DecisionMaking

Project proposals and decision making

Decisions are made by the OpenTripPlanner community through a proposal and informal voting process on the project mailing list.

While we do vote on proposals, we don't vote in a strict democratic sense, but rather as a way to easily register opinions, foster discussion, and move toward consensus. When responding to a proposal, we use the following system:

• +1 - I support this

• +0 - I don't have a strong opinion, but I'm not opposed

• -0 - I'm against this, but I don't have a good alternative / I'm not willing to do the work on the alternative / I won't block

• -1 - Blocking no (note: in general and when appropriate, this requires the blocker to propose something else that he/she would help put the time into doing)

A proposal does not need to be a formal or lengthy document; it can and should be a straightforward recommendation of what you want to do, ideally with a brief explanation for why it's a good idea.

Proposals are just messages sent to the list and can be as simple as "I think we should do X because of Y and Z. Deadline for response is 10/29. Assuming I've heard no blocking votes by then, I'll go ahead." Note that you should make sure to include a deadline by which you will go ahead and do what you're proposing if you don't hear any blocking responses. In general, you should leave at least 72 hours for people to respond. This is not a hard-and-fast rule and you should use your best judgement in determining how far in the future the deadline should be depending on the magnitude of the proposal and how much it will effect the overall project and the rest of the community.

Back to Developers Guide