.. _governance:

Lightning Governance
####################

This document describes governance processes we follow in developing PyTorch Lightning.

Persons of Interest
*******************

.. _governance_bdfl:

BDFL
----
Role: All final decisions related to Lightning.

- William Falcon (`williamFalcon <https://github.com/williamFalcon>`_) (Lightning founder)

Maintainers
-----------
- Adrian Wälchli (`awaelchli <https://github.com/awaelchli>`_)
- Carlos Mocholí (`carmocca <https://github.com/carmocca>`_)
- Jirka Borovec (`Borda <https://github.com/Borda>`_)
- Justus Schock (`justusschock <https://github.com/justusschock>`_)


Emeritus Maintainers
--------------------
- Ethan Harris (`ethanwharris <https://github.com/ethanwharris>`_) (Torchbearer founder)
- Nicki Skafte (`SkafteNicki <https://github.com/SkafteNicki>`_)
- Thomas Chaton (`tchaton <https://github.com/tchaton>`_)


Alumni
------
- Akihiro Nitta (`akihironitta <https://github.com/akihironitta>`_)
- Ananth Subramaniam (`ananthsub <https://github.com/ananthsub>`_)
- Danielle Pintz (`daniellepintz <https://github.com/daniellepintz>`_)
- Jeff Ling (`jeffling <https://github.com/jeffling>`_)
- Jeff Yang (`ydcjeff <https://github.com/ydcjeff>`_)
- Jeremy Jordan (`jeremyjordan <https://github.com/jeremyjordan>`_)
- Kaushik Bokka (`kaushikb11 <https://github.com/kaushikb11>`_)
- Kushashwa Ravi Shrimali (`krshrimali <https://github.com/krshrimali>`_)
- Lezwon Castelino (`lezwon <https://github.com/lezwon>`_)
- Matthew Painter (`MattPainter01 <https://github.com/MattPainter01>`_) (Torchbearer founder)
- Nate Raw (`nateraw <https://github.com/nateraw>`_)
- Nic Eggert (`neggert <https://github.com/neggert>`_)
- Ota Jasek (`otaj <https://github.com/otaj>`_)
- Peter Yu (`yukw777 <https://github.com/yukw777>`_)
- Roger Shieh (`s-rog <https://github.com/s-rog>`_)
- Rohit Gupta (`rohitgr7 <https://github.com/rohitgr7>`_)
- Sean Narenthiran (`SeanNaren <https://github.com/SeanNaren>`_)
- Siyu Wang (`four4fish <https://github.com/four4fish>`_)
- Teddy Koker (`teddykoker <https://github.com/teddykoker>`_)
- Tullie Murrell (`tullie <https://github.com/tullie>`_)


Project Management and Decision Making
**************************************

The decision what goes into a release is governed by the maintainers of ``lightning.pytorch``.
Whenever possible, discussion happens publicly on GitHub and includes the whole community.
For controversial changes, it is mandatory to seek consultation from :ref:`governance_bdfl` for a final decision.
When a consensus is reached, maintainers assign milestones and labels to the issue and/or pull request
and start tracking the development. It is possible that priorities change over time.

Commits to the project are exclusively to be added by pull requests on GitHub and anyone in the community is welcome to
review them. However, reviews submitted by
`code owners <https://github.com/Lightning-AI/lightning/blob/master/.github/CODEOWNERS>`_
have higher weight and it is necessary to get the approval of code owners before a pull request can be merged.
Additional requirements may apply case by case.