doc/accords/README.md

   1 FRR accords
   2 ===========
   3
   4
   5 This directory contains some text documents with "accords" agreed upon by the
   6 FRR community.  The idea here is that by passing text documents through the
   7 PR/review process, consensus for work items, design decisions, etc. can be
   8 established and documented.  They can also be changed later by followup PRs if
   9 consensus shifts.  This is intended to reduce friction, and provide more
  10 transparency for newcomers & less frequent contributors.
  11
  12 Examples of things that could go here:
  13
  14 - agreement on how to fix some deeper-seated existing shortcoming in FRR that
  15   might take some time to fix, to get consensus before putting time into it.
  16
  17 - larger design (especially system/package integration) decisions that are not
  18   immediately tangible to the code.
  19
  20 - scoping decisions, particularly negative (i.e. we decided at some point that
  21   FRR is not the right place for something) - these are otherwise lost in some
  22   ancient closed PR, and some new contributor might be unaware and waste time.
  23
  24 Files in this directory are not formatted in any specific way and not rendered
  25 into documentation.  They're intended to be read with your code editor of
  26 choice.
  27
  28 To avoid misunderstandings, there is one "rule" about wording:  the consensus
  29 actual is worded with "will", "going to", "is" - this reflects the idea that
  30 when the PR is merged, it *is* community consensus.  Words like "should",
  31 "would" or "might" should be limited to context and reference that is provided
  32 as rationale for the consensus.