I like the idea of having a formal 'development process' or 'developer' document for the project.
Regarding the process to follow to pull in large features, or regular patches or pull request, I am adding here the policy [1] from HBase. FYI.
To quote it:
Feature Branches
Feature Branches are easy to make. You do not have to be a committer to make one. Just request the name of your branch be added to JIRA up on the developer’s mailing list and a committer will add it for you. Thereafter you can file issues against your feature branch in Apache HBase JIRA. Your code you keep elsewhere — it should be public so it can be observed — and you can update dev mailing list on progress. When the feature is ready for commit, 3 +1s from committers will get your feature merged.
Patch +1 Policy
The below policy is something we put in place 09/2012. It is a suggested policy rather than a hard requirement. We want to try it first to see if it works before we cast it in stone.
Apache HBase is made of components.
Patches that fit within the scope of a single Apache HBase component require, at least, a +1 by one of the component’s owners before commit. If owners are absent — busy or otherwise — two +1s by non-owners will suffice.
Patches that span components need at least two +1s before they can be committed, preferably +1s by owners of components touched by the x-component patch (TODO: This needs tightening up but I think fine for first pass).
Any -1 on a patch by anyone vetoes a patch; it cannot be committed until the justification for the -1 is addressed.
I think we can reconcile/merge the Tinkerpop policy and the HBase policy so that we have a simple yet fine tuned one.
