Re: gcc development schedule [Re: sharing libcpp between GDB and GCC]

mike stump
2002-03-27T15:18:01Z

> Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 22:44:40 -0800 (PST)
> From: Tom Lord <lord@emf.net>
> To: eliz@is.elta.co.il

> 1) It's no secret that I'm not a core maintainer of GCC. I have done
> some GCC hacking and ran into some practical obstacles while
> looking for ways to see that work wind up in GCC distributions.

My take on how the gcc group runs... We take contributions, both of
code and in design from those that we have seen the most that we agree
with their choices. We back rth, or law, or Mark, not because gold
flow out of their, well, uhm, because they are god, rather, because we
have seen them make the hard choices before, we have experience with
how they make them, and we have in the past agreed with their manner
and style.

To overcome this obstacle, you will need to either come up with ideas
that are obviously better to us that we agree with, or to put in
enough face time for us to know how you make choices.

Also, ideas are free... Or put another way, ideas are a dime a dozen.
We can all come up with many ideas, the problem isn't one of coming up
with ideas, it is finding the resources to implement them. It has
been that, it now that, and will always be that. If you increased the
value of your contributions to include the resources to implement
them, and yes, you can implement any idea you want... If you want a
SC committee that collects money from companies, you can always create
one, using anybody you want, using any rules you want. Just do it.
You don't need anybodies permission or acceptance.

If you want an automated system that manages branches, and removes
code that doesn't meet the testsuite standard, create it. If you want
a system that tries out people patches before they check them in,
create it.

If anything you create is good and has value, to any one of us, then
that one of us will endorse it and use it, to the extent they can. A
better contribution is one that is valued and used by more and more
people. If enough people buy into it, it becomes the standard,
whether or not rms or the FSF likes it (witness egcs, cygwin, Linux),
whether or not the official SC likes it, whether or not any single or
small group of contributors like it. This is the path before you.

If you are unwilling to do the time, we have a solution for that.
Your ideas and suggestions will just be archived in the list, and if
no one else values them high enough to implement them, then the slowly
fade away in the archive, eventually to either be lost, or if someone
wakes up and smells the roses, to be implemented by someone that does
believe in them.

> Some of the invective I get in private mail (or in Eli's message)
> seems to suggest that unless you've done 10 ports, have write
> access, or otherwise have a suitable GCC-testosterone certificate
> that, well, you're a valid target for complete disregard or worse.

Yes. And above I try and explain why that is. It isn't about being
disregarded, it is that you are a beggar and we just have no money for
you. Don't beg. Give.

> 2) I do have a pretty decent amount of experience in software tools,
> process automation, and related software engineering issues. I
> have a pretty decent amount experience in the Free Software and
> open source worlds. These are areas I think a lot about and build
> tools for. I'm really not talking through my hat here.

This isn't enough for most of us. In fact, it isn't enough for any of
us, if no one steps forward and implements any of your ideas.

> They've remarked that some of my ideas seem like good ones,

Even the ones that seem to object the most to your ideas will
internally agree with your best ideas. The problem is anytime you
present two orthogonal ideas, and they argree with one of them, some
can only shoot down the one.

> though overall there's a lot of hesitancy to embrace any idea

You mean, you can witness that money and real resources don't just
follow you around and people just throw money at you... Well, did you
expect any different? If people don't throw money at you, maybe it is
because you haven't eared it? You can either reset your expectation,
or only suggest ideas that people will throw money at, or pay people
to throw money at you, the choice is yours alone.

> that people don't see immediately how to pay for.

No there isn't. Lots of people implement lots of things. Witness
gcc-patches. Witness libcpp.

> I have detected in SC member comments, both privately and on the
> list, insidious conflict-of-interest issues at work:

And as I've said before the SC is irrelevant. The will break ties,
but you have to be tied first. You're not tied. They will keep us
from doing things that are incredibly bad. They cannot keep up from
doing things that are just bad. Not all your ideas are incredibly
bad, or put another way, the SC cannot stop you from implementing most
of your ideas.