From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 3383 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 2002 14:54:59 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 3319 invoked from network); 23 Apr 2002 14:54:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO nevyn.them.org) (128.2.145.6) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 2002 14:54:57 -0000 Received: from drow by nevyn.them.org with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1701h5-0002DZ-00 for ; Tue, 23 Apr 2002 10:54:59 -0400 Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 07:54:00 -0000 From: Daniel Jacobowitz To: gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: which patches to review Message-ID: <20020423105459.A8292@nevyn.them.org> Mail-Followup-To: gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com References: <20020422.224035.88562706.davem@redhat.com> <15557.29643.263642.453067@localhost.redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <15557.29643.263642.453067@localhost.redhat.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.23i X-SW-Source: 2002-04/txt/msg00850.txt.bz2 Please take this as it is meant; observations on the process rather than criticism. I think there's nothing we can do about it. I certainly have no suggestions. On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 10:46:35AM -0400, Elena Zannoni wrote: > > I'm sending in a lot of changes, true. But what really eats me is > > that everyone besides me sticks to one of two things in order to > > actually get work done with GDB: > > > > 1) Become maintainer, so you can just post patches to the target > > you maintain and you don't need to wait for review before > > installation. > > > > 2) Stick to "obvious" fixes and therefore can just check them in. > > This is not true. Look through the archives for this mailing list. Actually, Elena, I have to agree with David on this point. I've been lucky in that no one else is working on the areas I was fixing; that's how I ended up maintainer for both of them. It's not 100% true but it's fairly accurate. I'm not saying that there is anything to be done about it, or that anything -must- be done about it, but there is a great gap between the patch review process for binutils/gcc and the corresponding process for GDB. It's purely a manpower problem; we don't have enough dedicated maintainers. I greatly prefer not doing sweeping fixes to an area I don't maintain in GDB; between the insistence on small patches and the long review time, it's almost impossible to do something highly interdependent when you can't just approve them yourself. > In my opinion, people have learned that since there may be only one > person responsible to review their patches, it make sense to send only > a few at the time. The reviewer's bandwith is limited. The submitter's time is also limited, and also valuable to the GDB project. > > I'm spending all of my time in patch mangement, going above and beyond > > what I really should have to do to get fixes installed (especially the > > easier ones). That is my main point. > > Everybody goes through that. Everybody seems to stay in this stage, actually, except for the global write maintainers or those who follow David's two bullets above (which I try to). -- Daniel Jacobowitz Carnegie Mellon University MontaVista Software Debian GNU/Linux Developer