84 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
84 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
page.title=People and Roles
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doc.type=source
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@jd:body
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<div>
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<p>The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) includes individuals working in a variety
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of roles. As noted in <a href="{@docRoot}about/philosophy.html">Our
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Philosophy</a>, the core AOSP members operate the Android product management
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and engineering process. This page describes these roles in a bit more
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detail.</p>
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<p>Anyone who is interested in exploring and contributing to Android can use the
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Android Open Source Project resources. Anyone can join the mailing lists, ask
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questions, contribute patches, report bugs, look at submitted patches, and use
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the tools. To get started with the Android code, see <a
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href="{@docRoot}source/index.html">Get Involved</a>.</p>
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<h2>AOSP Member</h2>
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<p>"AOSP Member" is a somewhat loose term, but generally refers to
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those organizations who are key contributors to Android, and who are managing
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the product requirements process and core engineering. You can think of this
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group as the Android "core team" responsible for Android's overall success in
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the marketplace. One of the most prominent AOSP members is Google.</p>
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<p/>
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<h2>Contributor</h2>
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<p>A "Contributor" is anyone making contributions to the AOSP source code,
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including both employees or other affiliates of an AOSP Member, as well as
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external developers who are contributing to Android on their own behalf.
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There is no distinction between Contributors who are affiliated with an AOSP
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Member, and those who are not: all engineers use the same git/gerrit tools,
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follow the same code review process, and are subject to the same requirements
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on code style and so on.</p>
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<p/>
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<h2>Developer</h2>
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<p>A "Developer" is an engineer writing applications that run on Android
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devices. There is, of course, no difference in skillset between a "Developer"
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and a "Contributor"; we simply use "Developer" to help identify our audience.
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Since the key purpose of Android is to cultivate an open development platform,
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"Developers" are one of the key customers of the Android project. As such, we
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talk about them a lot, though this isn't technically a separate role in the
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AOSP <i>per se.</i></p>
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<p/>
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<h2>Verifier</h2>
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<p>"Verifiers" are responsible for testing change requests. After individuals
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have submitted a significant amount of high-quality code to the project, the
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Project Leads might invite them to become Verifiers.</p><p><i>Note: at this
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time, generally Verifiers are the same as Approvers.</i></p>
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<p/>
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<h2>Approver</h2>
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"Approvers" are experienced members of the project who have demonstrated their
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design skills and have made significant technical contributions to the
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project. In the code-review process, an Approver decides whether to include or
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exclude a change. Project Leads (typically employed by an AOSP Member) choose
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the Approvers, sometimes promoting to this position Verifiers who have
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demonstrated their expertise within a specific project.</p>
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<p/>
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<h2>Project Leads</h2>
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<p>Android consists of a number of sub-projects; you can see these in the git
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repository, as individual .git files. The AOSP Members generally assign tech
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leads or product leads who oversee the engineering for individual Android
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projects. Typically these tech leads will be employees of an AOSP Member
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company. A Project Lead for an individual project is responsible for the
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following:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Lead all technical aspects of the project; for example, the project
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roadmap, development, release cycles, versioning, and QA.</li>
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<li>Ensure that the project is QA-ed in time for scheduled Android platform
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releases.</li>
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<li>Designate Verifiers and Approvers for submitted patches.</li>
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<li>Be fair and unbiased while reviewing changes. Accept or reject patches
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based on technical merit and alignment with the Android platform.</li>
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<li>Review changes in a timely manner and make best efforts to communicate
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when changes are not accepted.</li>
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<li>Optionally maintain a web site for the project for information and
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documents specific to the project.</li>
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<li>Act as a facilitator in resolving technical conflicts.</li>
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<li>Be the public face for the project and the go-to person for questions
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related to the project.</li>
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</ul>
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</div>
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