

Road to the Python Commit Bit - kracekumar
http://hynek.me/articles/my-road-to-the-python-commit-bit/

======
sho_hn
For kicks, here's how it works for KDE:

a) You sign up at our SSI, KDE Identity (identity.kde.org).

b) Once you've got an Identity, you'll find a form to request developer access
in the web app that manages it. That form asks you to optionally name a
supporter for your application, and provide a written justification.

c) Our sysadmin team (of which I'm a part) is tasked with screening the
incoming applications. What we look for in doing so is evidence that the
applicant has already gathered some experience in working with the community,
especially in the form of prior patch contributions, which we encourage them
to list in their written justification. If the applicant has named a
supporter, we check with the supporter to get their confirmation and opinion
on the applicant. If we're satisfied the applicant knows the ropes, the
request will be granted; if not, we encourage some further social mingling and
patch-based contributions first and to re-try later.

In practice, it's relatively hard, but not entirely impossible, to gain
developer access without naming a supporter, because evidence of social ties /
working relationships with other team members is very important to us.
Occassionally a proven track record of successfully getting lots of patches
through review will be enough, and occassionally a low-quality justification
will result in a rejection even despite a supporter (after conferencing with
them on the matter).

The goals here are to make sure every new developer can immediately act
confident about their role in the project, that everyone knows the etiquette
well enough to work together productively, and that mutual trust remains high
as everyone can rely on their peers having been through the same process.

d) Once you have your developer access, that's basically it: Aside from a few
sensitive areas that require additional, special karma that must be requested
separately (mainly the websites to avoid embarassing and directly public-
facing screwups), all of our developer accounts have equal write access to
every repository.

In other words, KDE embraces a flat, meritocratic hierarchy and broad access.
We certainly make use of review-based workflows (some teams more than others),
but they're enforced by social etiquette, not by ACLs. We find that this makes
for a lovely atmosphere in the community and a sense of shared responsibiliy
over all our products, and consider it key to our longevity as a successful
open source project.

Contrasting with the nine month timespan between first patch submission and
getting push access mentioned in the linked article, I'd say our average is
probably closer to six months. It can be significantly lower than that, and it
can be longer, too.

~~~
hynek
Well, that sounds the same like CPython.

And to be fair, 4 months of that 9 months were myself sulking in the corner –
one of the reasons why I wrote that article was to give others the hint to do
it better. If you embrace the whole process, happens faster (I have no numbers
to back that though).

But proving yourself takes time and work in any case.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I think his point about perseverance bear repeating. You'll have to work, and
wait, for anything to happen. You won't get it overnight.

~~~
viraptor
And that's good actually.. Projects are likely to gain more by inviting people
with a long-term interest than one-off committers. It doesn't mean that one of
them it's better than the other, or that the contributions are not equal. It's
just much easier to maintain a consistent view of the progress in the core
team that way. It prevents people trying to rewrite your project in their way
- it may well be a better way if you were starting from scratch, but it's
probably not worth it in a mature project (apart from major version increases,
etc.)

------
gbog
Interesting. Question to article author : is it easier to start helping on
documentation?

~~~
hynek
Sure! My first patch was a doc patch too and got committed within hours.

We’ve got people that work on the docs nearly exclusively – it’s a big deal
for Python to have great docs.

