Decision: "Repotting" `earthaccess` to a new organization by mfisher87 · Pull Request #1047 · earthaccess-dev/earthaccess

mfisher87 · 2025-07-08T18:30:01Z

This decision record is about "repotting" (transferring) earthaccess to a new organization. See the decision record in the diff for motivation, considerations, and options.

Votes:

voter	voted for option.. (with link to vote)
@mfisher87	2 - repot to new organization `earthaccess-dev`
@andypbarrett	2 - repot to new organization `earthaccess-dev`
@asteiker	2 - repot to new organization
@betolink	2 - repot to new organization `earthaccess-dev`
@jhkennedy	2 - repot to new organization `earthaccess-dev`
@chuckwondo	2 - repot to new organization (OK with `earthaccess-dev`, but offers other options)
@JessicaS11	2 - repot to new organization
@itcarroll	2 - repot to new organization `earthaccess-dev`
@danielfromearth	2 - repot to new organization `earthaccess-dev`
@Sherwin-14	2 - repot to new organization

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📚 Documentation preview 📚: https://earthaccess--1047.org.readthedocs.build/en/1047/

github-actions · 2025-07-08T18:30:22Z

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asteiker · 2025-08-19T18:52:31Z

@mfisher87 I know we started this up collaboratively at the hackday a few weeks ago and wanted to check in: Were you planning to continue work on this, and/or hoping others can contribute to move this out of a draft state? let me know how I can help support.

mfisher87 · 2025-08-19T19:35:00Z

Glad you followed up, this fell off my radar. We need to convene some deciders and make the final review of this document and decide. I think we've recorded all of the alternatives.

mfisher87 · 2025-08-19T19:35:09Z

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Co-authored-by: Joseph H Kennedy <me@jhkennedy.org> Co-authored-by: danielfromearth <daniel.kaufman@nasa.gov> Co-authored-by: Amy Steiker <47193922+asteiker@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Jessica Scheick <JessicaS11@users.noreply.github.com>

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Co-authored-by: Matt Fisher <mfisher87@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: Joseph H Kennedy <me@jhkennedy.org> Co-authored-by: danielfromearth <daniel.kaufman@nasa.gov> Co-authored-by: Jessica Scheick <JessicaS11@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: pre-commit-ci[bot] <66853113+pre-commit-ci[bot]@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: asteiker <amy.steiker@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: Matt Fisher <3608264+mfisher87@users.noreply.github.com>

mfisher87 · 2026-02-02T19:28:14Z

My vote is for option #2, repotting in a new organization. earthaccess-dev seems fine.

docs/governance/decisions/929-move-repository.md

jhkennedy

I vote for option 2, but I think there's a bit of work still to do to record the decision before I "approve".

docs/governance/decisions/929-move-repository.md

jhkennedy · 2026-02-02T22:33:17Z

docs/governance/decisions/929-move-repository.md

+### Option 2: Move to an independent org, e.g. `earthaccess-dev`.
+
+Pros:
+* Overall benefits described above


We should state these explicitly. Especially since the benefits might differ slightly between (2) and (3)

Would you mind taking a pass at this?

I'll try! Not sure when I'll get to it though...

jhkennedy · 2026-02-02T22:35:28Z

docs/governance/decisions/929-move-repository.md

+* Promoting NASA’s partnerships with other community members based on shared goals, by actively recognizing the critical contributions of those members and increasing transparency and trust.
+* Meeting NASA Open Source Science goals.
+
+Subsequent discussion included positive feedback from ESDIS on the value of earthaccess, and the desire to not disrupt the existing community development and engagement. An outcome of this meeting was to pursue a cross-DAAC proposal for sustained ESDIS funding, retaining the existing community ownership model while enhancing the communication of feature development across the earthaccess community and ESDIS. While inter-community support reduces ESDIS/NASA required support, we acknowledged in the proposal that increased ESDIS funding will also help us sustain the library. Although a proposal draft was developed, ESDIS asked for this effort to be paused in summer 2025. earthaccess is currently listed by ESDIS as an approved, operational Enterprise Solution, and was considered out of scope in broader tool and service convergence activities across other enterprise components. Regardless of the repository migration approach we choose, we will continue acknowledging ESDIS support through our ESDIS-funded contributors and the valuable facilitation role of NASA Openscapes.


An outcome of this meeting was to pursue a cross-DAAC proposal for sustained ESDIS funding, retaining the existing community ownership model while enhancing the communication of feature development across the earthaccess community and ESDIS. While inter-community support reduces ESDIS/NASA required support, we acknowledged in the proposal that increased ESDIS funding will also help us sustain the library. Although a proposal draft was developed, ESDIS asked for this effort to be paused in summer 2025. earthaccess is currently listed by ESDIS as an approved, operational Enterprise Solution, and was considered out of scope in broader tool and service convergence activities across other enterprise components. Regardless of the repository migration approach we choose, we will continue acknowledging ESDIS support through our ESDIS-funded contributors and the valuable facilitation role of NASA Openscapes.

