...

• users: someone that uses our software
• contributors: anyone can provide feedback, submit bug reports, or submit patches (WeLoveVolunteers)
• committers: a committer is simply an individual who was given write access to the codebase
• PMC members: the project management committee is responsible for managing a project

SpamAssassin specifics

The SpamAssassin project management committee is responsible for:

• adding new committers (and potentially removing)
• creating and destroying subprojects
• setting project direction
• handling public relations
• setting policy and procedures

In addition, there are some actions that are purely development-related, so they do not fall under the PMC mantle. Of course, people who happen to be on the PMC tend to do these, but committers could as well:

• proposing and cutting releases
• scheduling

There's a private 'PMC list', called 'private at spamassassin.apache.org', but it's not to be used as a private mailing list of general discussions for PMC members only, as this is contrary to ASF policy. Instead, it's there to discuss sensitive stuff that needs to be moderately secret. Non-sensitive PMC discussions are held on the dev list. The ASF definition of what lives on the private list is: 'issues that cannot be discussed in public, such as discussion of pre-disclosure security problems, pre-agreement discussions with third parties that require confidentiality, discussion of nominees for project or Foundation membership, and personal conflicts among project personnel.'

...

To: invitee-email-address
Cc: private
Subject: Invitation to serve on the Apache SpamAssassin PMC

Invitation to Apache SpamAssassin PMC

Dear <Invitee> --

The SpamAssassin PMC has voted to invite you to join as a PMC member!

The PMC is the entity that controls the project and speaks for the
project.  If you accept, you'll have the right to vote for the
community-related decisions and the right to propose committer status for
active contributors.  And, of course, you'll be expected to participate in
these community decisions too!

The latter needs to be a key factor in your decision to join.  It
requires almost no effort to serve as a PMC member, but you *are* expected
to subscribe to, and keep up with the mailing list traffic on the dev and
private lists, provide votes where needed, contribute to the community 
when it's required, and respect the Apache Way of doing things.

Some reading on the subject:

  http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html

  http://www.apache.org/dev/pmc.html

  http://www.apache.org/foundation/faq.html

If you accept, please reply-all to that effect using the email address with
which you will be subscribed to the private@spamassassin.apache.org mailing list.

CategoryDevelopment CategoryDefinition