Re: [Gdbheads] proposed change to GDB maintainership rules

[David Carlton]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:54:52 -0800, Michael Snyder <address@hidden> said:
> Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>> Michael Snyder <address@hidden> writes:

>>> Voting is not the central theme of the proposal.
>>> Voting is for a last resort conflict resolution, not
>>> for everyday approval.  The central point of the proposal
>>> is that blanket write maintainers have the authority to
>>> approve patches in any part of gdb, even if there is an
>>> area maintainer assigned to that part.

I agree with this - I think there was pretty much a consensus that
this part of the proposal was correct.

>> Then let me turn it around to you and ask why you need voting.  What
>> problem does it solve?

> Frankly, it was just meant to tidy up a loose end "what-if" that
> came up in the discussion.  "What if one maintainer says a change is
> OK, but another says it isn't, and after some discussion they can't
> agree?"

> It really wasn't meant to be a pivotal point, it was just added for
> completeness.  I don't think anyone is that attached to it.

I don't entirely agree with this.  My impression is that there was a
fairly strong feeling that some sort of conflict resolution mechanism
was necessary, basically to prevent Andrew from having his way
whenever conflicts arose.  That's certainly the way I feel; I actually
don't come into conflict with Andrew very often, but I've seen it
happen to others on the list.  (I got the impression that other
people, people who have had more interaction with Andrew in the past,
felt more strongly than I did that we must have a way to prevent
Andrew from always having his way in disputes; perhaps others could
speak up to correct me on this matter?)

Even though I think that most of us felt that a conflict resolution
mechanism was necessary, I don't think that most of us are at all
attached to the _details_ of that aspect of our proposal.  Various
people had various suggestions; we basically ended up with the least
elaborate mechanism we could think of, as sort of a place holder.  (Or
maybe I, who actually wrote the paragraph in question, just managed to
outlast everybody else - maybe we need a conflict resolution mechanism
to prevent me from having my way!)

You've proposed consensus or tyranny as alternatives.  I personally
would be against those choices - consensus isn't a conflict resolution
mechanism at all, the only obvious candidate for tyrant is Andrew, and
even if there were other obvious candidates, I just don't like
tyrants.  GCC's steering committee seems to work for it, so maybe we
could adopt an approach like that; my main request there is that I
would like the steering committee membership to better reflect the
current active members of the GDB community.

David Carlton
address@hidden