Re: [Gdbheads] A small patch case study, -file-list-exec-source-files

Ian Lance Taylor
2004-03-25T19:51:52Z

Michael Snyder <msnyder@redhat.com> writes:

> Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> > Joel Brobecker <brobecker@gnat.com> writes:
> >
> >>GDB is a volunteer work!
> > I want to note that this is only partially true. In fact there are a
> > number of people who are paid to work on gdb. It's not clear whether
> > anybody is paid specifically to maintain gdb. When I was at Cygnus I
> > was paid to maintain the GNU binutils, though that was certainly not
> > my only job. I don't know whether Red Hat has carried that sort of
> > thing forward.
>
> Well now... there's a fine point here. Red Hat, Monte Vista, Apple,
> HP, and other organizations may pay some people to work on GDB, but
> only in some limited sense do those organizations pay their employees
> to review other people's patches.

I'll note that I conflated two different ideas in the above quoted
paragraph, perhaps unwisely. First, I said that it's not wholly true
that "GDB is a volunteer work:" a number of people are paid to work on
gdb. I then segued into the separate issue of whether anybody is paid
specifically to maintain gdb, and I said that I didn't know.

> And to whatever degree that is true
> (eg. my job description does include spending a certain part of my
> time working as an FSF maintainer), all it does is modify who's doing
> the volunteering: to some degree it's me, and to some degree it's
> Red Hat. It's still donated work, the FSF isn't paying for it, and
> I'm still 100 percent a volunteer. I wouldn't lose my job if I
> announced that I didn't want to serve as an FSF maintainer any more.
> All that would happen would be that the work load of the other
> maintainers would go up, since they would have to review all of
> my work.

I don't agree. When I was paid by Cygnus to be the GNU binutils
maintainer, that was part of my job. The work was donated to the FSF,
yes, but I think it's quite a stretch to say that I was 100 percent a
volunteer. And if part of your job is work as an FSF maintainer, then
I think it is quite a stretch to say that you are 100 percent a
volunteer. If you are paid for doing the work, you are not a
volunteer.

The fact that Red Hat is donating the work to the FSF is irrelevant.
You considered the question of you quitting the job. But you didn't
consider the question of Red Hat firing you because you weren't doing
the job. Since Red Hat could, in principle, do just that, I think it
is clear that you are not yourself a volunteer. (I know that Red Hat
would probably just reassign you if you were doing a lousy job, but
the possibility of firing you remains.)

> >>If you keep insisting that a maintainer have to review patches within a
> >>given timeframe and that they should step down if they can't, then I
> >>think we're going to lose a lot of maintainers. Will GDB really be
> >>better off? I think not.
> > I would say that the issue is how to best keep gdb moving forward.
>
> That is one valid way of looking at it, Ian, but it isn't the only
> way. All of us maintainers are people too, and it's perfectly
> legitimate for us to have our own agendas and our own interests
> in mind, in addition to those of gdb and the FSF. By becoming
> FSF volunteers, we did not become monks -- we did not give up
> the right to our own self-hood and our own egos.
>
> To make a team work, we have to get those egos to function smoothly
> together -- but that doesn't mean pretending that they don't exist,
> or making decisions on the basis that the only thing that matters
> is gdb. The people working on gdb matter too.

Yes. I think that is obvious, but it's worth pointing it out.
Thanks.

Now, that said, I would say that the issue is how best to keep gdb
moving forward.

gdb is not a personal project which belongs to the current set of
maintainers. It is a project founded and managed by the FSF as,
essentially, a public trust. As I said, the project needs to be run
in a manner which keeps an appropriate balance between maintainers and
contributors. This must be done with an eye on the overall goal of
keeping the project moving forward.

Ian