Re: Maintainer policy for GDB

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-use-the-mailinglist-please@sourceware.org>]

On Wed, Nov 23, 2005 at 09:34:11PM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>So these things can and did happen, and I don't think it's fair to ask
>someone to take responsibility for some part of GDB and at the same
>time to tell them they should expect to fight with others who have
>write access and who just happen to respond faster to RFAs.

I've been lurking on this discussion (except for the highly fruitful
discussion about whether maintainers should be cc'ed) but I have to say
that Eli summarizes my concerns above.

As has been mentioned, the gcc project has similar rules and I've
occasionally had the experience of having things checked into
cygwin/windows-specific sections of gcc without my approval.  The
changes are ones that I agree with but it is still disconcerting.

I've got a little more vested in gdb than I do in gcc so I'm likely to
be a little less happy about changes to my area of maintenance and I
worry about people accepting changes which seem to make sense but do not
take into account concerns that I may have with my more thorough
understanding of windows.

I guess, in short, I'm concerned about well-meaning global maintainers
who don't know what they don't know making changes that will cause me
some work later.  I don't relish the idea of arguing with someone about
a change that they have just approved.

So, I think I'd be more comfortable with some sort of timeout on patch
review such that a global reviewer will only apply a patch if it has
gone unreviewed by an area maintainer after N days.  However, if
something like that is not acceptable, then I will just adapt.

cgf