Hi Yicong, Thanks for sharing this. I have a couple of follow-up questions.
For the vote to promote new committers, my understanding is that this is usually handled through a private PMC member vote, right? Also, would it be possible to share the criteria or reasoning used to promote recent committers? I ask because I had expected open-source projects to be more open in many aspects, including criteria, rules, goals, and decision-making processes. My experience is limited compared to yours, and I understand that subjectivity is impossible to remove from any human project. Still, I was surprised to hear that other open-source projects may follow similar practices. To me, the “open” in open source feels like a strong value, so I’m trying to better understand where openness applies and where trust-based or private decision-making is considered appropriate. Thanks again for explaining this. On Tue, May 12, 2026 at 8:17 PM Yicong Huang <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Carlos, > > Thanks for asking this. This is a very good question. Let me put down my > personal perspective. > > For Apache Texera, we do not have a fixed checklist or a formal numerical > threshold for becoming a committer. This, I believe, is a common practice > in many projects from Apache or other foundations. Committership is usually > based on merit, trust, and sustained contribution, and the decision is made > by the project community through discussion and vote. In Apache's setting, > PMC members vote for committership. In practice, when existing PMC members > believe that a contributor has demonstrated meaningful and consistent > contributions in the project, the PMC may discuss the candidate and make a > decision through a vote. Contributions can come in many forms, including > code, tests, documentation, infra construction, issue triage, PR reviews, > design discussions, release validation, and helping other contributors. > > One thing I want to emphasize is that, human efforts are more important in > the current agent era. With modern AI tools, producing code is noticeably > becoming cheaper and faster. As a result, in 2026, the more valuable part > falls on the human efforts: understanding what should be built, discussing > tradeoffs, reviewing changes carefully, maintaining project quality, and > supporting the community. Committership is therefore not just a recognition > of past contributions, but also a responsibility. A committer is trusted to > help maintain the project, make sound technical decisions, respect the > project’s processes, and act in the long-term interest of the community. > This is a serious responsibility, and not every contributor is willing or > ready to take it on. > > Speaking from my own experience, I have a full-time job, but I still > contribute, in a part time capacity, to Texera. This is indeed because I am > a Texera committer, and PPMC, and I do care about the project and the > community. At the same time, I have also been trying to earn trust in the > Apache Spark community to become a Spark committer, where there had been > more than 2,200 contributors over time, but only around 100 committers so > far. I contribute mainly to the PySpark component, there are still a lot of > areas for me to learn before I can be granted with the committer > responsibility to make meaningful decisions for spark. > > Finally, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to encourage anyone > interested in becoming a Texera committer to keep participating actively in > the project. For instance, we are currently working hard towards our first > Apache release, v1.1.0-incubating. This is a great opportunity for > contributors to get involved in concrete and meaningful ways! Texera > has been incubating for Apache projects for more than 1 year now, and we > really need all of your help to get Texera graduated from the incubation, > so that we can finally declare that Texera is an "Apache" project. Before > that, those fancy names (committer, PPMC, etc.) still meant nothing yet. As > a Texera PPMC member, I want to assure you that we will recognize > contributors’ efforts. We recently welcomed Meng and Xuan as new > committers, and we are always happy to see more contributors grow into > larger roles in the project! > > > Cheers, > and sincerely, > Yicong Huang < > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://yicong-huang.github.io__;!!CzAuKJ42GuquVTTmVmPViYEvSg!OWg6q9J1Hv9KFxn6doZfdHSmtyTkgkC5kqck5LX9surZQoLw8-9hiE3UchBpnDU-RC0CswcknuJsejjfMGt-dA$ > > > [email protected] > > On May 12, 2026 at 5:21 PM -0700, Carlos Ernesto Alvarez Berumen < > [email protected]>, wrote: > > > Hi Texera community, > > I hope you are doing well. > > I wanted to ask about the criteria for becoming a committer on Apache > Texera. I am not sure whether open source projects generally have a formal > process for this, or whether Apache projects in particular usually define > one. > > Is there already a documented set of criteria or expectations for becoming > a committer on Texera? If not, is there an expected timeline for > establishing one, or a reason why the project does not currently have one? > > Thanks > > > > Best regards, > Yicong Huang >
