OSSIM Governance Procedures

OSSIM is governed by the OSSIM Program Steering Commitee (PSC), which is chartered to guarantee that OSSIM remains open source and evolves by attracting new contributors and users to and ever expanding community of interest. The PSC will strive to encourage and include developers, contributors and users in discussions concerning the direction of technological evolution of the project. The PSC will also strive to maintain a balance within a community so that the project is not dominated by a single company or agency.

The PSC commitee will consist of the primary contributors to the OSSIM project. The PSC will decide which general contributors will have commit authority to the repository. Commit authority can be granted and removed by members of the PSC. One member of the PSC will be designated the Project Lead. The Project Lead will typically be the primary contributor and architect of the OSSIM project. Contributors and PSC members who are inactive for a period of six months or more will be automatically removed.

All attempts should be made to resolve disputes through discussion and consensus. When that is not possible a majority of the PSC will make the decision, typically following the advice of the Project Lead. In the case of a tie on the PSC the Project Lead will decide.

Current PSC Members

• Garrett Potts - Project Lead
• Dave Burken
• Mark Lucas
• Scott Bortman
• Jim Hopper - SAIC

Project Decision Making and Visibility

Face to face meetings are more effective than email lists for working out project issues. The only downside is that they don't automatically generate logs of discussions like email lists and IRC channels. The current core contributors and PSC members all live around Melbourne Florida and meet face to face on a regular basis. The following procedures are implemented to enhance the communication and provide more transparency to the decision making process.

On average, face to face PSC meetings will be held in Melbourne once every two months. Advance notification of these meetings will be posted on the mailing list. Any OSSIM project member is welcome to join us for the meeting by simply notifying us by email so that lunch reservations can be made.

Process for the meetings:

• Send meeting request, xx number of days before meeting, allowing interested parties to participate.
• Meet face to face
• Describe voting process (1 member = 1 vote)
• Document decisions in wiki/email list/ ...

A summary of the meeting and the decisions made will be posted on the mailing list or on the wiki after the meeting concludes.