How can an open source project continue to develop high-quality software through collaborative work? How can many people who do not know each other write code together and produce stable software? Open source projects achieve this through clearly defined roles.
Leader
Every project has a leader, and the founder usually takes on this role. The leader determines the direction of the project and is responsible for the final decision when a decision is needed. The leader may be an individual, but for large projects, a Steering Committee is organized to perform the leader’s role.
- For example, Linus Torvalds, as the original author of the Linux Kernel, has the final say on every matter of its progress.
- In the case of the Node.js project, the Technical Steering Committee performs the leader’s role.
Maintainer
Maintainers are core contributors who possess the most trusted technical capabilities in the project. They are delegated specific areas by the leader and take on the role of managing them proactively.
Committer
Committers are those who sufficiently understand the code of specific modules in the project and contribute regularly. They have the authority to review and approve contributors’ contributions, and for certain modules they can merge without the maintainer’s approval.
Contributor
Anyone who has contributed, even in a small way, is a contributor. Contributors contribute to open source projects through methods such as simple bug fixes and documentation. Such contributions are reviewed and supplemented by experienced committers and maintainers, and then merged into the repository.
User
Users play the role that determines the success or failure of an open source project. No matter how well prepared a project is, it cannot succeed if no one uses it. By using the project and providing ideas such as bug reports and new feature suggestions, users give the project its reason for existing.
- If a project’s leader and contributors do not carefully listen to users’ requests, it is difficult for the project to grow healthily over the long term.
- A project can only be sustained if it grows in a direction that meets users’ needs.