Cheiron

1. General
   1. News
   2. Blogs
   3. Mission
   4. Guidelines
2. Projects
   1. JSC
   2. Seven
   3. Utils
3. Participate
   1. Overview
   2. Repositories
   3. Mailing lists
   4. References
   5. Issue tracking
4. Misc
   1. License
   2. Credits
   3. Legal

Roles and responsibilities

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

Users

Users are the people who use the products developed by one of the Cheiron projects. People in this role aren't contributing code, but they are using the products, reporting bugs, making feature requests, helping out other users, extending the FAQ, to name a few.

When users start to contribute code or documentation patches they become "Developer".

Developers

Developers are the people who write code or documentation patches, or contribute otherwise positively to the project. A developer's contribution is always recognized, however as many developers are likely to submit code for the same source file we don't allow the @author tag in any of the projects.

Committers

Developers who give frequent and valuable contributions to a Cheiron project can have their status promoted to that of a "Committer" for that project. A committer has write access to the source code repositories and gains voting rights allowing him to affect the future of the project.

In order for a developer to become a committer, another committer can nominate that developer or the developer can ask for the role. Once a developer is nominated, all of the committers for a project will vote. If there are at least 3 positive votes and no negative votes ("Consensus approval"), the developer is converted into a committer and given write access to the source code repositories for that project.

Before receiving write access, a committer must also affirm that they have read and understood the Cheiron guidelines and agree to abide by the terms.

At times, committers may go inactive for a variety of reasons. A committer that has been inactive for 6 months or more may lose this status. A list of the current committers is maintained at the people page.

Release manager

A committer responsible for a public release is promoted to release manager for that project, without a release manager there won't be a new public release.

A release manager will loose its status if he/she wishes to or goes inactive for over 2 months. At all times a release manager should arrange backup if they go inactive for short periods, this to be able to provide emergency maintenance releases in case there is a need for.

Project leader

Each project will have a project leader that is appointed and released by the CMC. A project leader is expected to set the overall course and has additional powers in comparison with the committers. While this might sound conflicting with the idea of a meritocracy we consider it important one person can make sure the project progresses in a consistent way and that disputes around action items that require 'consensus approval' can be resolved effectively. Therefore a project leader has the power to veto decisions that only require "Majority approval", and the power to proceed action items that didn't get formal approval.

Project leaders must use their special powers only as a last resort when all other options to come to a satisfying outcome have failed, exercising this power can be extremely disruptive to a project and should not be considered lightly.

Cheiron Management Committee (CMC)

Committers who frequently participate with valuable contributions may have their status promoted to that of a "Cheiron Management Committee Member". This committee is the official managing body of Cheiron and is responsible for setting the overall direction.

For their exact responsibility see the Cheiron Management Committee bylaws, a list of the current CMC members can be found at the CMC page.