From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Edelsohn To: Mark Mitchell Cc: Andreas Jaeger , Bernd Schmidt , "gcc@gcc.gnu.org" Subject: Re: MAINTAINERS policy question Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 14:14:00 -0000 Message-id: <200109162113.RAA25704@makai.watson.ibm.com> References: <517850000.1000663147@gandalf.codesourcery.com> X-SW-Source: 2001-09/msg00641.html >>>>> Mark Mitchell writes: Mark> I would extend it to documentation that affects X, config.foo files Mark> that affect X, and so forth... What about collect2.c? What about parts of libstdc++? What about libtool? What about config.gcc? There is no clear definition of "so forth". We only have obscured the ambiguity which remains. Remember that there are a lot of machine-dependent infrastructure pieces distributed throughout the common files in GCC which were implemented for just one target or only a few targets. The register allocator clearly is global, common infrastructure and the config files clearly are local to a port, but some of GCC falls in the gray area inbetween. It is fallacious reasoning to generalize from specific components like the register allocator to all components throughout the entire compiler. There is a difference between policy and practice. I propose that the policy should remain liberal while continuing to be implemented more narrowly in practice. In other words, one waits for approval from the maintainer of a component or someone with global write privilege as a courtesy. I think Bernd's original question is ill-formed and is generating an inaccurate response. GCC is not implemented with the clear dichotomy that the question of "any patch affecting port X versus config/X/*" implies. Simplistic, hasty answers to a complex question intertwined with GCC's design diverse target support will not help GCC development, IMHO. David