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Modules

Blender development is organized in modules, each covering and area of the Blender software.

For those looking to contribute to Blender, see the module list to find the contact point for each area of Blender. Here you can find information about meetings, workboards, chat channels and more.

Not only developers, but also designers, documentation writers and testers are welcome to get involved.

Roles

Owners

Active developers who frequently contribute to parts of Blender can become module owners. Ownership means you have a lot of freedom to work on the modules, decide on implementation and design issues here, and approve or reject patches and feature requests. This based on aligning well with Blender's general design decisions, release planning and roadmap.

Owners should keep track of other module teams to make sure overlapping work is being agreed on, and make sure their own module teams agree on work that's being done.

Responsibilities:

  • Be available for regular bug fixing in the module (at least for every release)
  • Make sure the module is well tested for a release
  • Organize review of pull requests as submitted for the module
  • Ensure new features or changes in modules are well documented in wiki.

Module owner and members mostly self organize. When needed, the module owner acts as the main point of contact and coordinates efforts.

Project admins approve module ownership.

Members

Module members are involved in and contribute to the module. This includes developers, designers, writers, artists, users, and more.

Anyone actively contributing to a module can be listed as a member, there is no formal process to join. Members are listed in their corresponding areas if their involvement is more sporadic, or as a module member if they want to be more active and involved.

Whenever possible, members are available for bug fixing, reviews and documentation. However, it's more of a loose commitment compared to owners, based on 'being involved' more than on 'being available'.

Developers

Developers typically contribute in the following ways:

  • Design and implement features
  • Review pull requests
  • Handle bugs reports
  • Listen to user feedback
  • Answer questions from contributors

Once a developer has contributed good quality code, they can be given access to commit directly to the Blender repository. They can then commit code approved code reviews themselves, or merge approved contributions from others.

When making changes in other modules, the developers should get approval from the relevant members of those modules. Any areas not clearly covered by a module are handled by the project admins.

Artists and Users

Users can also be a member and participate in module discussions and decision making. They are usually artists who act in the quality assurance and stakeholder role of the module.

Users typically contribute in the following ways:

  • Make sure the module is well tested for a release
  • Help documenting and writing release notes
  • Participate in design tasks, reviews, meetings
  • Gather user feedback and respond to user questions

The module team ensure that stakeholders endorse and agree with features and development plans, while the stakeholders test new features and changes as they are developed.

Designers, Writers, Organizers, ...

There are many valuable ways to contribute and members often contribute in multiple ways. There are no strict roles for each. The module team and members can fill this in themselves.