Roles and Responsibilities

Purpose: To let people know how they can contribute to the project and the privledges and responsibilities associated with each role.

The roles and responsibilities that people can assume in this project are based on merit. Everybody can help no matter what their role. Those who make the greatest contributions get the most say.

Promote DuckHawk

Ok, so there is nothing to actually sell here, but please promote DuckHawk within your community. Let people who us your website know that it uses DuckHawk let people know it is great.

User Supporters

Please subscribe to the support mailing list and answer user questions you can answer.

Debuggers and Testers

We need people to isolate faults and test the new release candidates. You won't be writing actual code (unless you want to) but will need to have a pretty good understanding of the code.

Documenters

Projects like this can always do with more quality documentation. If you are able to help in this area please make yourself known on the development mailing list and get busy.

Coders

Are you burning to add functionality to DuckHawk? A good place to start is to work with the code on your own machine to get familiar with the product, to subscribe to the development mailing list and then choose an item from the issue tracker and work on it. Do post on the development list to let people know what you are planning.

Committers

Trusted coders can be promoted to 'Committers'. Committers are given write-access to the DuckHawk repository and have voting rights in accordance with the project's Decision Making process.

The process for promoting a Coder to a Committer is:

1. Coder writes a reasonable amount of DuckHawk code. This may be a number of bug fixes, or adding new functionality.
2. Code is reviewed by an existing Committer to ensure code is of sufficient quality.
3. Another Committer nominates the coder to the duckhawk-dev email list.
4. A decision is made based on the Decision Making process.
5. A letter of offer is emailed to the potential committer. This is an example offer letter that should be sent to a potential committer:

   Dear Contributor,
   Our 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 code we produce.
   As a Committer, you will have certain responsibilities and privileges as outlined in Contributers Guide#Committer.
   If you are interested in becoming a DuckHawk Committer, please:

   • Become familiar with our Developer's Guide http://docs.codehaus.org/display/DH/Developers+Guide,
   • Read the Committer responsibilities at http://docs.codehaus.org/display/DH/Contributers+Guide#Committers then email duckhawk-dev noting your acceptance of these responsibilities.
   • Set up a subversion account in accordance with http://docs.codehaus.org/display/DH/Subversion.
     We all hope that you accept this invitation.

After a Committer has contributed code to the repository, they are entitled to become a joint owner of the DuckHawk codebase by adding their name to the duckhawk/LICENSE file.

The current list of Committers can be found at http://xircles.codehaus.org/projects/duckhawk/members.

At times, Committers may go inactive for a variety of reasons. A Committer who has been inactive for 12 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.

Committer Responsibilities

Committers have the following responsibilities:

1. Committers are expected to be familiar with, and use processes defined within the DuckHawk Developers Guide.
2. Committers must ensure that any code they commit to the repository is compatible with DuckHawk's LGPL license.
3. Committers must not knowingly introduce any patents or trademarks into the DuckHawk repository.
4. Committers are expected to subscribe to and monitor the duckhawk-dev mailing list and are encouraged to contribute to discusions.

Project Steering Committee (PSC) members

People who have an interest in the greater direction of the project may have their status promoted to that of a Project SteeringCommittee member. This committee is the official managing body of the Project and is responsible for technical design and setting overall project direction. PSC members are responsible for the smooth running of the project and should contribute to:

1. Weekly meetings.
2. Technical discussions.
3. Mentoring new developers and users.
4. Promoting Duckhawk (eg presenting at conferences).
5. Whatever dirty work is necessary to keep the project moving forward.

In order to become a Member, someone on the PSC must nominate the person. The individual may then be approved with a majority of the PSC.

The current PSC consists of:

• Andrea Aime
• Cameron Shorter

The process for adding members to the PSC is:

1. PSC member recommends a new member to the existing PSC.
2. PSC vote.
3. If a majority of PSC votes are for the person, then ...
4. Add the PSC to the list above.
5. Promote the new member to despot at http://xircles.codehaus.org/projects/mapbuilder/members
6. Notify the new member, CC the duckhawk-devel list.
7. Member updates resume.

Build Manager

The Build Manager is responsible for creating a build in accordance with the Release Process.

Sponsors

DuckHawk has been created by individuals going well beyond the call of duty. DuckHawk needs commercial sponsors to develop the product further and to allow it to operate with the level of professionalism that it deserves. Commercial companies can donate time or money; time cay be in the form of software development, testing, documentation or administration. If you are able to offer financial support then please make yourself known to your friendly DuckHawk developers.