add experimental protocols and their requirements

these have a lower bar to clear for inclusion and are intended to
promote rapid development with greater community involvement

Signed-off-by: Mike Blumenkrantz <michael.blumenkrantz@gmail.com>

GOVERNANCE.md

@@ -74,6 +74,12 @@ standardization.
 5. The "ext" namespace is established as a general catch-all for protocols that
    fit into no other namespace.
 
+#### 2.1.1 Experimental protocol namespacing
+
+1. Experimental protocols begin with the "xx" namespace and do not include any relation
+   to namespaces specified in section 2.1.
+2. Namespacing of experimental protocols is determined upon promotion.
+
 ### 2.2. Protocol inclusion requirements
 
 1. All protocols found in the "xdg" and "wp" namespaces at the time of writing
@@ -95,6 +101,13 @@ standardization.
    by at least one member project. For the purposes of this clause, reviews from
    the individual protocol author(s) are disregarded.
 
+#### 2.2.1 Experimental protocol inclusion requirements
+
+1. Experimental protocols must be valid XML which can be consumed by wayland-scanner.
+2. All such protocols must be created with a proposal merge request outlining the
+   need for and purpose of the protocol.
+3. All such protocols must be clearly tagged as experimental.
+
 ### 2.3. Introducing new protocols
 
 1. A new protocol may be proposed by submitting a merge request to the
@@ -113,6 +126,32 @@ standardization.
 6. Declaring a protocol stable may be proposed by the same process, with the
    regular 30 day minimum discussion period.
 
+### 2.3.1 Introducing new experimental protocols
+
+1. Experimental protocols are merged into wayland-protocols after a two
+   week review period upon the author's request unless a NACK has been given or
+   a WAIT is in progress.
+2. If all NACKs are removed from an experimental protocol, the two week review period is
+   started anew.
+
+### 2.3.2 Experimental protocol removal policy
+
+1. Unmaintained experimental protocols are removed after a three month period of
+   inactivity by its author, as determined by all of the following being true:
+   * No changes have been made to the protocol by the author
+   * No comments have been made to the protocol merge request by the author
+   * No mails have been sent to the mailing list persuant to the protocol by the author
+2. A notification of intent to remove shall be given to the author in the protocol
+   merge request, and the protocol shall only be removed following a one week grace period
+   of continued inactivity.
+
+### 2.3.3 Experimental protocol promotion
+
+1. A merged experimental protocol may be promoted to `staging/`
+   upon request if it meets the requirements for landing as a
+   `staging/` protocol.
+2. Upon promotion, an experimental protocol is removed from `experimental/`.
+
 ## 3. Amending this document
 
 1. An amendment to this document may be proposed by any member project by

README.md

@@ -19,13 +19,14 @@ compositor and client developers. The governance rules are described in
 Protocols in general have three phases: the development phase, the testing
 phase, and the stable phase.
 
-In the development phase, a protocol is not officially part of
+In the development phase, a protocol may be added to wayland-protocols
-wayland-protocols, but is actively being developed, for example by
+as `experimental/`. It is actively being developed, for example by
 iterating over it in a [merge request] or planning it in an [issue].
+Extensions in this phase can have backward incompatible changes.
 
 During this phase, patches for clients and compositors are written as a test
-vehicle. Such patches must not be merged in clients and compositors, because
+vehicle. Such patches should be merged with caution in clients and compositors,
-the protocol can still change.
+because the protocol can still change.
 
 When a protocol has reached a stage where it is ready for wider adoption,
 and after the [GOVERNANCE section 2.3] requirements have been met, it enters
@@ -114,10 +115,10 @@ prefixed with both `wp_` and the operating system, for example
 
 For more information about namespaces, see [GOVERNANCE section 2.1].
 
-Each new protocol XML file must include a major version postfix, starting
+Each new non-experimental protocol XML file must include a major version
-with `-v1`. The purpose of this postfix is to make it possible to
+postfix, starting with `-v1`. The purpose of this postfix is to make it
-distinguish between backward incompatible major versions of the same
+possible to distinguish between backward incompatible major versions of
-protocol.
+the same protocol.
 
 The interfaces in the protocol XML file should as well have the same
 major version postfix in their names.
@@ -164,7 +165,22 @@ A protocol may receive backward compatible additions and changes. This
 is to be done in the general Wayland way, using `version` and `since` XML
 element attributes.
 
-## Backward incompatible protocol changes
+## Backward incompatible protocol changes for experimental protocols
+
+A protocol in the experimental phase should expect to see backward incompatible
+changes at any time.
+
+Assuming a backward incompatible change is needed here, the procedure for how to
+do so is the following:
+
+- Increase the major version number in the protocol XML by 1.
+- Increase the major version number in all of the interfaces in the
+  XML by 1.
+- Reset the interface version number (interface version attribute) of all
+  the interfaces to 1.
+- Remove all of the `since` attributes.
+
+## Backward incompatible protocol changes for testing protocols
 
 While not preferred, a protocol may at any stage, especially during the
 testing phase, when it is located in the `staging/` directory, see
@@ -181,6 +197,29 @@ do so is the following:
   the interfaces to 1.
 - Remove all of the `since` attributes.
 
+## Experimental Protocols: Development Recommendations
+
+Implementations choosing to support experimental protocols must work to
+support the latest version of the protocol at all times. It is therefore
+recommended that developers only opt-in to supporting protocols they
+have time and resources to actively develop.
+
+A runtime option to enable features may also be useful to ensure users
+do not opt-in to potentially broken behavior.
+
+There is no expectation or requirement for stability between experimental
+protocol versions. It is therefore strongly advised that such consumer
+projects add build-time compile options to enable such protocols in order
+to avoid compile errors from protocol version mismatches.
+
+## Promoting a protocol from experimental
+
+The author of an experimental protocol can request that it be promoted at any point
+when it meets the requirements for `staging/`. At such time,
+the namespace prefix should be determined, and then the protocol should be
+renamed and merged into the appropriate directory, deleting the `experimental/`
+entry.
+
 ## Declaring a protocol stable
 
 Once it has been concluded that a protocol been proven adequate in