Apache UIMA™ Roles and Responsibilities

Note: This is a working draft document.

Discussion of this document is occurring on the uima-dev mailing list.

The roles and responsibilities that people can assume in the project are based on merit. Everybody can help no matter what their role. Those who have been long term or valuable contributors to the project obtain the right to vote and commit directly to the source repository.

Users

Users are the people who use the software of the Project. People in this role aren't contributing code, but they are using the software, reporting bugs, making feature requests, helping other users, extending the online documentation on the Wiki, and such. This is by far the most important category of people as, without users, there is no reason for the Project.

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. In source code, we have adopted a policy of keeping the author's names out of the individual source code files; attributions are now put into the project's NOTICES file. All volunteers who contribute to a source file may add a section with their name and contributions to the NOTICES file.
Committers
Contributors who give frequent and valuable contributions to the Project or a subproject of the Project can have their status changed to that of a " Committer" for the Project or for that subproject. A Committer has write access to the source code repository and gains voting rights allowing them to affect the future of the project/subproject.

In order for a Contributor to become a Committer, another Committer can nominate that Contributor or the Contributor can ask for it.

Once a Contributor is nominated, all of the Committers for a subproject will vote. If there are at least 3 positive votes and no negative votes, the Contributor is converted into a Committer and given write access to the source code repository for that subproject. This is an example offer letter that should be sent to the volunteer after 3 positive votes have been received:
    
          
        Dear Contributor,

        The Apache UIMA project would like to offer you commit privileges.
        We have been impressed with your contributions up till now, and
        believe that your involvement will improve the quality of the
        libraries we produce.

        It is important that you realize that these commit privileges give
        you access to the specific Apache UIMA project repository for which you
        are involved with. They do not provide commit access to any other
        Apache based project. Those projects will have to grant you commit
        privileges themselves.

        If you are interested in having commit privileges, please just let us
        know, and we will setup an account on apache.org. It would expedite
        the process if you could provide your preferred account name. 
        This process could take a few days once
        we get this information.

        We all hope that you accept this invitation.

        The Apache UIMA Project Management Committee.
        
  
Once there are 3 positive votes and the response to the above letter has been received, someone from the project community who already has commit access should send email to: root at apache.org that the account should be created. The following information must be included in the email:

The name and email address of the new user. (ie: John Smith <john.smith@foo.com>)

Suggested account userid. This is optional. (ie: jmsith)

The project that the user should be given access to. (ie: UIMA)

The results of the votes. In other words, the names and email addresses of the committers who approved the addition.

The new committer should also send an email to asf at jaguNET.com with the following information (please cut and paste to return format):

Name: {your name}
Email: {your email address on the ASF lists}
Projects: {comma separated list of ASF projects to which you have commit access}
Key: {a blank line followed by your public key}

For example:

Name: Joe Foobar
Email: joe@byteme.com
Projects: Tomcat, httpd
Key:
adklajdAL()@ N*@U)U@()@@ @)U@

Finally, a new committer should also submit a signed copy of the Contributor License Agreement to the ASF. See the Licenses page for details.

Note 1: If a committer already has an account on the apache.org server and the committer needs commit access to additional projects, then all that needs to be done is to have the user notify general@incubator.apache.org with the results of the voting (as documented above) and the user will be given access. In other words, the root email address should only be used on the basis of new account creation.

Note 2: All committers will be given write access to uima/site SVN on request. In other words, committers should be able to update the main website.

At times, Committers may go inactive for a variety of reasons. A Committer that has been inactive for 6 months or more may lose their status as a Committer. Getting access back is as simple as re-requesting it on the project's Developer mailing list.

A list of our current Committers can be found in our Project Credits.
Project Management Committee (PMC)

(Note: this section is written for when UIMA graduates from the incubator. Until then, the committers are members of the podling PMC.) Committers who frequently participate with valuable contributions may have their status changed to that of a " Project Management Committee Member". This committee is the official managing body of the UIMA Project and is responsible for setting overall project direction.

To view the Project Management Committee bylaws, click here.

A list of our current PMC Members can be found in our Project Credits.