[mylyn-dev] individual and vendor contribution guidelines, updated email

["Mik Kersten" <mik@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The three committers from Tasktop (myself, Robert Elves and Steffen Pingel)
have all updated our email addresses to the first.last@xxxxxxxxxxx.  This
was done because there was some confusion about us working at eclipse.org,
which we don't, and so that we could follow the vendor guidelines that we
have been recommending on bugs and during meetings.  I have written out
these guidelines here, both for individuals and for vendors:

  http://wiki.eclipse.org/Mylyn_Contributor_Reference#Getting_Started

One of the reasons that the Eclipse ecosystem works as well as it does is
that it supports commercial efforts.  However, it can sometimes be hard to
see how a vendor's needs translate into a project's priorities.  In order to
encourage diversity and transparency, we have been making Tasktop
Technologies' needs explicit by voting for bug reports as per the
conventions linked above.

For other vendors or open source projects this is a straightforward thing.
Simply vote with the email address that corresponds to the tool or project
that you need the fix for.  If you run out of votes (20 per project) let us
know.  For Tasktop it's slightly more complicated because Rob, Steffen and I
prioritize the vast majority of our contributions based on community needs,
not Tasktop needs, since Tasktop is committed to supporting and evolving
Mylyn.  For this reason we have been using the votes of Shawn Minto (Tasktop
employee and Mylyn contributor, but not a committer) as a way of indicating
for Tasktop-specific bugs according to this convention.  

I hope that this mechanism works well for making vendor needs more
transparent and easy to query.  I'm very interested in any feedback or
comments that others have on this approach either in case we can improve on
it.

Mik

--
Mik Kersten
President & CTO, http://tasktop.com 
Project Lead, http://eclipse.org/mylyn