Add a blog post about governance changes

_posts/2026-03-05-evolving-governance.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title:  "Scaling for the Future: Evolving Kroxylicious Governance"
+date:   2026-03-05 00:00:00 +1300
+author: "Tom Bentley"
+author_url: "https://github.com/tombentley"
+categories: 
+---
+
+Hot on the heels of [the release of Kroxylicious 0.19.0]({{ '/blog/kroxylicious-proxy/releases/2026/03/04/release-0_19_0.html' | absolute_url}}) we have some other news to share.
+We are excited to announce a shift in how we manage the project, partly based on the proven model used by the Apache Software Foundation.
+
+We’ve always believed that open-source success is built on transparency, community trust, and a shared vision. 
+The project continues to evolve, and our governance model needs to change with it while ensuring the project remains truly vendor-neutral.
+
+## Decoupling Roles: Introducing Committers and Project Managers
+
+Previously, we relied on a flat "Code Owner" structure. 
+While this worked well in the early days, we realised it was starting to make it harder to scale the project: 
+In order to grow, we are going to need more people able to review and merge contributions. 
+But those people might not always be interested, or able to make a commitment to helping ensure the project’s long term sustainability.
+
+To solve this, we have split these duties into two distinct roles:
+* **Committers** focus on code quality and technical output. 
+  They have write access to our repositories and are responsible for reviewing and merging contributions.
+* **Project Managers** (PMs) focus on the long-term health and sustainability of the project. 
+  They manage the governance files, handle community elections, and ensure the project remains aligned with its goals and deal with our interactions with the CommonHaus foundation.
+
+We hope that by decoupling these roles, we’ll be better able to scale our number of Committers to match our review volume without burdening them with administrative overhead. 
+It creates a clearer pathway for contributors to take on leadership roles based on their interests, whether that’s deep technical work or project stewardship.
+
+These changes are already reflected in our updated [`GOVERNANCE.md`](https://github.com/kroxylicious/.github/blob/main/GOVERNANCE.md).
+
+## Moving Beyond `CODEOWNERS`
+
+We are also moving away from using the GitHub `CODEOWNERS` file to enforce directory-level restrictions. 
+
+We trust Committers to know the limits of their expertise and to pull in the right subject matter experts when a PR spans areas outside their immediate knowledge.
+This reduces the friction of managing complex ownership files and avoids the pitfalls of stale ownership definitions that don't match the current team structure.
+
+## Strengthening Our Organizational Memory
+
+The 90 day history we have on our free Slack workspace is starting to hurt.
+As we grow, we need to ensure that important technical decisions aren't lost.
+
+We think that, even in 2026, mailing lists are the least-worst way to share and record formal technical discussions and voting.
+
+* The barrier to entry is low
+* Everyone gets their own copy of the history, but there's a public archive too
+* Everyone can use familiar tools to organise and search history
+
+These features should ensure our decision-making process is archived, searchable, and publicly verifiable.
+
+So we'd like the [`kroxylicious-dev`][kroxylicious-dev] list to be our primary channel for development discussions, open to all contributors and committers.
+Meanwhile, Slack remains our home for quick, day-to-day conversation.
+
+
+<div class="container mt-4">
+  <div class="table-responsive">
+    <table class="table table-striped table-bordered align-middle">
+      <thead class="table-primary">
+        <tr>
+          <th scope="col" class="w-50">Use <strong>Slack</strong> for...</th>
+          <th scope="col" class="w-50">Use <strong>Mailing Lists</strong> for...</th>
+        </tr>
+      </thead>
+      <tbody>
+        <tr>
+          <td><strong>Quick check-ins</strong> and status updates.</td>
+          <td><strong>Formal technical discussions</strong> and proposals.</td>
+        </tr>
+        <tr>
+          <td><strong>Real-time coordination</strong> on active tasks.</td>
+          <td><strong>Voting</strong> on technical decisions.</td>
+        </tr>
+        <tr>
+          <td><strong>Informal brainstorming</strong> and team culture.</td>
+          <td><strong>Summaries</strong> of major decisions made in Slack.</td>
+        </tr>
+        <tr>
+          <td><strong>Urgent alerts</strong> that need an immediate response.</td>
+          <td><strong>Long-form information</strong> that should be searchable.</td>
+        </tr>
+      </tbody>
+    </table>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+So how do you join the [`kroxylicious-dev`][kroxylicious-dev] list?
+
+* You can read and subscribe to the list on [google groups](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/kroxylicious-dev). 
+* Alternatively, you can subscribe by sending an empty email to [kroxylicious-dev+subscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:kroxylicious-dev+subscribe@googlegroups.com), 
+* and unsubscribe by sending an empty email to [kroxylicious-dev+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:kroxylicious-dev+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com)
+
+The project managers will use a private list, but only for communication that needs to remain private. 
+You can contact them by email to [kroxylicious-pms@googlegroups.com](mailto:kroxylicious-pms@googlegroups.com).
+
+## Building Community Connection
+
+Governance isn't just about documents and voting; it’s about people. 
+We want to ensure that our contributors feel connected to the project's direction and to each other.
+
+To facilitate more direct and synchronous collaboration, we are launching a regular Community Call that anyone can join. 
+
+The Kroxylicious community is spread around the world, and we want to be as inclusive as possible. 
+In particular, we didn't want the meeting to always be in the middle of the night for someone in an unfortunate timezone. 
+To support this, while the meeting cadence is every two weeks, the meeting time will alternate by ±12 hours every other call. 
+But timezones and daylight savings time makes it a bit tricky to describe in a blog post.
+
+You can see the time of upcoming meetings [on the website](https://kroxylicious.io/join-us/community-call/), and add the meeting schedule to your calendar app.
+
+## What’s Next?
+
+We’re excited to continue building Kroxylicious in an environment that is open, inclusive, and built to last. 
+Check out the updated docs and let us know what you think!
+
+[kroxylicious-dev]: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/kroxylicious-dev