CONTRIBUTING.md ahead of move of repo to XRPLF

[RichardAH]

High Level Overview of Change

Add a CONTRIBUTING.md ahead of moving the repository to the XRP Ledger Foundation.

If you are listed as a maintainer and do not wish to be listed please comment.

Suggestions / changes welcome.

[nbougalis]

This looks good and I personally don't want to bikeshed too much on this; even if there are improvements that could be made, they could be done in a separate PR, but a CONTRIBUTING.md is needed and has been missing for a long time.

Two brief comments (food for thought, really): consider whether some of the docs under docs/ should be linked here.

I know that @wojake took a swipe at this with PR #3955, and that spurred me to also tackle this as well. Not suggesting either of those are better (mine certainly isn't; it's overly full of emojis! 🤮), but I decided to link those previous efforts here for inspiration.

👍 from me, as is.

[wojake]

Looks way more simple and informative, LGTM. Thank you 👍

[nbougalis]

I'm following up here but not because I think we need to refine this further; as I said during my review, this looks good to me, especially as a first step.

But I suspecthope that this will be a living document, and so with that in mine, I wanted to link Bitcoin's CONTRIBUTING.md, which is more fleshed out (but also not that different) here as a guidepost for future improvements.

[RichardAH]

It's definitely intended to be improved / a living document. I think the main focus at the moment is getting the repo into the foundation ASAP, and further policy refinements can be made after

[wojake]

I wanted to link Bitcoin's CONTRIBUTING.md

Please consider adding a "decision making" process section in this file's initial commit.

I've had a hard time finding the right people to peer review my material in the past, I don't know how hard and lengthy of a process it is to peer review code which configures a decentralized payment network, so I leave this decision to Richard and the others.

Bitcoin Core's CONTRIBUTING.md copy looks good to me as a starting point, hopefully we'll tweak it as we progress.

[nbougalis]

I wanted to link Bitcoin's CONTRIBUTING.md

Please consider adding a "decision making" process section in this file's initial commit.

I've had a hard time finding the right people to peer review my material in the past, I don't know how hard and lengthy of a process it is to peer review code which configures a decentralized payment network, so I leave this decision to Richard and the others.

It's hard to know who the right person to review code is. Again, looking at Bitcoin, they have a file that lists reviewers with expertise in the various parts of the code. It would be good to think about adopting this too.

Generally, it's hard to know how long a review takes. It's a process, and it's not always easy or clean and it's rarely pleasant. Even @JoelKatz once complained that he's having a hard time getting his code to pass code review. And that is not necessarily a bad thing, as long the review process is objective.

Bitcoin Core's CONTRIBUTING.md copy looks good to me as a starting point, hopefully we'll tweak it as we progress.

While that part of the contribution guidelines addresses something different, in reading through your comment I did have a thought that I wanted to raise.

@RichardAH, I wholeheartedly agree with your comment that "the main focus" should be on "getting the repo into the foundation ASAP, and further policy refinements can be made after." However, I think that there's a small change we should consider adding now rather than later:

I'd change the section about maintainers to include a process for adding new and removing existing maintainers:

Maintainers

Maintainers are ecosystem participants with elevated access to the repository and are able to push new code, make decision on whether a release should be made, etc.

Process

New maintainers can be proposed by two existing maintainers, subject to a vote by a quorum of the existing maintainers. A minimum of 50% support and a 50% participation is required. In the event of a tie vote, the addition of the new maintainer will be rejected.

Existing maintainers can resign or, be subject to a vote for removal at the behest of two existing maintainers. A minimum of 60% support and a 50% participation is required. The XRP Ledger Foundation will have the ability, for cause, to initiate the removal of an existing maintainer and such a request is not subject to a vote.

Existing Maintainers

• JoelKatz (Ripple)
• Manojsdoshi (Ripple)
• N3tc4t (XRPL Labs)
• Nikolaos D Bougalis (Ripple)
• Nixer89 (XRP Ledger Foundation)
• RichardAH (XRPL Labs + XRP Ledger Foundation)
• Seelabs (Ripple)
• Silkjaer (XRP Ledger Foundation)
• WietseWind (XRPL Labs + XRP Ledger Foundation)
• Ximinez (Ripple)

[intelliot]

Just some minor suggestions; looks good overall

[nbougalis]

Recommend renaming commit:

Create CONTRIBUTING.md, list maintainers and outline repo policies