---
title: "Charter for the Source Management Team"
sidenav: about
---

= Charter for the Source Management Team

The Source Manager Team (srcmgr) is a group of FreeBSD developers charged with overseeing the development of the FreeBSD base system source tree and products generated from the source tree.
The goal of this team is providing base system artifacts and releases that are functional, stable, and performant.
The base system is built from the src git repository and includes the kernel, boot loader, and userland.

== Responsibilities

To support this goal, the srcmgr team has the following responsibilities (_Inline notes in italics are descriptive but not binding_):

* Approve new and returning commit bits for the source repositories.
* Reclaim idle commit bits for the source repositories.
* Define and manage recruiting activities for both new committers and mentors.
  _This includes identifing active contributors who are not yet committers and soliciting mentors for new contributors from existing committers. We can manage any subcomittee that does the recruiting._
* Arbitrate disputes related to the source repository between FreeBSD community members.
* Define and encourage healthy norms for interactions between committers and external contributors.
  _For example, guidelines and best practices for reviewing patches and working with bugmeister@ to develop source-specific bug triage workflows._
* Define the policies for committing changes to the source repository
  _For example, who can merge commits to the repository and when.  This includes explicit authority to revert commits and to enforce freezes, etc. Another example is to define how to maintain policies. This policy will vary by branch._
* Ensure base system artifacts are produced and published.
  _For example, working with re@ to validate release images or ensuring base system packages are published on a timely basis._
* Defining expectations for src commits.
  _For example, which toolchains are supported, required.  Are cross-builds from other platforms required or not.  Which tasks are checked in post-commit CI.  Which breakages are acceptable after commit vs highly discouraged._
* Communicating summaries of activities in line with project norms.
  _For example, publishing monthly or quarterly reports, having open meetings or discussion forums where decisions are made in the open, etc. The exact form of these things evolve over time, so the specific requirements are not spelled out in the charter._
* Work with other parts of the project and the Core Team when coordination is necessary.
* srcmgr MUST maintain clear written policies for each of the chartered responsibilities.

Please see link:../policies/[Source Team Policies] for a complete list of the current policies which have been adopted to help implement these goals.

== Membership

Voting members shall serve terms of one year.
An individual member may serve up to three consecutive terms.
A member will be eligible for an additional three terms after a break of at least one full term (one year).
The team should also include one or more non-voting members ("lurkers") as candidates for future voting members.
Voting members and lurkers shall be chosen by existing voting members of the srcmgr team.
srcmgr must publish changes to its voting and non-voting membership.

The initial team shall be selected by the Core Team.  At its discretion, the Core Team may alter the membership.

== Authority

The srcmgr team operates under the authority of the FreeBSD Core Team.
This charter is valid until such time as it is modified or revoked by the Core Team; any changes to this charter must be approved by the Core Team.
The Core Team will oversee srcmgr and arbitrate disputes involving it as necessary.
