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

Ian Lance Taylor
2004-03-23T16:13:30Z

Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com> writes:

> Bob Rossi wrote:
>
> > I hope I have not offended anyone here, since honestly, each of the GDB
> > people I have talked to has done a great job helping me out. It's
> > just the system on a whole that seems to be lacking.
>
> I don't see any fundamental problem here. This is after all a volunteer
> project and people have limited time to review patches, as they have
> limited time for anything they do on the project. Of course we all
> understand that it is frustrating when it takes a while for a patch
> to be approved, but there is no one who can order someone else to
> spend more time on this. Now perhaps more people should have approval
> authority, but that of course has its own draw backs in terms of
> keeping the entire project under control. There is always a
> fundamental trade off between reliability/stability/control and
> adding nice new features.

The fundamental problem is that in order for a volunteer project to
succeed, it is essential to pay close attention to the care and
feeding of volunteers. Otherwise, the project eventually comes to
lack any volunteers.

I've already described my views at some length here:
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/gdbheads/2004-01/msg00032.html

As I said in that message: "patch review is the most important aspect
of being a GNU maintainer."

Ian