In addition to the software work on Jupyter that is coordinated through the Software Steering Council (SSC), much of the project’s work expands beyond software. Examples include code of conduct incident response, diversity and inclusion, operations, legal, fundraising, events, community, and marketing. Standing Committees and Working Groups carry out this non-software related work of the project by delegation from the Executive Council.
The primary difference between Standing Committees and Working Groups is that Standing Committees are intended to be permanent; they are only created and dissolved by a joint vote of the EC and SSC. In contrast, Working Groups can be created and dissolved by the EC acting alone.
A list of Standing Committees and Working Groups can be found here.
Standing Committees and Working Groups both:
- Have a well-defined council which makes decisions using the Jupyter Decision-Making Guide.
- Follow the council appointment process outlined in their charter.
- Are managed by, report to, and are accountable to the Executive Council.
- Have charters that define their scope and purpose. Within those charters, they are free to make decisions autonomously.
- Carry out their functions in a manner that is as open and transparent as possible given the unique dimensions of their charter.
- Maintain a public GitHub repository with basic information (council members, charter, public meetings, SSC representative, etc.) for purposes of transparency and consistency.
Standing Committees have the following unique properties:
- Standing Committees focus on areas critical to the governance of the project and thus are established and dissolved by joint decisions of the SSC and EC.
- Changes to the charters of Standing Committees are approved by joint decisions of the SSC and EC.
- Standing Committees always have a representative on the SSC, elected by the Standing Committee Council.
- The EC is responsible for ensuring the Standing Committees are appropriately resourced at all times.
Working Groups have the following unique properties:
- Working Groups are established and dissolved by decisions of EC.
- Changes to the charters of Working Groups are approved by the EC.
- Working Groups, by default, do not have representatives on the SSC.
- Optionally, the EC may nominate certain Working Groups to have a representative on the SSC. Once approved by the SSC to have a representative on the SSC, Working Group councils elect and maintain their representative to the SSC using the Decision-Making Guide.