Code stewardship reviews

Goal: This page outlines a process for dealing with what to do with under-, un-, or not clearly maintained code and services in use in Wikimedia “production.”

Why: New code (features, services, infrastructure) is deployed to Wikimedia production frequently. This is great! Our users get new features, our developers get new services, and generally everyone is aware of the tradeoffs of maintaining something new. Sadly, the world changes over time; the underlying platform may evolve, security patches need to be applied, the hardware may need to be decommissioned/refreshed, institutional knowledge can get lost, new services make others redundant, etc....

What: Below is a method to identify, prioritize the severity of, review, and potentially sunset or re-invest in inadequately maintained code; focusing on the decision-making process. The mechanics of sunsetting will vary based on when and what is being sunset. The owners of that sunsetting will be jointly determined by the Wikimedia Foundation's CTO and CPO.

Process
tl;dr: Components are proposed and a rubric is filled out, based on that rubric the Release Engineering Team adds it to a prioritized list, that list is submitted to the CTO/CPO on a once per quarter basis, as needed.
 * 1) Propose a project to evaluate some code or service as a sunsetting candidate.
 * 2) How: Create a task in the #code-stewardship-reviews Phabricator project with, at minimum, the name of the thing, links to repository/documentation pages, and any relevant initial/free form discussion of sunset worthiness.
 * 3) For example: you use a service that has no clear active maintainer and that service is starting to degrade
 * 4) Projects can be proposed by anyone at any time.
 * 5) Review the project.
 * 6) How: The rubric (see below) will be filled out in the public Phabricator task.
 * 7) This can be done by anyone with an interest to do so. Additionally, the Release Engineering Team will also be working through some high priority products/services.
 * 8) Who: All strongly-related stakeholders must be notified. This includes (where identifiable): current/past maintainers or major-code contributors, current highly-active users of the project (at the primary relevant talkpage and/or mailing list).
 * 9) Documentation: There will be a wiki page listing all completed reviews.
 * 10) Upon completion of the review, the Release Engineering Team will add it to a prioritized list.
 * 11) Note: The Release Engineering Team can decide to not put something on the prioritized list and instead work with any relevant teams/potential owners directly.
 * 12) Submission to the CTO/CPO for review and consideration
 * 13) This happens once per quarter on an as-needed basis, with any that need to be addressed in time for the Annual Plan to be submitted at least 6 weeks prior to the deadline for Annual Plan program draft proposals
 * 14) A 3 week community consultation period will begin at the same time (to be completed at least 1 month prior to AP program drafts deadline) for components that could be potentially sunset.
 * 15) The consultation is to increase awareness of the discussion and to get any remaining feedback. This is not a vote nor a consensus making exercise.
 * 16) The CPO and CTO will jointly decide what to do with the components on the prioritized list (eg: funding the sunsetting or ongoing maintenance of the component, and incorporate into the Annual Plan).
 * 17) Delegation of the details of this will go to a relevant Product Manager or similar.
 * 18) This is the point at which considerations of fit to the strategic direction and core mission are assessed.
 * 19) NOTE: if circumstances arise where something needs to be reviewed outside of the Annual Planning process then it is still submitted to the CTO/CPO and they will be responsible for any changes to priorities.

Rubric
All entries in the rubric could be augmented with commentary that clarifies/explains, especially for the pure numbers focused entries.

Note: A purely numerical decision will not be made on the below items. It is a part of a holistic decision making process.
 * Entry in Developers/Maintainers with:
 * WMF Team
 * Maintainer (non-WMF team)
 * In-training
 * Number, severity, and age of known and confirmed security issues
 * Was it a cause of production outages or incidents? List them.
 * Does it have sufficient hardware resources for now and the near future (to take into account expected usage growth)?
 * Is it a frequent cause of monitoring alerts that need action, and are they addressed timely and appropriately?
 * When it was first deployed to Wikimedia production
 * Usage statistics based on audience(s) served
 * Changes committed in last 1, 3, 6, and 12 months
 * Reliance on outdated platforms (e.g. operating systems)
 * Number of developers who committed code in the last 1, 3, 6, and 12 months
 * Number and age of open patches
 * Number and age of open bugs
 * Number of known dependencies?
 * Is there a replacement/alternative for the feature? Is there a plan for a replacement?

Sources of data for the rubric:

 * https://wikimedia.biterg.io/
 * Community metrics

Release Engineering Team

 * Is the owner of the process, the prioritized list, and submission to the CTO and CPO.
 * The primary individual within Release Engineering owning the process and list, will be the Technical Debt Program Manager

Senior Leadership of Audiences and Technology

 * Reviews the prioritized list in time for Annual Plan draft programs submission deadline
 * Reviews exceptional cases as needed

FAQ

 * Is this process the only way that things should be sunset at the Foundation?
 * No. For instance, a product team trying out experiments should not be forced into this process to stop an experiment. Additionally, migrating to a new tool or product (and deprecating the older) is not inherently covered by this.
 * The purpose of this process is to address the forgotten products and services.
 * Should there be an "owner by default" (eg: all “user facing” things are to be decided/sunset by Audiences)?
 * With regards to the decision making: That would be the Release Engineering Team.
 * With regards to the actual sunsetting actions: That would be decided by the CTO/CPO.
 * What about components owned by the community (both funded and non-funded teams/individuals)?
 * A component being owned by, for instance, a completely volunteer developer is not an inherently a negative trait. All ownership qualities will be assessed alongside other parts of the rubric.
 * At what point to involve community and get input?
 * Note: All of the process is public (on Phabricator) by design except for the CTO/CPO consultation deliberation.
 * The explicit wider community consultation happens during the CTO/CPO review (see step 4 in the process).
 * What should/can we do differently as an organization to reduce the number of future sunsetting decisions or accrual of new technical debt?
 * This is out of scope of this working group and process, but a very important question that should be answered.
 * See also: the Technical Debt SIG and the Code Health Group.