Project Organization

The Shibboleth Project, as distinct from the Shibboleth Consortium , is a traditional open source software project that is self-governing, under the control of the project's participants, known as Committers. Of course, this independence extends only so far, since the project's viability financially is dependent on the Consortium's success in attracting financial support for our work. To formalize the relationship, the Consortium's primary Operating Resolution, adopted in conjunction with the initial charter, contains a pair of sections, 4 and 5, that describe the Project's organization and general governance, and the expectations placed on its participants.

Project participants are known as Committers, signifying they have commit access to our source code respository.

A subset of the Committers makes up the Project Management Committee (PMC), which is the governing authority over the project. The PMC is ultimately responsible for the collective work product of the project and has the final authority over the acceptance of any contribution into the code base. In practice this acceptance is implied by the granting of Committer status, and all Committers are expected to review each other's contributions.

The PMC is tasked with the following formal responsibilities:

• It decides on the bestowal and removal of Committer status. The status of all Committers is reviewed at least annually.

• Resolving any issues of contention or importance (technical or otherwise) that are referred to it by the Committers. Voting, in the rare cases it is necessary, is done by seeking a simple majority of yes votes and 0 no votes on an issue, and then discussion on any objecting votes to attempt to reach consensus.

• Approving software releases, although the PMC may delegate this authority to a component owner.

• Maintaining a Project Roadmap with the agreement of the Consortium Board.

• Providing notice of acceptance to the Consortium Board and/or Operator, when desired, of the work product of a contracted person or firm, Committer or otherwise, if that work is intended for incorporation into the project code base. The author of a contribution, if a PMC member, is required to recuse from such consideration.

The Project Membership page contains the updated list of Committers and PMC members.

The Committer Agreement contains the terms of participation in the project by Committers.

The policy for contributions to the project by both Committers and outside contributors is described on the Contribution Policy page.