Hey @MartinCornelis, sorry for the delay in replaying.
I’m not to sure about how the process exactly is, but I will answer with how I believe it works.
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I’m also very interested in getting a high level description of the entire process if this is possible.
The developer guide <no title> is written more with “normal” packages in mind. I don’t think a major overhaul like this (or for instance other changes to rclcpp, rcl and rmw that can have far reaching impact), are simply handled by creating multiple disjointed pull requests.
I’m not able to do a high level description of the process, because I don’t know if we have a guide to that.
I would say that after getting consensus about the design, someone (or a team) opens the needed PRs with an implementation.
After that, changes are done depending on the review process.
Also, it’s better to open WIP PRs to get early feedback.
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Who does the actual implementation, how is this decided?
In this case, I’m working on an implementation.
Usually who propose the design also works on the implementation, though that’s not a general rule.
Someone can proposed a design and someone else pick it later.
If you’re implementing the design someone else proposed, it’s better to first check if someone is working on it to avoid duplicated work.
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Do multiple interested parties just respond to the issue/design document and figure something out from there? Is there a certain structure to this? Who is “responsible” for the final outcome?
I would say the responsibles are the assignee and the people who approved the design/PRs.
I also opened an issue subdividing the implementation in different tasks here:
I will be updating it with links to PRs while I advance.