This document outlines the governance of this project. This project is covered by the Apache 2.0 license and is maintained by Bench Accounting.
Bench accepts contributions in the form of pull requests as outlined in the Contribution Process below and will work with contributors to merge contributions for inclusion within new versions of the software.
A user is somebody who downloads and runs the software.
A Contributor is somebody who contributes changes to the git repository in the form of a Pull Request. This could be changes to the code or documentation.
Committers have the ability to merge Pull Requests into the master branch and will be responsible for releasing new versions of the software. Committers will be Bench Engineers, but Bench may occasionally invite non-Bench Contributors to also become Committers. Committers should work with Contributors to get contributions merged into the master branch. When Committers feel contributions are not suitable for merging, they will give appropriate feedback or work with the Contributor to make the changes suitable. In some situations Committers may need to reject contributions, but will clearly explain why and encourage Contributors to continue to contribute.
Bench does not provide support for the software. It is provided as-is and Users use it at their own risk.
Committers will be the decision makers on the project, but will strive for open dialog with Contributors and any relevant User community. When Committers are in disagreement, then Bench Engineering Management will have final say.
Contributors can make their contributions via Pull Requests which contain the code and documentation changes they wish to add to the project. This shorter path to contribution works best for smaller changes.
For larger changes, we recommend first discussing these changes with the Committers. A good forum for this is filing a GitHub Issue, which can then be referenced in a subsequent Pull Request. We suggest this, to prevent Contributors wasting time on changes that Committers do not feel fit with the projects direction. Also, the earlier these conversations happen the better solutions we can jointly arrive at.