About Falcon Development
Falcon development is divided into three branches:
- Featured projects: Core Falcon system, Feathers (default modules) and system related projects as Faldoc.
- Modules: loadable Falcon extensions.
- Projects: software related to Falcon, plugins for third party integration, web server modules and so on.
How to access Falcon build environment
Informations about downloading source and the build environment is located in our wiki. Be sure to read both the the documents about the Source Tree organization and the setup of the Build Environment.
Please, notice that the source code downloadable in the download section is not enough to build directly a complete installation of Falcon. The build system needs some setup that is found only on our anonymous SVN server (again, check our wiki).
If you arn't still a certified developer, you may send us a fix in the Bug Reports Forum.
If your contribution consists of a separate module, you can send it in just one packed file.
Contributor levels
If you wish to improve the Falcon project in any way you can become either a Flanker, a Contributor or a Committee member.
Flankers are single persons or group of people developing Falcon based applications and interacting with the Falcon community. In sort, to become a known Flanker you just have to start your Falcon project and tell it to the Committee; we'll exchange links, documentation, development ideas and opportunities. For example, we may cite you an example for various conventions, or even bringing you along with us to intervene; we may cite you or ask for your participation in the documentation, publications, books etc.
As the project takes off, we are willing to provide a home for the Falcon Developers Community, where the Flankers will be provided with Open Source development facilities as in Source Forge and Belios.
Contributors are persons sending us their fixes, addition or updates. If the Committee evaluates the contribution as valid, it will be added to the Falcon project, and your name will be listed in the contributor list (if you wish to).
If you are a contributor and you get more interest in the Falcon Project, you may become a Committee member. The number of members is not fixed, and we are always happy to meet a new member.
Members are selected upon the value of their contributions; the other members will decide (or vote, if the decision is not unanimous) if a contributor may become a member.
Members have their privileges: they have access to a private mailing list, they can make announcements, speak for the Falcon Project Committee as a whole (if they don't overdo it ;-); we'll also provide a "Falcon Committee Member" registered trademark (this time a real trademark) that the members will have the right to place on their site, documentation, business cards and whatever they like. Being a Falcon Committee member means to be an esteemed developer with high programming skills, but also with organizational and group oriented skills, so it may be an interesting addition to a developer's curriculum.
And obviously they have full access to SVN and can mangle with Falcon Source at their will. However, this power will be regulated by the committee as a whole, that may decide (and eventually vote) on other members contributions. With time we'll have specializations, so that we'll have members specializing in code audit, other writing documentation, other specializations such as writing fixes, or writing extensions and so on.
Joining the community
If you want to enter the community, either join our IRC channel or drop a line to the Committee.
To join our development community, you have just to be willing to do something. Come with a plan, and be prepared to fulfil it; we'll give you assistance to realize it, and if your ideas are interesting, you may easily find developers willing to help you in realizing them.