From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 21791 invoked by alias); 27 Mar 2002 15:18:01 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 21729 invoked from network); 27 Mar 2002 15:17:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.wrs.com) (147.11.1.11) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 27 Mar 2002 15:17:59 -0000 Received: from kankakee.wrs.com (kankakee [147.11.37.13]) by mail.wrs.com (8.9.3/8.9.1) with ESMTP id HAA24447; Wed, 27 Mar 2002 07:16:55 -0800 (PST) From: mike stump Received: (from mrs@localhost) by kankakee.wrs.com (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.0) id HAA22671; Wed, 27 Mar 2002 07:17:27 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 07:18:00 -0000 Message-Id: <200203271517.HAA22671@kankakee.wrs.com> To: lord@emf.net Subject: Re: gcc development schedule [Re: sharing libcpp between GDB and GCC] Cc: gcc@gcc.gnu.org, gdb@sources.redhat.com References: <200203270644.WAA04464@morrowfield.home> X-SW-Source: 2002-03/txt/msg00281.txt.bz2 > Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 22:44:40 -0800 (PST) > From: Tom Lord > 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.