Zelerate AllCommerce 1.0.4 Documentation

10. Zelerate Development Community

The Zelerate AllCommerce Project is a collaborative software development effort aimed at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful and freely-available source code implementation of applications designed to easily customize online pricing, inventory and ordering information. The project is jointly managed by a group of volunteers located around the world, using the Internet and the Web to communicate, plan and develop the application and its related documentation. These volunteers are known as the Zelerate AllCommerce Group. In addition, hundreds of users have contributed ideas, code and documentation to the project.

10.1 Overview of Open Source Development

The Zelerate.org site is a developers' resource for Zelerate AllCommerce, our open source e-commerce Internet application written in Perl and designed for scalability, performance and ease of administration.

The site features source code freely available under the GNU General License (GPL), and documentation that not only directs you through the site modules but also provides insight on future development philosophy.

We have mailing lists that connect you to other developers, both internal and external. The mailing lists are tailored to both beginning AllCommerce users and our more senior developers. You can also subscribe to the announcements mailing lists which we use to broadcast information about new releases, bug fixes and upcoming events. The developer mailing list is not a user support forum. It is for people actively working on development of the server code and documentation, and for planning future directions. If you have user/configuration questions, send them to the newbies mailing list.

Our bug tracking software allows developers to keep abreast of code changes and to monitor feature refinement.

In the features section, developers can find breaking news and articles focusing on our product and related open source issues. We include a column by Arne Flones and a Notes From the Field area where updates from Linux User Groups and other community events are posted. There is also a Calendar of upcoming conferences Zelerate is attending so that members of the Zelerate AllCommerce Group may meet face-to-face on occasion.

10.2 Maintainers

In almost all AllCommerce directories there is a MAINTAINERS file. That file is used to specify who maintains the code stored in that directory.

10.3 Contributors

We welcome your contributions to AllCommerce project. You can contribute to the Zelerate.org site. Download and install the AllCommerce and Phoneystore software, and then contact us through the developers mailing lists http://lists.zelerate.org/mailman/listinfo.

10.4 How to Get Involved

Contribute to the site and become a member of the Zelerate AllCommerce Group!

Zelerate AllCommerce is an organic entity; those who benefit from it by using it often contribute back to it by providing feature enhancements, bug fixes and support for others in public newsgroups. The amount of effort expended by any particular individual is usually fairly light, but the resulting product is made very strong. This kind of community can only happen with open source software -- when someone pays for software, they usually aren't willing to fix its bugs.

We want to see Zelerate AllCommerce used very widely so use our source and send us comments, patches and bug reports. Email us. We like to hear from you; we're serious.