The ASF contributor ladder ¶
Each step up brings concrete benefits - deeper influence over the software’s direction, a stronger professional network, and skills that transfer to any engineering role.
Projects at the ASF offer a way to grow in your responsibilities in the project, from being a user, all the way up to being a maintainer who helps to set the project’s direction and policies. While the specific details may look different from one project to another, the rungs of the ladder look mostly the same.
User ¶
Everything that we do in an ASF project is for the user. As a user of an ASF project, your responsibilities are just to enjoy the software.
We encourage you to join the project’s user mailing list so you can ask questions and make suggestions. Members of the project are there to help out when you run into problems.
As a user, you’re expected to abide by the project’s code of conduct, so that interactions are polite, friendly, and helpful.
As you become a power user of the project, you may consider becoming a contributor.
Contributor ¶
While most people think of open source contributors as being coders, there is a wide variety of ways that you can contribute to a project.
Most users’ first contribution will be to open a ticket on the project’s issue tracker, or to answer a less-experienced user’s questions. These actions help shape the future direction of the project, and are important contributions.
We encourage you to join the project’s developer mailing list at this time, to engage with the discussions about the direction that the project is taking.
Other contributions may include design, promotion, documentation improvements, website maintenance, organizing events, and many other things.
See more about being a contributor.
As you become more involved with contributing to the project, you may want to work towards becoming a committer.
Committer ¶
After you have made a number of contributions to a project, its PMC may invite you to become a committer. Note that the criteria for inviting a contributor to become a committer vary greatly from one project to another.
Once you have been invited to become a committer, and have accepted this invitation, you are authorized to commit changes directly to the project’s source code repository. Note, however, that different projects may have different social norms around committing changes.
Broadly referred to as CTR (Commit Then Review) and RTC (Review Then Commit), the exact mechanisms may vary. For example, you may be authorized to commit documentation changes without another committer’s review, while you may have to submit your code changes as pull requests, for other committers to review and approve before they are merged.
See more information about being a committer.
PMC Member ¶
After you have been active as a committer in the project for some time, the project’s PMC may invite you to become a member of the Project Management Committee. This group makes decisions about matters like the project’s road map (what features will be added next), when to start work on the next release of code, and which contributors to invite to become committers.
The PMC should be conducting all of these conversations on the public developer mailing list(s), in the view of the entire community. A PMC also has a private mailing list, which is for discussion of topics such as the addition of new committers and PMC members and how to respond to security issues.
See more information about being a PMC member.
If you’re a committer looking to grow into this role, see becoming a PMC member.
Terminology: PMC and PMC Member ¶
Note that the term PMC refers to the group that steers a project.
The people who are members of the group are called PMC Members. Referring to those people as PMCs is incorrect and can be confusing; please avoid doing that.
Foundation Member ¶
When you have been involved at the ASF for a while, an ASF Member may nominate you to become a Member of the Foundation. If you agree to be nominated, you may be elected at the next ASF annual meeting. Becoming a member entitles you to vote in the annual election for the Board of Directors, to participate in the members’ mailing list, and to invite others to become Foundation members.
See more about being a Foundation member
Officers of the Foundation ¶
Officers of the Foundation are responsible for various aspects of the day-to-day operation of the Foundation. You can see which officer has which responsibilities in the Foundation organization chart.
Board of Directors ¶
The members of the ASF elect the members of the Board annually for one-year terms.
The Board of Directors is responsible for the governance of the Foundation. This includes overseeing projects to ensure they are behaving in accordance with ASF policies and norms, reviewing and approving the annual budget, and considering and voting on proposed changes to the Foundation’s activities and governance.
The Board delegates much of the day-to-day operation of the Foundation to the President, and to various officers and committees.
You can see who is currently on the Board on the Board website.