Community Overview
The Apache Mahout community consists of developers, users, researchers, and open-source contributors who collaborate on Qumat, a high-level Python library for quantum computing, and QDP, its GPU-accelerated quantum data encoding engine. Mahout follows the principles of the Apache Software Foundation: openness, transparency, community-driven development, and meritocracy.
This page is the starting point for the community section. It explains where discussion happens, how to participate, and where to find the project's policies.
Community Pages
- Who We Are: the PMC members, committers, and emeritus contributors behind the project
- Mailing Lists, IRC and Archives: how to subscribe to the user, dev, and commits lists
- How to Contribute: getting involved, picking something to work on, and submitting changes
- PR Policy and Review Guidelines: what reviewers expect and how pull requests are merged
- Code of Conduct: the standards every community member is expected to uphold
- Blog and Meeting Minutes: project news and notes from the monthly community meeting
- Powered By: organizations and research groups using Mahout, and how to add yours
Monthly Community Meeting
Apache Mahout holds a community meeting every month. Anyone is welcome to join. Subscribe to the Google Calendar to see upcoming meetings, and read past meeting minutes to catch up.
How to Participate
💬 Mailing Lists
All official communication for Mahout happens on Apache-managed public mailing lists:
- User list (questions, installation help, usage discussions): https://lists.apache.org/list.html?user@mahout.apache.org
- Development list (design discussions, patches, roadmap, votes): https://lists.apache.org/list.html?dev@mahout.apache.org
To subscribe, send an empty email to user-subscribe@mahout.apache.org or dev-subscribe@mahout.apache.org. See the mailing lists page for the full set of lists and archives.
🐛 Issues and Pull Requests
Mahout uses GitHub Issues and Pull Requests for development:
- Source code: https://github.com/apache/mahout
- Open issues: https://github.com/apache/mahout/issues
- Pull requests: https://github.com/apache/mahout/pulls
If you find a bug or want to propose a feature:
- Open a GitHub issue
- Discuss significant changes on the dev mailing list
- Submit a pull request that follows the PR Policy and Review Guidelines
📘 Documentation and Website
Documentation lives in the docs/ folder of the main repository and is published to https://mahout.apache.org. The site itself is built from website/.
Documentation improvements are always welcome: fixing broken links, updating examples, adding explanations, or writing new guides. See How to Contribute for the workflow.
Contribution Guidelines
Apache Mahout follows the ASF standard contribution process:
- Communicate on the mailing list before large changes
- Submit small, well-tested pull requests
- Follow the PR Policy and Review Guidelines, including the rules for AI-assisted contributions
- Participate in community discussions and votes
- Respect others. Mahout operates under its own Code of Conduct, which builds on the ASF Code of Conduct
Community and Governance
Mahout is governed by the Apache Mahout PMC (Project Management Committee). The PMC is responsible for project direction, releases, and community oversight. The current members are listed on the Who We Are page.
Contributors who consistently help the project through code, documentation, or community involvement may be invited to become:
- Committers, who have write access to the repository
- PMC members, who participate in project decision-making
Mahout community decisions are made publicly on the dev@mahout.apache.org mailing list following ASF voting rules.
Thank you for being part of the Apache Mahout community! Contributions of all kinds, whether code, documentation, discussion, or feedback, help keep the project healthy and evolving.