Board Decision: Governance and Change Management in the TYPO3 Policy Repository 

Start of voting

9 July 2026

Voting deadline

16 July 2026

Decision owner

Martin Helmich

Decision status

✅ Accepted (provisionally)

Attendance and voting 

Board Member Attendance Vote
Olivier Dobberkau Asynchronous ✅ Yes
Stefan Busemann Not attended ⏳ Pending
Jochen Weiland Asynchronous ✅ Yes
Martin Helmich Asynchronous ✅ Yes
Jana Höffner Asynchronous ✅ Yes
Thomas Maroschik Asynchronous ✅ Yes

Decision description 

Facts/Problem 

In the course of the typo3.org relaunch, the TYPO3 Association bylaws and policies were moved to the https://github.com/TYPO3-Documentation/Policy git repository. However, no approval or change management policies exist for this repository.

This is particularly critical as there are a number of policy and bylaw changes in the coming that may attract broad community interest.

Objective 

This proposal aims to provide a clear change management process for TYPO3 Association policies and bylaws, happening in the public and giving broad opportunities for member participation.

Obligations to cooperate 

  • TYPO3 Documentation Team, as they own the policy repository
  • TYPO3 Association Board and Business Control Committee, as this change management process requires their active participation

Financial and human resources impacts 

None.

Resolution/Petitum 

The board resolves to adopt the workflow proposed in Proposal for Governance and Change Management in the TYPO3 Policy Repository.

This workflow includes:

Rules for Ownership and Changes

  • Owner:

    • Decisions of ownership are handled by the TYPO3 Association Board.
    • All policy documents within the repository must specify an owner on line just below the H1 title. It must state who can make changes to it (i.e. “owner”). For example: “This policy can only be changed through a decision by: TYPO3 Association General Assembly.”
    • The TYPO3 Association General Assembly can be represented by Members of the TYPO3 Association Board.

  • Types of changes and approval: Two types of changes are possible in the decision and review process. No changes can be made to the repository files unless they are handled correctly as one, and only one, of these change types:

    • Formal changes: Changes to the meaning of the text. These require formal decisions by the owner in accordance with the owner's decision-making rules. Merging changes require 2 PR approvals by representatives of the owner.

      For changes to the Bylaws, this means that each change must be substantiated by a vote of the General Assembly. When changing the Bylaws via a PR, this PR must only be merged if there is a General Assembly protocol that recorded the required vote for this change.

    • Maintenance changes: Changes that do not change the meaning of the text. For example, correcting a link that is currently leading to a 404 page. These do not require formal decisions by the owner, but PRs must be approved by 1 representative of the owner.

  • Documenting decisions: All changes must be merged as PRs containing documentation of the decision authorizing the change.

    • Formal changes: A separate decision document must be included in the PR. The document should conform to the owner's decision documentation rules. For example, a TYPO3 Association Board decision to change the Reimbursement Regulations can be placed in the Documentation/Association/Board/Decisions folder.
    • Maintenance changes: These change decisions can be documented in the commit message.

Discarded alternatives 

  • Move policy and bylaws back into the typo3.org TYPO3 instance. Discarded because Git and GitHub provide better change tracking and governance possibilities.

Attachments 

None

Comments 

None