Meridian Constitutional Kernel is maintained by its founding author (Son Nguyen The) as benevolent dictator for life (BDFL) during the early project phase.
This is practical, not ideological. A small project with one active maintainer should not pretend to have a committee.
Lazy consensus. If a PR is clearly correct and passes CI, the maintainer merges it.
Maintainer review required. Discussion in the PR or a linked issue.
Requires an issue discussion before implementation. The maintainer makes the final call but will explain reasoning publicly.
As the project grows, the governance model will evolve:
- Current — BDFL with community input via issues and PRs
- 3+ regular contributors — Add committer roles with write access to specific areas (e.g., economy layer, workspace UI, docs)
- Established community — Move to a maintainer council model with documented decision process
Contributors who demonstrate consistent, high-quality contributions will be invited to take on maintainer responsibilities.
This project is governed by its own primitives. The kernel's concepts of authority, accountability, and transparency apply to the project itself:
- All significant decisions leave an artifact (issue, PR, or commit)
- Authority to merge is earned through contribution, not title
- The audit trail (git history) is the project's court record
All participants are expected to follow the Code of Conduct.
Project maintainer: [email protected]