Apache Sling Community Roles and Processes
The Community Roles and Processes are put in effect as of 13/May/2009. Updated 7/December/2009 to reflect Sling being a top level project.
Roles
There are different roles with which Sling community members may be associated: User, Contributor, Committer, and PMC (Project Management Committee) Member. These roles are assigned and assumed based on merit.
The User and Contributor roles are acquired by using the software and participating in the community, but the Committer and PMC member roles can only be granted by a PMC vote.
The roles defined here conform to the ASF's definition of roles.
Users
Users are the people who use any of the products of the Sling project. People in this role are not contributing code, but they are using the products, reporting bugs, making feature requests, testing code, and such. This is by far the most important category of people, since without users there is no reason for Sling. When a user starts to contribute code or documentation patches, they become a Contributor.
Contributors
Contributors are the people who write code or documentation patches or contribute positively to the project in other ways. A volunteer's contribution is always recognized.
Committers
Contributors who give frequent and valuable contributions to a subproject of Sling can have their status promoted to that of a Committer. A Committer has write access to Sling's source code repository. Contributors of documentation are eligible as committers in the same way as contributors of pure code.
PMC Members
Committers showing continued interest in the project and taking an active part in the evolution of the project may be elected as PMC members. The PMC (Project Management Committee) is the official managing body of project and is responsible for setting its overall direction.
Processes
Becoming a User or Contributor
There is no requirement for becoming a User or Contributor; these roles are open to everyone.
Becoming a Committer
In order for a Contributor to become a Committer, a member of the PMC can nominate that Contributor to the PMC. Once a Contributor is nominated, the PMC calls a vote on the PMC private mailing list.
If there are at least three positive votes and no negative votes after three days (72 hours), the results are posted to the PMC private mailing list.
Upon a positive vote result, the Contributor will be emailed by the PMC to invite him/her to become a Committer. If the invitation is accepted, an announcement about the new Committer is made to the developer mailing list and he/she is given write access to the source code repository. A Contributor will not officially become a Committer member until the appropriate legal paperwork is submitted.
Becoming a PMC Member
In order for a Committer to become a member of the PMC, a member of the PMC can nominate that Committer to the PMC. Once a Committer is nominated, the PMC calls a vote on the PMC private mailing list.
If there are at least three positive votes and no negative votes after three days (72 hours), the results are posted to the PMC private mailing list.
To have the Committer being accepted as a PMC member, the ASF Board has acknowledge the addition to the PMC. The Committer should not be consulted about his/her desire to become a PMC member before the board acknowledgement, or be informed that they are being considered, since this could create hard feelings if the vote does not pass.
Upon a positive vote result, the PMC member will be emailed by the PMC to invite him/her to become a PMC member. If the invitation is accepted, an announcement about the new PMC member is made to the developer mailing list.