Transition: Bootstrapping Executive Council and New Governance

Transition: Bootstrapping Executive Council and New Governance#

Note

This document outlines how Project Jupyter transitioned to a new governance model and formed an initial Executive Council in December 2022.

Scope and overview#

This document describes the process of creating the initial Executive Council (EC) that will replace the current Steering Council and BDFL, and the timelines of when related governing bodies, such as the Software Steering Council (SSC), all become active, resulting in a complete transition from Jupyter’s existing governance (as of June 2022) into a new model.

Mechanics#

To create the initial Executive Council, we will use the following process:

  • Fernando Pérez, Brian Granger, and Afshin Darian will start as initial members of the EC and will serve two-year terms. Their initial appointment does not count towards the running total of members elected by the EC or Union of Councils (UofC).

  • The collation and maintenance of the list of all eligible candidates and voters in Executive Council elections is the responsibility of the EC.

  • In the first EC election, three additional people will be elected and will serve one-year terms. Two of these will be selected by the UofC election, and one will be elected by the initial EC (i.e., Fernando, Brian, and Darian).

  • The dates of the EC nomination, election, and term start will be determined after this document is accepted, and are intended to be as soon as logistically possible.

At the start of the EC term, the SSC will also be officially recognized and the Jupyter Steering Council will be dissolved. This completes the transition to the new governance model.

Implications/questions#

  • The choice of Fernando, Brian, and Darian as initial members is allocated by the current Steering Council upon voting for this document. This is why their initial membership does not count towards the running election tally of later members chosen either by the EC or the UofC.

  • The special-case constraint on having three new members serve only a 1-year term is intended to ensure that, moving forward, there’s a regular 2-year term default with 50% of the EC seats becoming vacant every year.

  • Subprojects are highly encouraged to form their council and select their SSC representative as soon as possible, since Subproject council members participate in the EC election as members of the UofC.

  • The initial three members (Fernando, Brian, Darian) of the EC will run an election for the remaining three members of the EC as stated above, in parallel with Subprojects selecting SSC representatives, to avoid any unnecessary delays.