There has been some discussion within the PMC over the last month or so about how to recognize the various contributors to Apache TinkerPop. We currently have this:
http://tinkerpop.apache.org/#committers but we think some changes should occur. First, we would like to better recognize the list of folks who contributed during a particular release period to include: 1. git contributions for a release will be aggregated and presented in the release notes. 2. non-code contributions to a release will be added and presented in the release notes. I don't know if "release notes" means CHANGELOG or Upgrade Docs or something else - I suppose that remains up for discussion. The issue is more about capturing these contributions better on a per-release basis. Second, we expect to modify the website in that space given in the link above - rather than have it read "Apache TinkerPop Committers" it will instead be "Apache TinkerPop Contributors" and it will include both official committers as well as "Friends of the TinkerPop" (working title...suggest something better??). For the committers section, individuals can keep this information up to date themselves (because they have access to the git repository), but we will ask for a bio update from each person every 6 months via email with a request to indicate an "active" or "inactive" status. If you are "inactive" it simply means that you aren't currently participating in the project. Irrespective of being active or inactive, your name and tenure accomplishments remain present on the front page of the web site. Being "inactive" does not affect your status as an Apache committer/PMC member - that remains unchanged. Should you decide that you are inactive at some point, note that there is no special process to become "active" again - you just have to update your bio to do so. The format of the committer section would be basically the same as it is now but would have active and inactive sections, sorted by date of TinkerPop commitership (or membership in the pre-Apache days), as they are now. The new "Friends of the TinkerPop" section will be a listing of those people who have promoted the project in some positive capacity (e.g. developed a third-party library that has some good benefit to the community) but aren't committers/pmc members. There's still a fair bit to sort out in terms of how this will be implemented, but these are the general big picture items. Please let us know what you think and then we can drive into details. .
