Open Source IT: Software Development, Apache-style
Mar 29, 2000, 05:16 (0 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Ken Coar)
"The primary development of the Apache HTTP server is done by a
relatively small number of developers. Anyone who wants to,
however, can be an Apache developer, and the server is the result
of contributions from hundreds of people all over the world. In
many cases contributions are small, or a contributor submits one
item and is then never heard from again, but the server has
benefitted from those small submissions just as surely as from the
work done by the core developers who put in hundreds of hours per
year on the project."
"There are several levels of participation in the project, with
rather blurry lines between them:
- Membership in the 'core' development team, which is synonymous
with the Apache Group
- People with direct access (called CVS or commit access) to all
of the master source repositories
- People with CVS access to some subset of the repositories
- People who participate in the mailing lists and have earned
enough respect for their votes to be counted
- Everyone else"
"This arrangement has been called a 'meritocracy;' the more you
do, the more you're allowed to do. Access to each successive level
of participation is controlled by the opinions of your peers. The
more you submit, and the more your submissions are considered to be
of value, the more 'merit' you acquire. Accumulate enough
merit and you'll be admitted to the next level of participation.
Almost all such decisions are made by the core team."
Complete
Story
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