What is an ARC Review?

What an ARC review involves

When reviewing a project from an architectural perspective, the reviewers
are seeking to understand the architectural components and their
interactions with one-another and with the rest of the system. Armed with
this understanding, the reviewers will apply their experience to
considering the potential ramifications of the proposed architecture and
suggest changes to avoid likely problems. The "scope of inquiry" in an
architectural review is, therefore:

anything that the reviewers might need to know in order to understand the proposed architecture and its implications.

The greatest emphasis is usually on the project's interfaces - since these
define the rules according to which independently deliverable components
will interact. By interfaces we do not merely refer to "APIs and GUIs", but
to protocols, schemas, data formats, packaging, administration, etc. In
addition to examining the adequacy of the interfaces for common operations,
they are also examined for interoperability, upgradability, supportability,
scalability, security implications, performance implications, etc.

Architectural Review is not intended to be a design or code review. It is
assumed that the project teams will carry these out as part of the standard
development process. In some cases, however, it may be necessary to ask
questions about the proposed implementation in order to better understand
how the interfaces can and cannot be used. Similarly, it may be necessary
to follow the system through common operational scenarios in order to
understand all of the operational aspects of a proposed project. If, in the
course of these investigations, design problems are encountered, it is
appropriate for the community to comment on these.

This review takes place prior to a commitment by the community to actually
accept the proposed change and make it part of OpenSolaris. The ARC review
is not sufficient to create a commitment, but is a necessary step in that
it provides information crucial to the commitment decision.

The ARC community's obligation is to determine whether the change, as proposed,
represents an acceptable solution to the problem as stated in the original
proposal (amended as necessary to reflect greater understanding of the
problem) AND to express that determination in the form of a decision
document called an opinion.