Add Governance and code of conduct files

[adebardo]

Now that CNES and GlacioHack are working together to maintain xDEM, it is necessary to propose a governance model to ensure that the current collaboration continues smoothly, and if possible, to increase the number of contributors who would feel reassured with the establishment of a structured working framework.

To this end, we have added two files: one for governance and one for the code of conduct.

These files are inspired by the MVG (Minimum Viable Governance) project https://github.com/github/mvg and https://www.contributor-covenant.org/.

We can use this PR to discuss any changes that need to be made.

[rhugonnet]

Perfect! It looks good to me 🙂

I have two remarks/questions about the Governance file:

• The "Organization's Steering Committee" is mentioned twice, but not defined (I see that https://github.com/github/mvg?tab=readme-ov-file has a special file STEERING_COMMITTEE.md for it). In our case, is it meant to be defined somewhere, or to be removed entirely (given that we have few maintainers, it might be somewhat redundant?),
• We define the list of "Maintainers" from the AUTHORS.md file here (while https://github.com/github/mvg?tab=readme-ov-file as a specific MAINTAINERS.md file). This makes sense, we don't want to duplicate AUTHORS.md in another file! Should we then update/add a header in our AUTHORS.md to make it clear who are the "Maintainers". Right now we have "Development lead", "Contributors", and "Original developers". We could make "Development Lead" be "Maintainers" (which would be the occasion to move CNES/CS there), or keep those three separate and create "Maintainers" as a fourth category?

[adebardo]

Hi!
Thanks for the feedback. I've added the two minimum files recommended by Sébastien. For now, given our small team, the STEERING_COMMITTEE.md would indeed be redundant. However, we can indicate that the maintainers form this committee.

Along the same lines of avoiding having to many files to maintain, adding more sections within the Authors file seems like a good approach. I'll take care of it :)

[duboise-cnes]

Thanks for the work. I think it is a good first "simple" organization and ok for me. Thanks @rhugonnet for the clarification in authors.md, i agree with that. So ok for me to merge, to be tested and updated if something must evolve ;)
Cheers

[adehecq]

Thanks for adding the files and making a first proposition! I think it is fine as it is for now.

But looking at the MVG project, this also raises a few questions/issues, especially regarding the parent organization (currently GlacioHack):

• should we add a governance file and define a steering committee at the organization level? I see that the governance model is slightly different with a vote in case no consensus is found for example.
• in that case, the steering committee should be removed from xdem. The same would also apply to geoutils. A project should only have maintainers and contributors.
• should we do some cleaning in the organization? There are several empty/deprecated repositories.
• should we rename the organization or create a new one?

[duboise-cnes]

Thanks amaury for the review and the questions. For the CNES current study as you know, I would be interesting to have two times:

• converge on this first not perfect governance before the end at xdem level only.
• discuss on more future organization and governance direction (renaming, clean) . It goes with enlargment to not only glaciers, how to structure to other . To be matured... we take the questions internally at CNES and CS and try to generate a future exchange on this.
  Are you okay to pass this PR and put your valid questions on another issue incrementally ?