Manjaro 2.0
Synopsis
This document covers the organizational, technical, management, and other changes we (the Manjaro Team, et al) like to see applied to the Manjaro Project. The goal of this document is to serve as a point of discussion, and ultimately, once a consensus on its contents and written goals has been reached, as a guide for the organizational restructuring of the Manjaro Project.
Motivation
The Manjaro Project has been declining over the past decade. It managed to sustain a sizable user base, yet it stagnated, lost trust, lost almost all of its contributors, and even became a laughingstock for repeatedly making the same mistakes and never even attempting to address these known issues.
Known issues — such as, for instance, the TLS certificates not being renewed in time — are simply ignored, despite multiple team members taking the initiative and volunteering, or even building tooling, processes and infrastructure to address these issues.
The priorities of the Project leadership do not align with those of the developers and community. The current leadership’s goal is to turn Manjaro into a successful business, and thus far, these attempts have mostly failed. The Manjaro Project is being run as one individual’s personal project, and everything is centralized around this single individual — an individual who refuses to share essential access to both the maintenance of the Project and the supporting infrastructure with the rest of the team.
The Manjaro name is only used for its popularity, and the community is only used as guinea pigs and as unpaid workers, with as a result that the Project is severely suffering. As an example of this, no attempt is being made to acquire any funds for the Project, and the funds owned by the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG company are not being invested into the Project, with as a result that the Project’s funds have now run out, causing Manjaro’s only full-time developer to lose their only source of income.
We want the Manjaro Project to be revitalized, regain respect, attract contributors, and again provide meaningful value to the Open Source community.
We would also like to put our envisioned organizational restructuring into writing right away as we seek to reshape Manjaro into a proper community project, and to have it organized in such a way as to provide flexibility and opportunity instead of blockers.
Implementation
The Project
The Manjaro Project will split off from the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG and will become a non-profit registered association (e.V.).
The Team
The Manjaro Project e.V. will be headed by all current team members with an interest in joining this endeavor, each receiving an equal share of ownership.
Joining the Team
Anyone who wishes to join the Manjaro Project e.V. may apply for a position by finding two or more team members willing to endorse them, and the candidate-members will be judged upon the value they have provided to the Project through their contributions.
Once two or more endorsers have been found, the candidates’ membership will be put up for vote. If none of the team members have any objections, then the candidates may join the Manjaro Project e.V., thereby receiving all of the same rights as all already resident Manjaro Project e.V. members, and they will receive equal ownership of the Manjaro Project e.V..
Under certain circumstances, the Manjaro Project e.V. may seek out the assistance of specialists who may have never made any contributions to the Project, but in this case, the endorsement requirement will be reduced to only one endorser, and the specialist will be judged upon their relevant skills, not upon their contributions to the Project. This process can be started by way of a poll.
Leaving the Team
Team members may leave the Manjaro Project e.V. at any time and for any reason.
Team members may only be removed from the Manjaro Project e.V. after they have had no contact with the team for at least 12 months, and after an effort was made to reestablish contact with the non-responsive team member.
Team members who wish to temporarily suspend any activity in the Manjaro Project e.V. may do so by informing the other team members. Self-suspension will extend the period of non-communication with the other team members from 12 months to 36 months. In addition to this, the suspended team member’s voting rights will be temporarily withheld. A self-suspended team member may remove their suspension at any time by informing the team about their intent to actively partake in the Manjaro Project again, upon which their voting rights will also be restored.
Leadership
The Manjaro Project e.V. will have a flat/decentalized structure instead of a traditional leadership hierarchy. Members may pick up roles or tasks within the Manjaro Project e.V. according to their own interests.
Components of the project will be assigned one or more arbiters. These are senior and respected contributors who will provide leadership and direction for their respective domain(s).
Despite the flat structure, team members are expected to not bypass arbiters and act upon their own accord. For anything of impact they shall seek permission of the arbiter responsible for the relevant domain, some examples being:
- You should not make expenses without the approval of the treasurer.
- You should not represent the Manjaro Project e.V. in any official capacity on social media or at a convention without the approval of the community manager.
Voting and Decision-Making Procedures
Any decisions with a meaningful impact upon the Project due to risk, time, costs, or otherwise, should be voted upon. Any Manjaro Project e.V. member may at any time request a vote upon any topic fitting these criteria. When a poll has been requested, there will be a two-week period in which people can cast their vote from the moment the poll has been opened — high-impact polls are instead allotted four weeks. People who abstained from voting during the specified period will be considered in favor of the final vote.
