This is an excellent question, and I agree we need to address it early. I don’t think we’ve ever made an official, formal definition. I’m not sure we should have an overall strict definition, but clearly we need to have a common understanding of the working definition we’re using in the plan.
So, here’s a starting point — with the second question first.
A Fedora Project contributor is anyone who:
- Undertakes activities
- which sustain or advance the project towards our mission and vision
- intentionally as part of the Project,
- and as part of our community in line with our shared values.
(And “a contribution”, then, is any product of such activities.)
Explanation:
- It has to be, you know, actually doing something. And, I like this to be plural — one drive-through might be a contribution, but to be (present tense) a contributor, it should be an ongoing thing.
- And not doing just anything, but something that goes in the direction our project is all about.
- An activity which is incidentally or accidentally a benefit to Fedora doesn’t count.
- We’re not just a free-and-open-source-software-licensed project, but an intentional community with shared foundations.
I recognize that the 4th point is a little redundant with the 3rd — but think of it as emphasis.
What do you think? Is this missing anything? Does is it exclude something it shouldn’t? Does it get near the mark?
Then, to the pragmatic point: this is hard to measure. But, I think we can introduce ways of measuring that will be meaningful enough to track relative growth even if we can’t get to an exact number. And, we can refine some of these over time — we can start with something more rough like the fedmsg-based statistics I’ve presented before (see my 2016 DevConf.cz metrics presentation), and then develop more sophisticated approaches (I hope @cdolfi can help!) and apply those retroactively as we go.