[Draft] Open Governance Model

This is a first draft of the open governance model for WarpX,
developed after discussion with the current leadership team.

The goal of the governance model is to:
- document and make transparent our decision structure,
- structure and openly credit sensible roles,
- clarify appointment and offboarding,
- encourage participation, engagement and growth.

Thoughts that guided the initial document include:
- accurately reflecting our successful project workflows,
- evolving it for shared responsibiliy and co-ownership,
- avoiding unnecessary overheads and deadlocks,
- be flexible enough to enable later introduction of sub-roles
  and further formalization, depending on community growth.

Author: ax3l

Docs/source/governance.rst

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+../../GOVERNANCE.rst

Docs/source/index.rst

@@ -150,4 +150,5 @@ Epilogue
    :hidden:
 
    glossary
+   governance
    acknowledgements

GOVERNANCE.rst

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+.. _governance:
+
+WarpX Governance
+================
+
+WarpX is led in an open governance model, described in this file.
+
+
+Steering Committee
+------------------
+
+Current Roster
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+- Jean-Luc Vay (chair)
+- Remi Lehe
+- Axel Huebl
+
+See: `GitHub team <https://github.com/orgs/ECP-WarpX/teams/warpx-admins>`__
+
+Role
+^^^^
+
+The steering committee (SC) can change repo requirements, can do administrative operations such as rename/move/archive projects, etc.
+SC members call votes for decisions.
+
+The SC can veto decisions of the technical committee (TC) by voting in the SC.
+
+The SC can change the governance structure, but only in an unanimous vote.
+
+Decision Process
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Decision are made in a public, majority vote of SC members.
+In tie situations, the chair of the SC acts as the tie breaker.
+
+Appointment Process
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Appointed by current SC members in an unanimous vote.
+
+SC members can resign or be removed by majority vote, e.g., due to inactivity, bad acting or other reason.
+
+
+Technical Committee
+-------------------
+
+Current Roster
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+- Luca Fedeli
+- Roelof Groenwald
+- David Grote
+- Axel Huebl
+- Revathi Jambunathan
+- Remi Lehe
+- Andrew Myers
+- Maxence Thévenet
+- Weiqun Zhang
+- Edoardo Zoni
+
+See: `GitHub team <https://github.com/orgs/ECP-WarpX/teams/warpx-push-merge-write>`__
+
+Role
+^^^^
+
+The technical committee (TC) is the core governance body, where under normal operations most ideas are discussed and decisions are made.
+Individual TC members can approve and merge code changes.
+Usually, they seek approval by another maintainer for their own changes, too.
+TC members lead and weight in on technical discussions and can call a vote between TC members, if needed for a technical decision.
+TC members merge/close PRs and issues, and moderate (including block/mute) bad actors.
+The TC can propose governance changes to the SC.
+
+
+Decision Process
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Discussion on a topic in the weekly developer meetings.
+
+If someone calls for a vote to make a decision: majority based on the passed votes; we need 50% of the committee participating to vote. In the absence of a quorum, the SC will decide.
+
+Decision are made in a public, majority vote of TC members.
+
+In the absence of a quorum (>50%) in the TC, the SC decides according to its voting rules.
+
+TC members can individually highlight  new contributors, unless a vote is called on an individual.
+
+Appointment Process
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+TC members are the maintainers of WarpX.
+As a TC member, regularly attending and contributing to the weekly developer meetings is expected.
+
+One is appointed to the TC by the steering committee, in an unanimous vote.
+Steering committee members can also be TC members.
+
+TC members can resign or be removed by majority vote by either TC or SC, e.g., due to inactivity, bad acting or other reason.
+
+
+Contributors
+------------
+
+Current Roster
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+See: `GitHub team <https://github.com/orgs/ECP-WarpX/teams/warpx-contributors>`__
+
+Role
+^^^^
+
+Contributors are valuable, vetted developers to WarpX.
+Contributions can be in many forms and not all need to be code contributions.
+Examples include code pull requests, support in issues & user discussions, writing and updating documentation, R&D on novel numerics, testing and benchmarking, etc.
+Contributors can participate in developer meetings and weight in on discussions.
+Contributors can "triage" (add labels) to pull requests, issues, and GitHub discussion pages.
+Contributors can comment and review PRs (but not merge).
+
+Decision Process
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Contributors can individually decide on classification (triage) of pull requests, issues, and GitHub discussion pages.
+
+Appointment Process
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Appointed after contributing to WarpX (see above) by any member of the TC.
+
+The role can be lost by resigning or majority vote by TC or SC due to inactivity, bad acting or other.
+
+
+Former Members
+--------------
+
+"Former members" are the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
+But, for the purpose of WarpX governance, they are *not* tracked as a governance role in WarpX.
+Instead, former (e.g., inactive) contributors are acknowledged separately in GitHub contributor tracking, the WarpX documentation, references, citable Zenodo archives of releases, etc. as appropriate.
+
+Former members of SC, TC and Contributors are not kept in the roster, since committee role rosters shall reflect currently active members and responsible governance body.