On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 09:26:31PM +0200, Martin Matuska wrote: > Hello, > > I am writing a master thesis about open source development processes and > one of my analysis objects are processes of the FreeBSD project. The > FreeBSD documentation (handbook, articles) is a great source of > information, but there are some points missing in the documentation I > consider important. > > I would like know more on the following items: > > 1. Who makes the decision, who is authorized and who is responsible for > accepting (adding) new commiters?
It depends on their proposed area of responsibility. The FreeBSD Project is governed by the Core team, which is an elected body of FreeBSD committers. With respect to your question about selection of committers, the FreeBSD project is currently divided into three main subprojects: the src tree, the ports tree and the doc tree. The core team delegates responsibility for specific aspects of the project to other groups of committers. Core is responsible for selecting src committers, the Port Manager (portmgr) group for ports committers and the Documentation Engineering (doceng) group for doc committers. New committers are usually proposed by an existing committer who will act as mentor for an initial period. The relevant body then considers the submitter's track record (mailing list activity, PR submissions, other factors) and votes on the proposal. If successful, the mentor works closely with the new committer, to help the new committer learn to work within the FreeBSD community, learn the technical skills required (e.g. performing CVS commit operations, etc) and to oversee their activity. Mentoring typically extends for a period of a few weeks to a few months depending on the individual, and is mostly an informal process between mentor and mentee. > 2. Who makes the decision, who is authorized and who is responsible for > releasing (deleting) existing commiters (whatever reason)? The same groups as above - mostly due to inactivity on behalf of a committer (e.g. no activity in over a year and unable to contact them to confirm status). In cases of severe conflict or disturbance it is sometimes necessary to remove an active committer: fortunately both are rare occurrences. As above, the core team has final authority over the project. > A great help would be a link to a document describing this issue (but a > simple answer helps, too). See also http://www.freebsd.org/internal/developer.html for various information that might be of interest to you. Kris
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