All of this seems like an aside to me when reading through the doc. How does this effect the re-potting decision? What benifit does being an " approved, operational Enterprise Solution" give, and how does that relate to the re-potting decision? etc.

Yeah, good call -- is there an upshot we can distill out of this that may be summarizable in 1 sentence @asteiker ?

I believe we wanted some record of these events but at this point I agree that we don't need to couple this here. What if we simply retain the last sentence?

Co-authored-by: Joseph H Kennedy <me@jhkennedy.org>

mfisher87 · 2026-02-02T23:17:21Z

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docs/governance/decisions/929-move-repository.md

mfisher87 · 2026-02-03T15:48:35Z

Calling for votes! @asteiker @betolink @chuckwondo @JessicaS11 @itcarroll @danielfromearth @Sherwin-14

itcarroll · 2026-02-03T16:49:23Z

Taking the current "cons" for option 2 at face value, I'll vote for 2. If additional "cons" are added by current members of the NSIDC org, my vote could change. So I'm not approving the PR at this time.

@mfisher87 As you're shepherding this decision, do you have thoughts on how we establish the voting rules (i.e. quorum, majority or consensus, timing, etc ...)? Bummer we haven't advanced #1030.

chuckwondo · 2026-02-03T20:22:28Z

I'm okay with earthaccess-dev.

Co-authored-by: Julia Stewart Lowndes <5891909+jules32@users.noreply.github.com>

mfisher87 · 2026-02-03T22:01:46Z

Awesome, I think we're approaching a consensus! Thanks all.

@jhkennedy @itcarroll what do you need to see to approve this PR? Would you submit a review with status "request changes" with some details so we can track it in the PR status?

docs/governance/decisions/929-move-repository.md

asteiker

I vote Option 2.

asteiker · 2026-02-09T16:56:57Z

docs/governance/decisions/929-move-repository.md

+* Promoting NASA’s partnerships with other community members based on shared goals, by actively recognizing the critical contributions of those members and increasing transparency and trust.
+* Meeting NASA Open Source Science goals.
+
+Subsequent discussion included positive feedback from ESDIS on the value of earthaccess, and the desire to not disrupt the existing community development and engagement. An outcome of this meeting was to pursue a cross-DAAC proposal for sustained ESDIS funding, retaining the existing community ownership model while enhancing the communication of feature development across the earthaccess community and ESDIS. While inter-community support reduces ESDIS/NASA required support, we acknowledged in the proposal that increased ESDIS funding will also help us sustain the library. Although a proposal draft was developed, ESDIS asked for this effort to be paused in summer 2025. earthaccess is currently listed by ESDIS as an approved, operational Enterprise Solution, and was considered out of scope in broader tool and service convergence activities across other enterprise components. Regardless of the repository migration approach we choose, we will continue acknowledging ESDIS support through our ESDIS-funded contributors and the valuable facilitation role of NASA Openscapes.


I believe we wanted some record of these events but at this point I agree that we don't need to couple this here. What if we simply retain the last sentence?

jhkennedy · 2026-02-10T01:56:01Z

docs/governance/decisions/929-move-repository.md

+
+1. Local Clones:
+   * According to GitHub [Transferring a repository](https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/creating-and-managing-repositories/transferring-a-repository#whats-transferred-with-a-repository) documentation, "All links to the previous repository location are automatically redirected to the new location. When you use git clone, git fetch, or git push on a transferred repository, these commands will redirect to the new repository location or URL. However, to avoid confusion, we strongly recommend updating any existing local clones to point to the new repository URL. You can do this by using git remote on the command line: `git remote set-url origin NEW_URL`
+   * We will create an "explanation" page in our docs as a historical record and include instructions for updating local clones.


So, is this the decision record? Or a new docs page? Should we do this as part of this PR?

Hmmm. Should instructions for updating local clones be on the top-level README.md, at least for a little while (say, a few months or so)?

@jhkennedy you are reminding me that I need to revisit #1030 ! Outside of that though, I have also been wondering about our overall communication plan to ensure that users know about the move. I don't think we need to describe that here but it is something we should coordinate together. Pulling out a few other relevant notes from our last hackday regarding communication and overall action plan:

Need to add Issues based on the maintenance effort listed in the decision doc.

@mfisher87 thoughts on creating a main repotting Issue with sub-issues to capture each of the user documentation and admin tasks?

Propose new release for the readthedocs updates mentioned in the decision doc, so stable reflects the updates (local clone guidance, contributor updates).