Any Manjaro Project e.V. team member may request the voting period to be extended by up to four weeks, for any reason. The person who initially requested the poll may withdraw or indefinitely pause their request at any time.
For proposals of a minimal impact, a simple majority is sufficient to make it pass. For polls regarding proposals of a higher impact, more than 70% of all Manjaro Project e.V. members — 5/7 people, the minimum for an e.V., is roughly 71% — should vote in favor for it to pass.
Relationship with the Manjaro Company
The Manjaro GmbH & Co KG will over time effectively become the downstream of the Manjaro Project e.V. The Manjaro Project e.V. will continue to assist the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG to the best of its ability, but only as subordinate to the Manjaro Project e.V.'s work for the community and the Manjaro Linux distribution.
The Manjaro GmbH & Co KG will give the Manjaro Project e.V. an exhaustive license of the Manjaro trademark until the end of 2029, while the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG company retains the right to use the Manjaro trademark for its own products, as long as the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG company’s use of the trademark does not cause any confusion and the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG’s product naming does not conflict with any projects, products and/or services of the Manjaro Project e.V. The Manjaro GmbH & Co KG also declares its willingness to yield the trademark to the Manjaro Project e.V. for the price of one Euro after this initial period.
Assets and Infrastructure
Anything for which the Manjaro Project is its primary user will be handed over to the Manjaro Project e.V. This includes but is not limited to:
- The Manjaro Linux, Manjaro-Kernels and Manjaro-ARM GitHub organizations.
- The self-hosted Manjaro GitLab.
- Any relevant Git repositories.
- The manjaro.org domain.
- The Manjaro forum.
- Relevant Manjaro cloud organizations at for example Hetzner.
- The Manjaro CDN.
- Community finances and donations, such as OpenCollective.
- Any other miscellaneous infrastructure.
The Manjaro GmbH & Co KG may continue utilizing the Manjaro Project e.V infrastructure, but is expected to actively work towards migrating as much as reasonably possible over to the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG’s own infrastructure. Any usage costs made by the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG of the Manjaro Project e.V.'s infrastructure will be fully compensated, including but not limited to storage, bandwidth, cloud, runners and system administration — this could be settled through a negotiated recurring cash payment, rather than by attempting to calculate the exact usage costs.
The Manjaro GmbH & Co KG may continue hosting websites and services under the *.manjaro.org domain. The Manjaro Project e.V. will maintain the manjaro.org website and email, while the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG may choose to use the Manjaro Project e.V.'s email server, and to have an anchor tag to any domain of choice listed in the header and/or footer of the manjaro.org website for redirecting people to the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG 's own website.
The Manjaro GmbH & Co KG may continue to use the Manjaro Project e.V.'s CDN network as long as the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG covers its own usage costs.
The Manjaro Project e.V. will not guarantee the continued functioning of any shared services; services may be taken down or replaced following a Manjaro Project e.V. vote, or as part of normal system maintenance.
Our Resolve
If our mission statement as laid out above goes ignored, and/or if we feel that no serious attempts are made at negotiating an acceptable compromise solution, then:
- Stage 0: We will await a reply within a reasonable timespan without taking any action.
- Stage 1: We will publicly release this document, and a general strike will commence. Nonessential distro and community efforts will be paused.
- Stage 2: We will consider forking and/or leaving the Manjaro Project as it currently stands.
In Support of This Proposal
In alphabetical order:
- Artem Grinev (Developer)
- Ben Guy-Williams (Community Moderator)
- @BG405 (Community Moderator)
- David Smith (Community Assistant)
- Dennis ten Hoove (Developer)
- @dmt (Community Moderator)
- Frank Vandermeiren (Community Manager)
- Furkan Kardame (Developer)
- Jonas Strassel (Developer)
- Koshika Surasena (Community Assistant)
- Lee James (Community Moderator)
- Mark Wagie (Community Manager)
- @Mirdarthos (Community Moderator)
- Roman Gilg (Manjaro Company CTO)
- @scotty65 (Community Assistant)
- Simon Büeler (Developer)
- Stefano Capitani (Developer)
- Todor Uzunov (Community Assistant)
- Tracy Barlow (Community Moderator)
- Trevor Dell (Community Assistant)
- Uwe Schreiber (Community Assistant)
'coz I’m not sure Manjaro 2.0 rolls off the tongue… maybe ‘Manjaro Collective’ - meh.