Merge #590

590: RFC for moving cross to its own organisation r=adamgreig a=adamgreig

[Rendered](https://github.com/rust-embedded/wg/blob/cross-rfc/rfcs/0590-new-cross-org.md).

This RFC is for the attention of `@rust-embedded/tools` who currently maintain the `cross` crate.

cc cross-rs/cross#574

Co-authored-by: Adam Greig <[email protected]>

Author: bors[bot]

rfcs/0590-new-cross-org.md

@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
+- Feature Name: new_cross_org
+- Start Date: 2021-12-06
+- RFC PR: [#590](https://github.com/rust-embedded/wg/pull/590)
+
+# Summary
+[summary]: #summary
+
+Move the `cross` repository to a new GitHub organisation `cross-rs`,
+with volunteers from the current Tools team as initial owners of the new
+organisation, to continue development of `cross` outside of the working group.
+
+# Motivation
+[motivation]: #motivation
+
+Currently the working group is responsible for maintaining
+[`cross`](https://github.com/rust-embedded/cross), a popular tool for
+cross-compiling Rust projects to different targets. While it was initially also
+useful for embedded development, it's no longer especially useful for standard
+embedded use (since Rust natively supports many popular targets), but has
+become popular for other use cases.
+
+Because it's no longer widely used for embedded, it has not received much
+maintenance from the embedded WG, with the last release over a year ago
+and a number of issues and PRs left open.
+
+We've previously asked for help with new maintainers [in this
+thread](https://github.com/rust-embedded/cross/issues/574) and received a
+positive response, but it doesn't seem appropriate to require these new
+maintainers to join an existing WG team and no action has been taken to
+bring any of the volunteers into the organisation.
+
+Essentially, the WG does not have the maintenance bandwidth to keep on top
+of `cross`, but its user community hopefully does.
+
+# Detailed design
+[design]: #detailed-design
+
+We transfer the `cross` repository to a new `cross-rs` organisation (created in
+advance of writing this RFC to ensure name availability). Volunteers from the
+existing Tools team will be added as owners to the new organisation, which is
+otherwise a separate entity from the working group. The repository's README
+will be updated to reflect its new organisation and the crate's `authors` field
+updated to remove the Tools team. The WG will maintain the default GitHub
+redirect to help existing users and prevent breaking old links.
+
+At this point the working group is no longer responsible for the new
+organisation or the `cross` project; the rest of this plan details the
+subsequent intentions for initial setup.
+
+It's intended that additional volunteers from outside the WG will be added as
+maintainers, with PR approval and write acess to the repository, and a new team
+in that organisation created and given publish rights to crates.io.
+
+The new organisation and moved repository would continue the WG's commitment to
+upholding the Rust project code of conduct, and having some existing Tools team
+members as the initial maintainers provides continuity of ownership and
+oversight as the new project gets underway.
+
+Currently cross uses Azure Pipelines for CI and the dockerhub container
+registry for container images, but it is envisioned this will swap to GHA
+and GHCR, which means CI allowances and authorisation will be provided through
+the new GitHub organisation. The current status of the Azure authentication
+details are unknown, and the dockerhub team is beyond the free limit, so
+continuing with those providers is not anticipated.
+
+# Drawbacks
+[drawbacks]: #drawbacks
+
+Current users of cross rely on the WG to provide a reliable, stable, and
+trustworthy tool, and abandoning it to a new organisation could betray that
+trust. However, the maintenance level today is insufficient to provide the
+desired tool quality and unlikely to change significantly in the near future.
+By populating the new organisation initially with the existing maintainers,
+continuity of ownership is provided.
+
+# Alternatives
+[alternatives]: #alternatives
+
+Instead of creating a new organisation, we could:
+
+* Create a new team inside the working group and have that team manage cross,
+  adding new volunteers to the new team. However, this means the new volunteers
+  who are only interested in cross must become WG members too, and the WG must
+  continue to maintain a tool that is no longer especially relevant to
+  embedded.
+* Continue with just the Tools team maintaining cross, potentially adding new
+  volunteers to the Tools team. This is pretty much the status quo, so does
+  not resolve the current maintenance problems.
+
+# Unresolved questions
+[unresolved]: #unresolved-questions
+
+None at this time.