Skip to content

GOVERNANCE.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
110 lines (75 loc) · 3.82 KB

GOVERNANCE.md

File metadata and controls

110 lines (75 loc) · 3.82 KB

Governance

Docman — Document Processing Pipeline Effective: 2026 Contact: admin@irantransitionproject.org

Mission Constraint

This project exists to provide a reference implementation and test harness for the Heddle framework's document processing capabilities. All governance decisions must be evaluated against a single test: does this decision serve that mission or does it serve something else?

Decisions that compromise Docman's role as a faithful test of the Heddle framework architecture — by circumventing Heddle abstractions, hard-coding provider-specific logic, or abandoning the pipeline model — are incompatible with the mission and constitute grounds for leadership review.

Ownership Structure

Role Holder Scope
Founder / Copyright Holder Hooman (admin@irantransitionproject.org) Full authority while active
GitHub Org Owner IranTransitionProject org Administrative control
Co-owner (succession backup) To be designated Prevents single-point-of-failure

A designated co-owner with GitHub org Owner rights must be in place at all times. This is not optional. A project with one owner has no succession — it has a single point of failure.

Succession

Voluntary Transfer

The Founder may transfer leadership at any time by:

  1. Identifying a successor who accepts the mission constraint above
  2. Documenting the transfer in this file via a signed commit
  3. Transferring GitHub org ownership
  4. Updating the copyright notice to reflect the new steward

The Founder retains copyright over original contributions. Transferred stewardship covers operational and editorial control, not retroactive copyright reassignment.

Incapacity or Abandonment

If the Founder is unable to act and the project has been inactive for 90+ days:

  1. The designated co-owner assumes interim stewardship
  2. Interim steward documents the assumption in this file
  3. A successor search begins within 30 days of assumption

Succession Criteria

A successor must:

  • Accept the mission constraint without reservation
  • Commit to maintaining the project as a Heddle framework consumer
  • Maintain the MPL 2.0 public license (alternative licensing rights revert to the copyright holder and do not automatically transfer)

Licensing

Default: All source code in this repository is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. See LICENSE for terms.

Alternative licensing: The copyright holder may grant alternative licensing arrangements to specific parties (e.g., organizations with copyleft restrictions). Such arrangements:

  • Are granted in writing by the copyright holder only
  • Do not affect the MPL 2.0 terms available to all other parties
  • Require a signed Contributor License Agreement (CLA) from any contributor whose work is included in the alternative-licensed material

Note on succession: Alternative licensing authority belongs to the copyright holder, not the operational steward. A successor who does not hold copyright cannot grant alternative licenses on the Founder's original work without explicit written delegation.

Contributions

All contributors must sign the Contributor License Agreement (CLA) before any pull request is merged. See docs/CONTRIBUTING.md.

The CLA grants the project the right to sublicense contributions, which is necessary to preserve alternative licensing flexibility. It does not transfer copyright ownership — contributors retain copyright over their own work.

Amendments

This document may be amended by the current copyright holder or designated steward via a documented commit to the main branch. All amendments are logged in git history. No amendment may:

  • Remove the mission constraint
  • Eliminate the MPL 2.0 public license
  • Retroactively alter contributor rights under a previously signed CLA