Re: Maintainer policy for GDB

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 11:55:58 -0800
> From: Joel Brobecker <brobecker@adacore.com>
> Cc: David Carlton <david.carlton@sun.com>, gdb@sourceware.org
> 
> > My reservations about responsibilities without an authority is not
> > theoretical,
> 
> I believe that the proposal was to give authority without responsibility.

That's the same thing: if someone can have authority without
responsibility, then the one who gets responsibility doesn't get any
unique authority to go with that.

> If I understand your point well, you are asking whether we will have
> people who will accept the responsibility, since they could simply
> earn authority and not bind themselves with responsibility.

Yes.

> This is indeed an interesting question where you have to believe that
> people will be willing to donate a bit of their time to help the project.

It's not only about time.  It's about being responsible: that's a
burden that should not go unnoticed.  The usual way to appreciate that
burden is to grant some exclusive rights.  This is how any effective
organization works; if we want our small collective to be an effective
organization, we shouldn't deprive people who are willing to donate
more of some small incentive to do so.

> Take the release management role: It doesn't give me any authority
> nor power.

Sure, it does: no one can release GDB except you.  The fact that we
didn't have a release manager is the sole most important reason why
there was no GDB release for quite some time.

> If tomorrow the maintainers send a message and say: let's create a
> new release, I'll just do it.

I doubt that very much.  I'm sure you will see if there are any
outstanding issues, and you will ask others what they think, then make
your judgement.