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Vrui Governance

The Vrui Ogranization develops and deploys open source software for collaborative, 3D data visualization and analysis in a range of VR/XR environemnts.

The software developed and maintained by the Vrui Organization is released under the MIT (or similarly permissive) open source license, developed openly, and hosted in public GitHub repositories under the Vrui: Virtual Reality User Inteface organization. Examples of Project Software include the Vrui Developer Tookit, and the 3D LIDAR Viewer.

The services run by the Vrui Organization consist of the develpment of VR and XR framworkds and applications for collaborative, scientific investegation of 3D data as well as hosting of virtual and phsyical events for the community of Vrui users and develpers as well as the wider VR/XR community.

The Vrui Organization is formally affiliated with the UC Davis DataLab, which serves as its administrative home and includes partners from a range of government, academic, and commercial organizations. Vrui is currently financially supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and through funds provided by the Office of the Provost of the University of California, Davis.

Governance

This section describes the governance and leadership model of The Project.

The foundations of Project governance are:

  • Openness & Transparency
  • Active Contribution
  • Institutional Neutrality

The Project is lead by a Steering Committe that is currently comprised of the following members:

Decision making is conducted by the Steering Committee using a Consensus decision-making process under which participants work together to develop proposals for actions that achieve a broad acceptance. Consensus is reached when everyone in the group assents to a decision. A minority of individual members may choose to "Stand Aside" as part of any decision-making process and concensus will still be determined to have been achieved.

The Vrui Organization Steering Committee is responsible for all business decisions affecting the organization, for developing and maintining the Organization's Development Roadmap as well as the Development Roadmap for the Vrui Toolkit, and for receiving, reviweing, and acting upon any reports of any violations of the Vrui Organization Code of Conduct.

Additional activities undertaken by the Steering Committe include:

  • Make decisions about the overall scope, vision, and direction of The Project.
  • Make decisions about strategic collaborations with other organizations or individuals.
  • Make decisions about community virtual and physical events and activities.
  • Make decisions when regular community discussion doesn’t produce consensus on an issue in a reasonable time frame.
  • Manage and maintain the orginzation's Governance Documentation.

Oversight of Development Roadmaps and acceptance of code pull requests on the remander of the Vrui Organization's applications and repositories is perfomed by a Technical Oversight Committe as described below.

Technical Oversight Committee

The Vrui Organization's Technical Oversight Committee operates under a Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL) model. Vrui's current BDFL is currently Oliver Kreylos, Vrui's inventor and original developer. As Dictator, the BDFL has the authority to make all final technical decisions for the Organization. The BDFL, being benevolent, in practice chooses to defer that authority to the consensus of the community discussion channels and the consensus of the other members of the Technical Oversight Committee (see below). It is expected, and in the past has been the case, that the BDFL will only rarely assert their final authority. Because rarely used, we refer to BDFL’s final authority as a “special” or a “consensus overriding” vote. When it does occur, the BDFL override typically happens in situations where there is a deadlock in the Technical Oversight Committee or if the members of the Technical Oversight Committee asks the BDFL to make a decision on a specific matter. To ensure the benevolence of the BDFL, The Project encourages others to fork the project if they disagree with the overall direction the BDFL is taking. The BDFL is chair of the Technical Oversight Committee and may delegate their authority on a particular decision or set of decisions to any other Council member at their discretion.

When the BDFL determines that the time is appropriate, the BDFL shal nominate a successor, who shall be approved by a majority vote (not concensus) of the Vrui Organization Steering Committee. If the BDFL is unable to appoint a successor, the Steering Committee will appoint a successor with a majority vote.

Technical Oversight Committee Membership

Members of the Techni al Oversight Committee, in addition to the BDFL, are appointed by a concensus decision of the Vrui Organization Steering Committee. Current members of the Technical Oversight Committee include: