Committer

A committer is an individual who is permitted to modify the source code of a software project, ^{[1] [2]} that will be used in the project's official releases. ^[3] To contribute source code to most large software projects, one must make modifications and then "commit" those changes to a central version control system.

In open-source software development, the committer role may be used to distinguish commit access, a specific type of responsibility, from other forms of contribution, ^[4] such as triaging issues or organizing events. Typically, an author submits a software patch containing changes and a committer integrates the patch into the main code base of the project. ^{[2] [5]}

Commit bit

To have a "commit bit" on one's user account means that the user is permitted to contribute source code changes. This dates to the use of a literal binary digit to represent yes-or-no privileges in access control systems of legacy version control ^[6] and software systems, such as BSD. ^[7] The commit bit represents the permission to contribute to the shared code of a software project. It can be resigned or may be removed due to inactivity in the project, as dormant committer accounts can represent security risks. ^[8]

References

1. "Community-led development "The Apache Way"". www.apache.org. The Apache Software Foundation. Archived from the original on 2004-04-23. Retrieved 2020-04-06. A committer is a developer that was given write access to the code repository […]
2. Riehle, Dirk; Riemer, Philipp; Kolassa, Carsten; Schmidt, Michael (2014). "Paid vs. Volunteer Work in Open Source". 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. IEEE. pp. 3286–3295. doi: 10.1109/HICSS.2014.407 . ISBN   978-1-4799-2504-9. S2CID   19009806. A committer is a software developer who has the necessary rights to commit to a code repository. […] Typically, in a two-step process, an author submits a patch and a committer integrates the patch into the main code base.
3. Fogel, Karl (2017). Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project (PDF) (2nd ed.). O'Reilly Media. p. 149. A committer is someone who has commit access: the right to make changes to the copy of the code that will be used for the project's next official release.This precise definition is important because, after all, anyone can set up a repository containing a copy of the project's code and allow themselves to commit to that repository;
4. "Leadership and Governance". www.opensource.guide. Open Source Guides. Archived from the original on 2017-02-14. Retrieved 2020-04-06. The term "committer" might be used to distinguish commit access, which is a specific type of responsibility, from other forms of contribution.
5. "OpenJDK Projects". openjdk.java.net. Oracle Corporation. Archived from the original on 2007-05-14. Retrieved 2020-04-06. An Author who is not a Committer still requires the assistance of a Committer to push changesets […]
6. Brasseur, VM (Vicky) (2018). Forge Your Future with Open Source. Pragmatic Bookshelf. ISBN   978-1-68050-639-6. It's simply a phrase that originates in the access control systems of legacy version control systems, where a commit access was controlled by the value of a single binary digit (a bit).
7. "The Life of a Pull Request & Where Commit Bits Come From". www.voidlinux.org. 2019-02-03. Archived from the original on 2019-04-01. Retrieved 2020-04-02. […] people who can merge changes are referred to generally as people with a commit bit. For those who are curious, this term comes from privileged users on a BSD system often having a "wheel bit"
8. "Commit Bit Expiration Policy". www.freebsd.ch. The FreeBSD Project. 2013-11-26. Archived from the original on 2020-04-06. Retrieved 2020-04-06. FreeBSD committers may […] decide […] to resign their commit bit. […] a committer may become inactive over a long period of time without explicitly resigning their bit. Over the long term, these accounts can represent a security risk […]