1page.title=People and Roles 2doc.type=source 3@jd:body 4<p>The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) includes individuals working in a variety 5of roles. As noted in <a href="{@docRoot}about/philosophy.html">Our 6Philosophy</a>, Google is responsible for Android product management 7and the engineering process for the core framework and platform; however, 8the project considers contributions from any source, not just Google. This 9page describes the kinds of roles that interested parties can take on.</p> 10<p>Anyone who is interested in exploring and contributing to Android can use the 11Android Open Source Project resources. Anyone can join the mailing lists, ask 12questions, contribute patches, report bugs, look at submitted patches, and use 13the tools. To get started with the Android code, see <a 14href="{@docRoot}source/index.html">Get Involved</a>.</p> 15 16<h2>Contributor</h2> 17<p>A "Contributor" is anyone making contributions to the AOSP source code, 18including both employees of Google or other companies, as well as 19external developers who are contributing to Android on their own behalf. 20There is no distinction between Contributors who are employed by 21Google, and those who are not: all engineers use the same git/gerrit tools, 22follow the same code review process, and are subject to the same requirements 23on code style and so on.</p> 24<p/> 25 26<h2>Developer</h2> 27<p>A "Developer" is an engineer writing applications that run on Android 28devices. There is, of course, no difference in skillset between a "Developer" 29and a "Contributor"; AOSP simply uses "Developer" to help identify our audience. 30Since the key purpose of Android is to cultivate an open development platform, 31"Developers" are one of the key customers of the Android platform. As such, we 32talk about them a lot, though this isn't technically a separate role in the 33AOSP <i>per se.</i></p> 34<p/> 35 36<h2>Verifier</h2> 37<p>"Verifiers" are responsible for testing change requests. After individuals 38have submitted a significant amount of high-quality code to the project, the 39Project Leads might invite them to become Verifiers.</p><p><i>Note: at this 40time, generally Verifiers are the same as Approvers.</i></p> 41<p/> 42 43<h2>Approver</h2> 44"Approvers" are experienced members of the project who have demonstrated their 45design skills and have made significant technical contributions to the 46project. In the code-review process, an Approver decides whether to include or 47exclude a change. Project Leads (who are typically employed by Google) choose 48the Approvers, sometimes promoting to this position Verifiers who have 49demonstrated their expertise within a specific project.</p> 50<p/> 51 52<h2>Project Leads</h2> 53<p>Android consists of a number of sub-projects; you can see these in the git 54repository, as individual .git files. Tech Leads are senior Contributors who 55oversee the engineering for individual Android projects. Typically these tech 56leads will be Google employees. A Project Lead for an individual project is 57responsible for the following:</p> 58<ul> 59 <li>Lead all technical aspects of the project; for example, the project 60 roadmap, development, release cycles, versioning, and QA.</li> 61 <li>Ensure that the project is QA-ed in time for scheduled Android platform 62 releases.</li> 63 <li>Designate Verifiers and Approvers for submitted patches.</li> 64 <li>Be fair and unbiased while reviewing changes. Accept or reject patches 65 based on technical merit and alignment with the Android platform.</li> 66 <li>Review changes in a timely manner and make best efforts to communicate 67 when changes are not accepted.</li> 68 <li>Optionally maintain a web site for the project for information and 69 documents specific to the project.</li> 70 <li>Act as a facilitator in resolving technical conflicts.</li> 71 <li>Be the public face for the project and the go-to person for questions 72 related to the project.</li> 73</ul> 74