RFC for moving cross to its own organisation

[adamgreig]

Rendered.

This RFC is for the attention of @rust-embedded/tools who currently maintain the cross crate.

cc cross-rs/cross#574

[reitermarkus]

While not opposed to it, I don't see how moving to another org solves the problem of having too few maintainers. Were any volunteers from cross-rs/cross#574 added to the tools team yet? That seems like the simplest solution to me.

[adamgreig]

They weren't, mainly because it didn't seem fair to have people interested in helping with cross also get signed up for being wg members and getting requested to review svd2rust changes and the like. The hope would be that in a new organisation it can be very quick and easy to add more maintainers and let them control the direction of the project without going through the tools team and wg processes.

And I guess on top of that it's still the case that cross no longer seems like an obvious fit for the embedded WG, though I'm open to being challenged on that front as I've not really used it in anger for anything.

[Emilgardis]

some volunteers [...] could be added [...] and eventually

what does this mean?

[adamgreig]

Sorry, it's quite vaguely worded because I don't know exactly how we'd want this to look. I expect we'd initially add some volunteers from that call-for-help thread (after chatting to them of course) who could review and merge PRs, and possibly also publish to crates.io, and then over time expect to grant org ownership too once it's had more time to settle down.

[Emilgardis]

What role is a maintainer ?

[adamgreig]

I mean people with access to merge PRs into the repo, and perform other maintenance tasks like labelling and closing issues etc. Perhaps it should also include publishing.

[Emilgardis]

Is there any work needed to be done before transferring?

I can imagine cutting out some mentions of the Tools Team/EWG in various parts.

Should authors in cargo manifest still mentions EWG? Or can the full field be dropped? (the field is optional in newer rust)

[adamgreig]

Yes, we should update the README to indicate that while the project used to be maintained by the WG, it no longer is. I don't mind about the authors field, perhaps simplest to remove it.

[adamgreig]

@Emilgardis any further thoughts on the comments above? Would you like me to expand on them in the RFC text?

[Emilgardis]

The open discussions I'd want to have resolved, otherwise I have no further comments so far :)

[adamgreig]

@rust-embedded/tools I've updated the PR text to clarify:

• We'll move the repository and no longer be responsible for it (the maintainers of the new organisation will instead); the rest of the plan is just our initial intent but isn't binding on the new organisation, which isn't part of the WG
• Moving will involve updating the README and Cargo.toml
• New maintainers will have write access to the repository

[therealprof]

So this is up for a vote of the @rust-embedded/tools team now.

Please tick your box:

• @adamgreig
• @ryankurte
• @thejpster
• @reitermarkus
• @Emilgardis
• @burrbull
• @therealprof

[adamgreig]

@reitermarkus, any further thoughts on this?

[thejpster]

Are we quorate?

[reitermarkus]

No further thoughts from me.

[adamgreig]

OK, thanks for the input, everyone. I'll go ahead and merge this and then transfer cross over.

bors merge

[bors]

Build succeeded:

• dummy

[adamgreig]

@rust-embedded/tools; I've invited each of you to be an owner in the new organisation as per this PR; there's no obligation to accept or be involved with cross, so please feel free to accept or decline the invitation as you wish :)