core (meta)
According to current documents, the RFC process is required to make "substantial" changes to the Rust distribution. It is currently lightweight, but lacks a definition for the Rust distribution. This RFC aims to amend the process with a both broad and clear definition of "Rust distribution," while still keeping the process itself in tact.
The motivation for this change comes from the recent decision for Crates.io to affirm its first come, first serve policy. While there was discussion of the matter on a GitHub issue, this discussion was rather low visibility. Regardless of the outcome of this particular decision, it highlights the fact that there is not a clear place for thorough discussion of policy decisions related to the outermost parts of Rust.
To remedy this issue, there must be a defined scope for the RFC process. This definition would be incorporated into the section titled "When you need to follow this process." The goal here is to be as explicit as possible. This RFC proposes that the scope of the RFC process be defined as follows:
This definition explicitly does not include:
The only particular drawback would be if this definition is too narrow, it might be restrictive. However, this definition fortunately includes the ability to amend the RFC process. So, this could be expanded if the need exists.
The alternative is leaving the process as is. However, adding clarity at little to no cost should be preferred as it lowers the barrier to entry for contributions, and increases the visibility of potential changes that may have previously been discussed outside of an RFC.
Are there other things that should be explicitly included as part of the scope of the RFC process right now?