To be able to use the proposal tool (PEPr), you have to apply for a PEAR website
account. This account will usually be granted within one or
two days. After that you can open a new proposal using the
"New Package
Proposal" interface.
The package proposal process is divided into 4 stages:
"Draft", "Proposal", "Call for
Votes" and "Finished". Every proposal has to run
through all of these stages. During each stage (except for the draft
stage) an email is send to you (the proposer) and the PEAR developers mailing list
for any action.
At first your proposal is a draft. This simply means you can edit
it, view it and it is shown up on the PEPr overview page as a
draft. This stage is for you to play around with PEPr, to shape
your proposal nicely and to prepare it for the proposal
process. You can switch to the next stage when ever you want to
publish your proposal and get feedback from the PEAR community.
After switching to the stage Proposal you have a real proposal.
Either through email or through PEPr itself the community will
give you hints and ask questions about the proposed
package. Generally it is a good idea to follow these suggestions,
but sometimes people in the community will have different visions
for your package, which should be sorted out during this
stage. After a week of comments you may switch to the next
phase. You should only switch to the next stage, if you are sure
that the PEAR community will accept your package.
The next stage is the voting stage, during which you may not
change your proposal anymore. You may not edit nor delete the
proposal from now on. During the proposal stage,
"Call for Votes,"
every active PEAR maintainer may give one vote on the
proposal. Votes are given using the numbers -1, 0 and +1, where
-1 means "I'm against this package to be added to PEAR in the
current form," +1 says
"I'm in favour of getting this package
into PEAR in the current form" and 0 means
"I have looked at your
package, but I am undecided." The time to vote for a package
is 7 calendar days. If after this time less than
5 votes have been cast, the developers get another 7 days to cast
their votes. After this time the voting is ended, whether there
are 5 votes or not.
Votes on proposals can be bound to a condition. These conditional
votes indicate that you have to fulfil a certain condition the
voters expect to be fulfilled. If there are conditional votes you
are expected to read and follow them! The conditions on a vote
will be provided in the votes comment. Each vote
may have comments. Reading those is always
a good idea!
Now your proposal is finished. To determine if the proposal was
successful or not, the sum of all votes is computed. If the
result is greater or equal to 5 the proposal has been
accepted. Otherwise we are sorry to say, that the community has
decided to reject it. Have a look at their comments during
proposal and vote stage to find out why. Maybe you can rework
your package and propose it again, but please do not try to hand
in a proposal the same way twice.
If your proposal has been accepted, you may put your package into
PEAR. If this is your first proposal, please contact the PEAR Group via email to get your
current PEAR website account upgraded to a full featured developer
account. After that, you can register your package and upload
releases.
The process of preparing and uploading a release is described in
the Developer Guide.
