Re: [Gdbheads] Re: Feb's patch resolution rate

Bob Rossi
2004-03-25T04:13:33Z

On Wed, Mar 24, 2004 at 09:00:31PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
> That's because no
> one, to the best of my knowledge, is claiming that GDB development is
> dysfunctional. As long as GDB maintenance as a whole works fairly
> well, the average figures of any reasonable performance estimator will
> be good. IMHO, it is the (relatively rare) exceptions from the rule
> that bothered and continue to bother those among us who came up with
> suggestions to modify the existing practices.
>
> I can understand that these occasional long delays cause annoyance to
> the people who wrote those particular patches. However, I don't think
> that occasional long delays indicate a fundamental problem in the way
> gdb is being maintained. It seems to be basically adequate.

Agreed. However, IMO, Ian is correct.

Maintainers must take responsibility for looking over patches quickly,
and approving them, rewriting them to be acceptable, rejecting them
with an explanation, or suggesting changes. Maintainers who don't
accomplish that are not effective maintainers. That is not to say
that they can not be effective contributors, or that they can not be
very good at maintaining code and making technical decisions.

I think this is the bottom line. Maintainers need to review patches quickly.
Everyone seems to agree that one week is considered quick. Is there a better
definition of quick?

Is quick linear with the size of the patch?

To me one month is not quick. Is it to anyone else? Everyone seems to
ignore this question :)

> That doesn't mean it couldn't be better. I will ask the gdb
> committee, whose membership I have just updated, to look into finding
> a procedure to help deal with these long-delayed patches.

I don't know much about the patches submitted to GDB and the average
review time, but Andrew seemed to make it look as if most patches are
reviewed quickly.

What about the patches that are not reviewed quickly?

The real question is, what incentive does a maintainer have to review a
patch quickly?

Also, if the testsuite passes, and the initial patch looks good, why
would it take so long to accept the patch? Isn't the definition of
"stable" for GDB, "The testsuite works the same way after the patch as
before"?

Thanks,
Bob Rossi