Re: [Gdbheads] proposed change to GDB maintainership rules

[Ian Lance Taylor]

"Eli Zaretskii" <address@hidden> writes:

> > I don't have a proposal.  Each situation is different.  I certainly
> > don't know enough about this one.
> 
> Perhaps you could at least name the possible solutions, apart of the
> one taken in the case of GCC/EGCS and Emacs/XEmacs.  I also think that
> such a total split is the worst possible solution, and I hope there
> are better ones.  The situation with the GDB maintenance is nowhere
> near what was going on before the two mentioned schisms, so one hopes
> a much smaller change will do.

I can't name a solution, since I don't really grasp the problem.  I
don't really grasp the problem because I am not, after all, a gdb
maintainer.

Why doesn't somebody try to write down the problem?

I see hints of it from David Carlton (``I feel strongly that the
current system is turning away potentially productive effort and
volunteers'') and from Jim Blandy (``If a debate reaches the point
where the participants aren't persuading each other any more, then
debate peters out, and the issue is effectively resolved in favor of
the more senior participant --- regardless of the merits of their
arguments.  The effect is to make stubbornness and intransigence an
effective strategy for them.'').  But those aren't the real problem,
just the side-effects.

I just went back and re-read the long e-mail thread from a year ago
which starts here:
    http://sources.redhat.com/ml/gdb/2003-02/msg00277.html

In that thread, the problem seems to be described as ``it takes too
long for gdb patches to be approved.''

That was a year ago, and I don't know if that is still the problem.
If it is, then I would say that the answer is simple: gdb maintainers
need to make handling patches a higher priority.  But I doubt we are
talking about all gdb maintainers.

So which maintainers are we talking about?

Or is the problem something else?

I think people are dancing around the problem for some reason, which
suggests one of two things: 1) everybody knows what the problem is,
but I don't, since I am not really involved; or 2) nobody wants to say
what the problem is, because actually stating it in public would be
uncomfortable, which probably means there is a personality conflict of
some sort.

So, for those people who think there is a problem, please try to write
it down.  If it takes you more than four sentences, then you aren't
describing it well.  Take the time to say precisely what you mean.

If you're worried about offending somebody, then you have to decide
which you care about most: not offending somebody, or improving the
gdb process.  If you care more about not offending somebody, that is
fine--really--but in that case you should stop complaining at
all--really.  If you have a problem with somebody, then you should
either say it, or you should say nothing.  Complaining while skirting
around the issue just wastes time and accomplishes nothing.

The above may sound harsh, but I'm not going to apologize.  If there
is a problem, state it and let's try to solve it.  If there is no
problem, let's save time, move on, and stop worrying about nothing.

Ian