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Sector Ecosystem - contribution and governance model

Sector Ecosystem
Sector contribution and governance model

Sector is open source and the Sector Ecosystem is open for contributions. In this post, we share our ideas on how we see an open Sector contribution and governance model working while keeping a strong and maintainable product. 

Keep it simple

The Sector Ecosystem is an ecosystem within the the wider Drupal Ecosystem, and we want to use the tools and processes the community provides. 

The contribution model 

Join the party! Everybody can contribute to Sector. You can write your own Sector modules and contribute to existing Sector projects on Drupal.org. 

Core and contribution 

The Sector Starter Kit acts as the Sector core, and the Sector add-ons as Sector contributed modules. The Sector Starter Kit is built from:

  • Drupal core and a section of Drupal contributed modules,
  • The Sector Starter Theme, and
  • A small number of custom helper modules. 

The code is hosted in projects on Drupal.org. The Starter Kit is one project, with another project for each add-on. Sparks Interactive is the main sponsor and maintainer of the Sector Starter Kit and the Sector add-on modules currently published on Drupal.org.  

The wider Sector Ecosystem 

Next to the Sector Starter Kit and the Sector add-ons, the wider Sector Ecosystem includes the Sector.nz website hosting the Sector documentation and the Sector blog, as well as the many moving parts to 'compose' Sector - the public GitHub repository and the Sector Project at Packagist.  

The governance model

All contributions to existing Sector projects - including our own - go through a quality assurance process. This includes documentation, test plans, test cycles, code reviews, GIT code commits and mergers, releases notes, and - finally - releases to GitHub and Drupal.org. All contributions are credited to the contributors. Individuals or agencies who want to get involved further can become core contributors.  

Accredited Sector add-ons

New Sector add-ons go through the same process to become accredited Sector add-ons. The Anatomy of a Sector add-on explains what is involved. 

Maintenance

As with any Drupal distribution, you can use the Sector Starter Kit as a stepping stone and never look back - we call this decoupling. If you are along for the ride, you can remain on an upgrade path. 

Security updates 

At Sparks Interactive, most Sector sites remain on an upgrade path. In case of a Drupal security advisory, Sparks assesses the advisory, updates and tests Sector, publishes the Sector update, then updates the Sparks Sector sites via a composer update. For time-critical updates, you can also hot patch sites (add patches to your code base directly) and bring them back into the Sector fold with the next Sector update.  

Reporting and resolving issues, requesting features, and sharing ideas 

Drupal.org offers a process to report and resolve issues, including committing patches. This is open to everybody, and is also the best tool to request new features and share ideas  - just create an account at Drupal.org and get going

From July 2019, we will move all known issues and all improvements we are working on into the issue queues on Drupal.org. 

Bigger ideas? 

Talk to us :)

Staff image

Heike Theis

Heike is part of the Sector team at Sparks Interactive and, together with Dave Sparks, the project owner for the Sector Drupal Distribution. 

More blog posts

Sector 10 is coming!

Find out more in our Sector 10 roadmap.

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Open Source award winner!

Sparks Interactive are delighted to accept the Open Source Use in Business award for Sector and the Sector.nz open source platform.

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