From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jim Wilson To: David Edelsohn Cc: gcc@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: Loop unroll fixes Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:54:00 -0000 Message-id: <200109150054.RAA12555@cygnus.com> References: <200109141641.MAA26566@makai.watson.ibm.com> X-SW-Source: 2001-09/msg00583.html >I did not voice the ultimatum only based on the actions and >messages archived. I made the statement after months of private action >and discussions. I will accept your statement that you sent private mail that was ignored. I will not accept your statement that this justifies your action. There is no public evidence that a patch was ignored. Therefore, there is no public evidence to justify your action. I will not accept secret communications as justifcation for your action, hence your action was unwarranted. In my opinion, your over reliance on private mail was a mistake here. First of all, you create a single point of failure. If only one person is given a chance to review a patch, then it is much less likely to be reviewed than a patch sent to a mailing list. That one person might be busy, or might be on vacation. Also, it has the effect of hiding the problem. You knew that the patch was overdue for a review, but the gcc developer community did not know, because the patch was not discussed in public. If the patch had been discussed in public, other people would have volunteered to help, and the patch would not have been ignored for two months. >I have reviewed the patch. I and others have tested the patch. That is good to know. However, it should have been stated publicly before you took drastic action. As far as I know, it was not. There was only a statement from the contributor claiming that the patch had been tested. > GCC SC members and other developers with GCC commit privileges >need to take action when the maintainers do not respond to repeated, >polite prompting. I can accept that. But I can not accept use of secret communications as justification for such actions. There is too much at stake here. The only way we can ensure that such action have a valid justification is by relying on public communications. That way, everyone knows what we are doing, and why. Also, we are much less likely to make mistakes this way, as people get a chance to correct errors in arguments before decisions are made. > Your vindictive response of further delaying the patch does not >help GCC or anyone. You yourself were one of the most outspoken critics >of the previous GCC development delays and inability to get patches into >the FSF sources. How ironic that you do not see yourself falling into the >same trap and creating the same situation. My dictionary defines vindicitive as "disposed or inclined to revenge". I offered to help you get the patch into the FSF sources. I fail to see how that constitutes an act of revenge. I did qualify the form of my assistance, saying that there would be a one week delay. This is not intended to be a revengeful act. It is intended to be a disciplinary act. As I see it, you did two things wrong 1) You made a major decision based on secret communications. 2) You made veiled accusations that were easily misinterpreted. I do not wish to see these things continue, so I choose an action that I hoped would discourage you from repeating these things in the future, while at the same time offering help to resolve your problem. >You yourself were one of the most outspoken critics >of the previous GCC development delays and inability to get patches into >the FSF sources. I was vocal about patch review problems before the EGCS project started. Things are much better now. However, no matter how much we improve the process, there will always be problems. Not everyone that wants to contribute to gcc has sufficient technical skill to write good patches. Not everyone that wants to contribute will have a personality that meshes with other gcc developers. Not every patch contributed is a good idea. There will always be patches that slip through the cracks no matter how good the process is. Overall, I think we are doing a reasonable job. People who are persistent, who do consistently good work, and who show a willingness to finish what they start, generally are able to get their patches in. People who are casual contributors will likely have problems, but that is a tough problem to solve without endangering the stability of the sources. At least we have the GNATS database now, which gives us a place to put patches where they won't be lost. I don't know how to improve on that without hiring someone to do the task, and we don't have money for that. >How ironic that you do not see yourself falling into the >same trap and creating the same situation. I fail to see how I am adding to the problem. After all, I did offer my help to review the patch. I could not offer my help earlier, because I was not privy your secret communications. Jim