Again @mfisher87, thoughts on this? If we update the top-level README.md as Danny suggests, maybe this isn't as critical?

So, is this the decision record? Or a new docs page? Should we do this as part of this PR?

I think we should create a new docs page for this. E.g. "Explanation - We moved the repository out of the NSIDC org"

Hmmm. Should instructions for updating local clones be on the top-level README.md, at least for a little while (say, a few months or so)?

That seems sensible to me! Let's put it on the checklist in the "Decision" section at the end of the document.

I have also been wondering about our overall communication plan to ensure that users know about the move. I don't think we need to describe that here but it is something we should coordinate together.

I do think that should be part of our checklist at the end of the doc.

thoughts on creating a main repotting Issue with sub-issues to capture each of the user documentation and admin tasks

Love this idea :) Maybe instead of embedding the checklist in the decision doc we just link to this issue.

Propose new release for the readthedocs updates mentioned in the decision doc, so stable reflects the updates (local clone guidance, contributor updates).

Again @mfisher87, thoughts on this? If we update the top-level README.md as Danny suggests, maybe this isn't as critical?

This is something that frustrates me a bit -- stable docs releases are coupled to software releases. I think updating the top-level README / contributing doc is a good way to ensure this information is prominent without having to do a software release in service of the docs.

This is something that frustrates me a bit -- stable docs releases are coupled to software releases. I think updating the top-level README / contributing doc is a good way to ensure this information is prominent without having to do a software release in service of the docs.

This is only because we've bundled docs into this single repo. With earthaccess-dev, we could have docs in an earthaccess-docs repo, and autodoc the latest stable version of earthaccess. The benefit is that it decouples doc updates from software releases, but at the cost of things potentially getting out of sync, as there are two places to update. Though, really, I don't see a problem with just releasing earthaccess more rapidly if if it's just docs-only releases -- just comes down to preference.

But being able to decouple docs from the package is a potential benefit for repotting, since we can't do so easily right now.

Interesting idea. I hadn't thought of that approach before!

Though, really, I don't see a problem with just releasing earthaccess more rapidly if if it's just docs-only releases -- just comes down to preference.

My concern is that with semantic versioning, version numbers have meaning, so doing releases just for docs changes is (for me 🙃) confusing under that system of meaning!

My concern is that with semantic versioning, version numbers have meaning, , so doing releases just for docs changes is (for me 🙃) confusing under that system of meaning!

This is all an aside, but I mean, that's why PEP-440 supports .postN releases -- I like the dev and post extensions of PEP-440 over strict SemVer numbering. You still get the SemVer meaning with the vX.Y.Z, but can also do post releases for things like docs and what not, and can let hatch-vcs and similar provide good development release versions without ever having to hard-code a version number.

I guess so! Maybe now I'm moving the goalposts, but there are still two things I'm uncomfortable with: (1) who might be confused about this; (2) the unnecessary data storage involved with publishing more packages just to update the docs. But yeah, let's punt on this and keep discussing in a different venue :)

JessicaS11 · 2026-02-13T16:05:21Z

Have been out sick, but wanted note my agreeing vote for option 2!

mfisher87 · 2026-02-13T17:16:58Z

It's wonderful to see this strong consensus :)

Sherwin-14 · 2026-02-14T08:01:01Z

Been extremely busy the last couple of months. But I made sure to find time today to cast my vote for Option 2. Better late than never!

mfisher87 · 2026-02-14T17:21:35Z

Thanks @Sherwin-14 ! Good to see you again 😁

mfisher87 · 2026-02-14T20:20:34Z

I added a checklist. What did I miss?

Co-authored-by: Ian Carroll <ian.t.carroll@nasa.gov>

mfisher87 marked this pull request as draft July 8, 2025 18:31

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asteiker mentioned this pull request Sep 30, 2025

Move repo decision record - updates from 9-30 hackday! #1104

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Co-authored-by: Joseph H Kennedy <me@jhkennedy.org> Co-authored-by: danielfromearth <daniel.kaufman@nasa.gov> Co-authored-by: Amy Steiker <47193922+asteiker@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Jessica Scheick <JessicaS11@users.noreply.github.com>

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Include Jessica as a decider

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mfisher87 changed the title ~~Add decision record doc for moving repo~~ Decision: Report earthaccess to a new organization Feb 2, 2026

mfisher87 changed the title ~~Decision: Report earthaccess to a new organization~~ Decision: "Repotting" earthaccess to a new organization Feb 2, 2026

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Rephrase reasons to repot as "cons" of the not-repotting option

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Re-organize docs into top-level user/contributor sections #1212

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Add documentation of the Decision Committee process #1030

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Repot earthaccess to new organization? #1241

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