docs: create MAINTAINERS.md (#2992)

Signed-off-by: Hendrik Ebbers <[email protected]>

Author: hendrikebbers

MAINTAINERS.md

@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+# Maintainers
+
+The general handling of Maintainer rights and all groups in this GitHub org is done in the https://github.com/hiero-ledger/governance repository.
+
+## Maintainer Scopes, GitHub Roles and GitHub Teams
+
+Maintainers are assigned the following scopes in this repository:
+
+| Scope      | Definition               | GitHub Role | GitHub Team                        |
+| ---------- | ------------------------ | ----------- | ---------------------------------- |
+| Maintainer | The GitHub Maintain role | Maintain    | `hiero-sdk-js-maintainers` |
+
+## Active Maintainers
+
+<!-- Please keep this sorted alphabetically by github -->
+
+| Name | GitHub ID | Scope | LFID | Discord ID | Email | Company Affiliation |
+|----- | --------- | ----- | ---- | ---------- | ----- | ------------------- |
+|      |           |       |      |            |       |                     |
+
+
+## Emeritus Maintainers
+
+| Name | GitHub ID | Scope | LFID | Discord ID | Email | Company Affiliation |
+|----- | --------- | ----- | ---- | ---------- | ----- | ------------------- |
+|      |           |       |      |            |       |                     |
+
+## The Duties of a Maintainer
+
+Maintainers are expected to perform the following duties for this repository. The duties are listed in more or less priority order:
+
+- Review, respond, and act on any security vulnerabilities reported against the repository.
+- Review, provide feedback on, and merge or reject GitHub Pull Requests from
+  Contributors.
+- Review, triage, comment on, and close GitHub Issues
+  submitted by Contributors.
+- When appropriate, lead/facilitate architectural discussions in the community.
+- When appropriate, lead/facilitate the creation of a product roadmap.
+- Create, clarify, and label issues to be worked on by Contributors.
+- Ensure that there is a well defined (and ideally automated) product test and
+  release pipeline, including the publication of release artifacts.
+- When appropriate, execute the product release process.
+- Maintain the repository CONTRIBUTING.md file and getting started documents to
+  give guidance and encouragement to those wanting to contribute to the product, and those wanting to become maintainers.
+- Contribute to the product via GitHub Pull Requests.
+- Monitor requests from the LF Decentralized Trust Technical Advisory Council about the
+contents and management of LFDT repositories, such as branch handling,
+required files in repositories and so on.
+- Contribute to the LFDT Project's Quarterly Report.
+
+## Becoming a Maintainer
+
+This community welcomes contributions. Interested contributors are encouraged to
+progress to become maintainers. To become a maintainer the following steps
+occur, roughly in order.
+
+- The proposed maintainer establishes their reputation in the community,
+  including authoring five (5) significant merged pull requests, and expresses
+  an interest in becoming a maintainer for the repository.
+- A PR is created to update this file to add the proposed maintainer to the list of active maintainers.
+- The PR is authored by an existing maintainer or has a comment on the PR from an existing maintainer supporting the proposal.
+- The PR is authored by the proposed maintainer or has a comment on the PR from the proposed maintainer confirming their interest in being a maintainer.
+  - The PR or comment from the proposed maintainer must include their
+    willingness to be a long-term (more than 6 month) maintainer.
+- Once the PR and necessary comments have been received, an approval timeframe begins.
+- The PR **MUST** be communicated on all appropriate communication channels, including relevant community calls, chat channels and mailing lists. Comments of support from the community are welcome.
+- The PR is merged and the proposed maintainer becomes a maintainer if either:
+  - Two weeks have passed since at least three (3) Maintainer PR approvals have been recorded, OR
+  - An absolute majority of maintainers have approved the PR.
+- If the PR does not get the requisite PR approvals, it may be closed.
+- Once the add maintainer PR has been merged, any necessary updates to the GitHub Teams are made.
+
+## Removing Maintainers
+
+Being a maintainer is not a status symbol or a title to be carried
+indefinitely. It will occasionally be necessary and appropriate to move a
+maintainer to emeritus status. This can occur in the following situations:
+
+- Resignation of a maintainer.
+- Violation of the Code of Conduct warranting removal.
+- Inactivity.
+  - A general measure of inactivity will be no commits or code review comments
+    for one reporting quarter. This will not be strictly enforced if
+    the maintainer expresses a reasonable intent to continue contributing.
+  - Reasonable exceptions to inactivity will be granted for known long term
+    leave such as parental leave and medical leave.
+- Other circumstances at the discretion of the other Maintainers.
+
+The process to move a maintainer from active to emeritus status is comparable to the process for adding a maintainer, outlined above. In the case of voluntary
+resignation, the Pull Request can be merged following a maintainer PR approval. If the removal is for any other reason, the following steps **SHOULD** be followed:
+
+- A PR is created to update this file to move the maintainer to the list of emeritus maintainers.
+- The PR is authored by, or has a comment supporting the proposal from, an existing maintainer or a member of the project's Technical Steering Commitee (TSC).
+- Once the PR and necessary comments have been received, the approval timeframe begins.
+- The PR **MAY** be communicated on appropriate communication channels, including relevant community calls, chat channels and mailing lists.
+- The PR is merged and the maintainer transitions to maintainer emeritus if:
+  - The PR is approved by the maintainer to be transitioned, OR
+  - Two weeks have passed since at least three (3) Maintainer PR approvals have been recorded, OR
+  - An absolute majority of maintainers have approved the PR.
+- If the PR does not get the requisite PR approvals, it may be closed.
+
+Returning to active status from emeritus status uses the same steps as adding a
+new maintainer. Note that the emeritus maintainer already has the 5 required
+significant changes as there is no contribution time horizon for those.