[Governance Review]: KubeEdge

[wbc6080]

Project Name

KubeEdge

Project Website

https://kubeedge.io/

Contact Details 1

@fisherxu

Contact Details 2

@dingyin

Contact Details 3

@wbc6080

Links to communication channels

https://cloud-native.slack.com/archives/C066UJZJKQE

Reason for governance review request

Application for moving levels from Incubation to Graduation

Are there any sub-projects, plugins, and related?

https://github.com/kubeedge/edgemesh
https://github.com/kubeedge/mappers-go
https://github.com/kubeedge/sedna
https://github.com/kubeedge/ianvs

Governance model

The community governance of KubeEdge is mainly divided into Technical Steering Committees(TSC), Special Interest Groups(SIG) and Working Groups(WG)
The KubeEdge community has 7 Technical Steering Committee members from 6 companies, who are the governing body for the KubeEdge project, providing decision-making and oversight pertaining to the KubeEdge project bylaws. The Technical Steering Committee also defines the project values and structure.
Technical Steering Committee: https://github.com/kubeedge/community/tree/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/committee-technical-steering
KubeEdge now has 10 SIGs, and each SIG has at least one or two Chairs and Tech leaders, who focus on maintaining corresponding modules, now KubeEdge also has 15+ SIG Chair/Tech-leader.

SIGs: https://github.com/kubeedge/community/tree/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81
KubeEdge now has one WG. Working Groups provide a formal avenue for disparate groups to collaborate around a common problem, craft a balanced position, and are dissolved by TSC after the problem solved.

WGs: https://github.com/kubeedge/community/tree/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81

KubeEdge has 12 core maintainers from 7 companies, who are responsible for maintaining code development for overall projects.
Maintainers list: https://github.com/kubeedge/kubeedge/blob/86f768b89dd084ff913014813c2da4dfa33aa8f2/MAINTAINERS.md
For more detailed information, please refer to our GOVERNANCE.md

Governance documents

• Project purpose:

  • https://github.com/kubeedge/kubeedge/blob/58bf767f8b763f9e77cf237b9488adfcc8b601be/README.md

• Maintainer list:

  • https://github.com/kubeedge/kubeedge/blob/58bf767f8b763f9e77cf237b9488adfcc8b601be/MAINTAINERS.md#maintainers

• How your project is making decisions:

  • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/blob/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/GOVERNANCE.md#community-groups
  • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/blob/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/committee-technical-steering/charter.md#decision

• How and when contributors are moving through the contributor ladder (e.g. becoming a maintainer):

  • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/blob/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/community-membership.md#kubeedge-community-membership

• Maintainer life cycle with information about how and when maintainers are demoted:

  • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/blob/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/community-membership.md#inactive-members

• Code of Conduct:

  • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/blob/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

• Contributor Guide:

  • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/blob/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/contribute.md

• How your community conduct communication and meetings:

  The meetings of the KubeEdge community are mainly divided into three categories, namely community meetings, TSC meetings and each SIG meetings.

  • Community meetings:
    • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/tree/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81?tab=readme-ov-file#community-meeting
  • TSC meetings:
    • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/tree/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/committee-technical-steering#meetings
  • SIG meetings:
    • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/tree/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/sig-device-iot#meetings
  • The KubeEdge community provides contact information such as slack, email and Twitter.
    • https://github.com/kubeedge/kubeedge/tree/58bf767f8b763f9e77cf237b9488adfcc8b601be?tab=readme-ov-file#contact
    • https://kubeedge.io/docs/community/slack/

• How your community handles security reporting and response:

  • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/blob/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/team-security/SECURITY.md

• Who owns what code and docs:

  • Each repository in the community has OWNER files, and the code or docs of the repository are maintained by the people listed in the OWNER file. For example, the kubeedge/community repository is owned by the committee-technical-steering
    • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/blob/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/OWNERS

Governance Execution Examples

• Election examples:
  The initial TSC members of KubeEdge are picked by the project maintainers based on contributions and experience, The first election will come in Sep/Oct 2024.

  • https://github.com/kubeedge/community/tree/f3548585203cd39e0675836bf526087807091d81/committee-technical-steering#technical-steering-committee

• Voting example (decision making):

  • Complete the community governance kubeedge/community#157

• Promoting a contributor:

  • Apply WillardHu to be a top-level approver kubeedge/kubeedge#5353
  • apply to be a top-level approver kubeedge/kubeedge#5347

• Demoting a maintainer:

  • update project maintainers kubeedge/kubeedge#1813

• Security response:

  • GHSA-6wvc-6pww-qr4r
  • GHSA-wrcr-x4qj-j543

• Meeting recordings:

  • https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Sr5QS_Z04uPfRbA7PrXr3aPwCRpx7EtsyHq7mp6CnHs/edit

Governance Evolution

Since KubeEdge reached the incubation level, the community governance has evolved by adding TSC, adding SIG chairs and others as follows:

• Add TSC:

  • Use unified folder name prefixes for community components kubeedge/community#115

• Add SIG chairs:

  • add chairs for SIG device-iot kubeedge/community#149

• Add SIG Technical Leads:

  • add Technical Leads for SIG Networking kubeedge/community#150

• Create project repository:

  • REQUEST: <Create> Mapper-Framework: Mapper Development Framework kubeedge/community#180

• Added retirement mechanism for inactive members:

  • Complete the membership for inactive member kubeedge/community#163

Any specific aspects of your governance structure are you seeking feedback on?

Nothing specific

Do you have any concerns or specific areas where you feel your governance could be improved?

I personally think that there are still some shortcomings that can be optimized as follows:

• The governance documentation is not currently linked in the main repo.
• Although the community owns the contributor ladder file, linking it to the main repository makes it easier for people to find.
• There are some inactive members who remain in the community and have not been removed.

Additional notes and resources

No response

[jberkus]

I've started work on this review.

[jberkus]

Draft is posted: #663

[wbc6080]

Thanks for @jberkus review and valuable comments. We will take a look these comments and have some discussions as soon as possible.

[jberkus]

@wbc6080 GovWG is happy to work with you on resolving the identified critical issues.

[jberkus]

This is published: kubeedge review

Please contact us for any advice on resolving the identified issues.