[QSOS-general] Contribution process - Request for comments

[raphael]

Hi,

here is the contribution process I propose for QSOS.
Please make your comments or propositions.

This description is also in the wiki :
http://qsos.org/wiki/index.php/Processes

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Rationale: mix formal validation with communitarian tagging.

= Prerequisites =

Have database on qsos.org where users can:
    * create an account and register
    * access their validation spaces

This account is used for:
    * tagging
    * submission of evaluations
    * validation
    * notification (via mail, xmpp, private message on qsos.org, ...)

= Formal validation =

== Validation teams ==

    * Each software family is associated with a validation team. This team
validate the following:
          o the template of the software family
          o evaluations made with this template

    * This validation would result in:
          o filling the <validation> tag already present in the current
XML format <validation taggers="[validators' ids]"
date="20071014"/>
          o addition of the validated tag on the template or evaluation in
the qsos.org central database
          o addition of a CVS tag in the repository

    * The validation team is in charge of:
          o validating the template of its software family
          o validating evaluations of its family
          o nominating new members of the validation team: this decision
must be unanimous, in case of conflict the team escalate to the
project team (and/or the QSOS community?)

    * To start a new validation team, I propose:
          o to include existing contributors (evaluations or template of
the software family)
          o eventually, to propose open source projects included in the
software family (already evaluated or not) to be part of the
validation team

== Project Team ==

Its scope is the whole QSOS project and therefore includes every software
family. Its rights are the following:
    * it is the last decision-making entity in case of conflicts about non
unanimous validations. However it can force a validation against the
will of the majority of the validation team
    * it gives commit rights on QSOS method and tools in the repository
    * it has write access to the wiki and the blog and the wiki (maybe the
wiki should also be opened to validation teams...)

For now I propose that it is composed of current project admins on Savannah:
    * Raphaël Semeteys
    * Goneri Le Bouder
    * Romain Pelisse
    * Francois Le Droff

The process of inclusion in the project team could be:
    * candidate must already be member of a least one validation team
    * candidate must already have contributed templates and evaluations
(numbers to be fixed)
    * candidate must already have contributed to QSOS improvement (method
or tools)
    * the project team vote and inclusion is validated if 2/3 of votes are
positives (non unanimous decision here to prevent blocking situations)

= Community Tagging =

Every user registered on qsos.org can tag an evaluation. The tagging
information is to be stored in the central database not in the evaluation
XML files. Further information are associated with the tag (comment,
tagger's id, date).

Here is a list of possible tags:
    * New (automatic when a new evaluation is submitted)
    * Modified (automatic when a existing evaluation is modified)
    * Biased
    * Obsolete
    * Uncompleted
    * Completed
    * To be validated (it is a request to the validation team)
    * Validated (only bu the validation team)

For a start and to simplify implementation I propose that tags are put on
the evaluation level. We'll check later if and how reduce it to the
criterion level.

When a new tag is put, following people are automatically notified:
    * authors of the evaluation
    * validation team
    * previous taggers who asked to be notified

When a evaluation is validated:
    * all community tags are deleted
    * the evaluation is officially tagged in the CVS repository
    * previous people (except the validation team itself) are notified

Tags can be used in o3s to navigate, filter and group evaluations

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Raphaël Semeteys