Open source contribution

Stage 1 · Lesson 4 of 7

Maintainers and project governance

How open source works

Every project has people who decide what gets merged (accepted into the main code). review , sort incoming issues and set the direction. Committers have the right to merge changes.

Contributors send changes in. Small projects often have one maintainer who is also the only reviewer. Larger ones write down their , meaning how decisions get made.

Common models are a single leader with the final say, as Python had until 2018, an elected steering council, or a foundation with formal voting. Examples of foundations are the , the and the CNCF. Look for files named GOVERNANCE.md, MAINTAINERS or CODEOWNERS.

Knowing who decides tells you who to ask and how long reviews may take. It also explains why a technically good pull request can still be declined.

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  • Choose a License

    Plain-language comparison of MIT, Apache and GPL: what each lets you do

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