This document describes the contribution process and governance policies of the NDCN Omicser project. As this project aims to solve for a broad set of needs across the NDCN community there will need to be honest and thoughtful discussion around features and priorities.
Before making a contribution, please take the following steps:
- Check whether there's already an open issue related to your proposed contribution. If there is, join the discussion and propose your contribution there.
- If there isn't already a relevant issue, create one, describing your contribution and the problem you're trying to solve.
- Respond to any questions or suggestions raised in the issue by other developers.
- Fork the project repository and prepare your proposed contribution.
- Submit a pull request.
NOTE: All contributors are implicitly sharing open license to the code submitted. See also our CONTRIBUTION document
All participants in this project are bound by the code of conduct.
This project has a large community of users and contributors, a ”Brain Trust”, and a team of maintainers including a full-time developer and project lead.
Although the principle execution and responsibility for development of the NDCN Omics Broswer is concentrated and hosted in [Martin Giera's Lab at the University of Leiden] (https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/plantsandmetabolomics/lecturers/martin-giera), the NDCN Browser “Brain Trust” is the group of NDCN PIs, their lab members, and CZI personnel who continue to steer the open source project. The “Brain Trust” is responsible for:
- Specify and evolve the strategic objectives of the project.
- Enabling the project survives in the long term.
Together the group of individuals who constitute the “Brain Trust” will proactively articulate the overall strategies, goals and objectives of the project. Although the ”Brain Trust is everyone involved in the bi-monthly discussions, the primary responsibility is shared among the PIs of that group. Currently, all of the maintainers are also members of the Brain Trust. They will ensure that the maintainers' tactical objectives are aligned with the overall project goals.
Maintainers are collectively responsible for day-to-day development of the package, including responding to issues and reviewing pull requests. They are GitHub administrators and package authors, which means that they have the ability to make changes to project code, and receive credit when others cite the package.
The current maintainers of Omicser are:
- Head Maintaner. Rico Derks Bioinformatics & Tech Lead
- Yassene Mohammed Science Lead
- Damien Olivier Full-time (Lead) developer (hire in progress)
Our Head Maintainer , Rico Derks, is also the lead on technical and bioinformatics. He will additionally delegate tasks, communicate proactively with the Science lead, the lead developer, and other stakeholders. They have the responsibility to ensure that pull requests, issues, etc. are handled in a timely manner.
The lead developer TBD, is a post-doc who is focused full-time on developing the NDCN Omics browser and refining it into a widely deployed and performant tool for the -omics research community.
While maintainers can modify code directly, this ability is rarely used. Instead, changes are proposed as pull requests, and are only merged after they have been reviewed by at least one other contributor. Changes to the API (especially breaking changes) must also be approved by the Head Maintainer.
Additional maintainers are recruited from contributors. An invitation to join the maintainers can be extended to anyone who has made a major contribution, either through a small number of large changes, or a consistent pattern of smaller contributions. Any existing core maintainers can propose a contributor be invited to join the maintainers by contacting the Head Maintainer. The project lead will the confirm the invitation with the other maintainers.
All maintainers are bound by the code of conduct.
To date, there are a number of users of the NDCN Omics Browser (or omicser) who have contributed code and documentation. Currently all of the contributors are also members of the “Brain Trust” group, but as the project matures it is our goal to welcome many more contributors.
All contributors are bound by the code of conduct.
People who browse and visualize -omics data with the NDCN Omics Browser (or omicser) are the most important members of the community; without these users, this project would have no purpose.
Users are encouraged to participate in the life of the project and the community as much as possible. User contributions help ensure that the project is satisfying users' needs. Common user activities include (but are not limited to):
- evangelizing about the project
- asking and answering on community forums
- providing moral support (a 'thank you' goes a long way)
Users who continue to engage with the project and its community will often find themselves becoming more and more involved. Such users may then go on to become contributors, as described above.
The NDCN Liaison, Chris Sifuentes, is responsible for:
- Clearly communication of the NDCN Github Organization policies and objectives.
- Mediating any conflicts amongst the maintainers in repositories within the NDCN Github Organization.
This project makes decisions according to a consensus model where suggestions are considered and discussed between the community and maintainers, typically in GitHub issues. If the community questions a decision, the “Brain Trust” and/or the NDCN Github Organization lead may review it and either uphold or reverse it.