent the broadest spectrum of our |
| 50 | +community, that also enables the board to move swiftly and make progress. |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +Another working group is having a conversation about governance. This includes |
| 53 | +topics like what is the team that makes decisions for Node.js, how do you |
| 54 | +become a member of that team, how does that team set the roadmap for the |
| 55 | +project, and how does that team makes decisions. |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +One thing that we all agree on, is that we're not going to be using the |
| 58 | +Benevolent Dictator model. In fact, recently the project hasn't been operating |
| 59 | +that way. We can be more clear about that in our |
| 60 | +[documentation](https://nodejs.org/en/about/organization). We all agree we want |
| 61 | +a healthy and vibrant team, a team focused on making progress for Node.js, not |
| 62 | +for progress's sake, but for the betterment of the software project and the |
| 63 | +community we serve. We also agree that this means that there should be |
| 64 | +consensus among the team. The conversation has been fruitful, and is on going, |
| 65 | +we're continuing to work through the finer points of how much consensus we |
| 66 | +need. |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | +I want to take a moment to describe what consensus means in this context. The |
| 69 | +consensus model is about accountability. Accountability for the changes being |
| 70 | +integrated into the project, accountability for documentation, and |
| 71 | +accountability for releases. While members of the team are responsible for |
| 72 | +subsystems or features of Node.js, everyone reviews each others changes. They |
| 73 | +make sure to understand the impact on their relevant responsibilities. |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | +The goal of the team, especially that of the project lead, is to drive |
| 76 | +consensus and ensure accountability. This means asking critical questions and |
| 77 | +being able to answer them specifically and succinctly, for example: |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +* What are we trying to solve with this change? |
| 80 | +* Does this change effectively solve for this problem? |
| 81 | +* Does this API have a consumer? |
| 82 | +* Does this API reach the broadest amount of use cases? |
| 83 | +* Is this API supportable? |
| 84 | +* Does this change have adverse effects on other subsystems or use cases (and is that acceptable)? |
| 85 | +* Does this change have tests that verify its operation, now and in the future? |
| 86 | +* Does this change pass our style guidelines? |
| 87 | +* Does this change pass our integration tests for the matrix of our supported configurations? |
| 88 | + * For instance: ia32 and x64 for Windows, Linux, OSX, SmartOS |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | +These are just some of the questions, and while the questions are not unusual |
| 91 | +or unique to Node.js, they are still important. |
| 92 | + |
| 93 | +Finally, we are very close to releasing v0.12, there's only one major patch |
| 94 | +we're waiting to land. Once that's done we'll be releasing v0.11.15 as a |
| 95 | +release candidate. Assuming no severe issues are filed against v0.11.15 we will |
| 96 | +be going live with v0.12 about two weeks after the v0.11.15 release. |
| 97 | + |
| 98 | +If you have questions for the advisory board you can email |
| 99 | +<[email protected]> or file an issue on |
| 100 | +its repository |
| 101 | +<https://github.com/joyent/nodejs-advisory-board>. |
| 102 | +Thanks for all of your continued contributions to Node.js, in the form of |
| 103 | +[filing issues](https://github.com/joyent/node/issues), [submitting pull |
| 104 | +requests](https://github.com/joyent/node/pulls), and publishing your modules. |
| 105 | +Node.js is lucky to have such an enthusiastic and engaged community, and we're |
| 106 | +excited to be working with you on the future of Node.js. |
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