All,

I'm working on the Incubator Proposal now, and need to establish a
list of initial committers.

So far, the following people have come forward and offered to be
committers (in alphabetical order):

Alex Thompson
Ben Martz
Chris Currens
Heath Aldrich
Michael Herndon
Prescott Nasser
Scott Lombard
Simone Chiaretta
Troy Howard

I would like to place an open request for any interested parties to
respond to this message with their request to be a Committer. For
people who are either on that list or for people who would like to be
added, please send a message explaining (briefly) why you think you
will be qualified to be involved in the project and specifically what
ways you hope to be able to contribute.

One thing I would like to point out is that in the Apache world there
is a distinction between Committers and Contributors (aka developers).
See this link for details:

http://incubator.apache.org/guides/participation.html#committer


Please consider whether or not you wish to be a Committer or a Contributor.

Some quick rules of thumb:

Committers:

- Committers must be willing to submit a Contributor License Agreement
(CLA). See: http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas

- Committers must have enough *consistent* free time to fulfill the
expectations of the ASF in terms of reporting,  process, documentation
and remain responsive to the community in terms of communication and
listening to, considering, and discussing community opinion. These
kinds of tasks can consume a lot of time and are some of the first
things people stop down when they start running out of time.

- A Committer may not even write code, but may simply accept, review
and commit code written by others. This is the primary responsibility
of a Committer -- to commit code, whether they wrote it themselves or
not

- Committers may have to perform the unpleasant task of reject
contribution from Contributors and explain why in a fair and objective
manner. This can be frustrating and time consuming. You may need to
play the part of a mentor or engage in debates. You may even be proved
wrong and have to swallow your pride.

- Committers have direct access to the source control and other
resources and so must be personally accountable for the quality of the
same and will need to operate under the process and restrictions ASF
expects


Contributors:

- Contributors might have a lot of free time this month, but get
really busy next month and have no time at all. They can develop code
in short bursts but then drop off the face of the planet indefinitely
after that.

- Contributors could focus on code only or work from a task list
without any need to interact with and be accountable to the community
(as this is the responsibility of the Committers)

- Contributors can do one-time or infrequently needed tasks like
updating the website, documentation, wikis, etc..

- Contributors will need to have anything they create reviewed by a
Committer and ultimately included by a Committer. Some people find
this frustrating, if the Committers are slow to respond or critical of
their work.


So in your responses, please be clear about whether you would like to
offer your help as a Committer or as a Contributor.

Thanks,
Troy

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