A committer is an individual who is able to modify the source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

 of a particular piece of open-source software

Open-source software

Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...

.

Common Roles

Project committers are usually the lead developers of a project and usually are the ones responsible for the majority of changes and as such as seen as trusted members of the community. Relatedly, committers are usually responsible for the review of patches

Patch (computing)

A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...

 submitted members of the community for inclusion into the software. After a successful review, usually consisting of conformance to coding standards and ensuring it does not introduce any new bugs, the committer will commit that specific patch on behalf of the patch submitter.

Becoming a committer

The process to becoming a committer can vary across projects, but in general, there are three common ways to do it.

1. Be one of the original developers
2. Be appointed by one of the original developers
3. Be successful voted in by the community of committers

Becoming a committer in an existing project often involves becoming active on both the mailing list

Mailing list

A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is referred to as "the mailing list", or simply "the...

s as well as with supplying patches

Patch (computing)

A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...

. After enough involvement, the other committers can then vote you in as a new committer. This normally happens through an e-mail

E-mail

Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

vote. An example is http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xml-soap-dev/200006.mbox/%3c852568F9.0079E946.00@d54mta04.raleigh.ibm.com%3e