From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail-wr1-x42d.google.com (mail-wr1-x42d.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:4864:20::42d]) by sourceware.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B7B6A3857C48 for ; Wed, 9 Jun 2021 12:41:12 +0000 (GMT) DMARC-Filter: OpenDMARC Filter v1.4.1 sourceware.org B7B6A3857C48 Received: by mail-wr1-x42d.google.com with SMTP id r9so8621941wrz.10 for ; Wed, 09 Jun 2021 05:41:12 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:subject:to:cc:references:from:message-id:date :user-agent:mime-version:in-reply-to:content-transfer-encoding :content-language; bh=+VJ4y9yhT2UET3gx659P03thAV9yrt1YiPYOrABk3Js=; b=jqhPL2CLp1EfkJVjxRHNVylfJ0gzE4jbAasGELGTV6gCWTpwKhvejWTJzL6AF5lqnn zEklAEjS4zDefGME3OrFbi2ElyH3b9TwtMLlJSplkf53gHtnjmcENmrlNKH+RXwkKJnv qOeEIIg//iZJgwkQ59RI1fqb7EQxMDgKQO8fuV8AUXGqOIeb23lrDdgUWGrEv4W7yFvr NDbS2une+NRMWuHKPfGcIG0+1Fr8WF+t+iR/fv++0GzC+k73Bm15VujHmyKB7l29ODCS uG0Y+CKR90ryqvSpYHJZTMXnAwoUo/974tWIpnSIbWgYk5W4+86oXVVNeAHzkqccHj03 vOJg== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM53096b7ajMe2Doocnw9v3Lyib9N6jWGSt39Jcu9YLd/lMgaoFr5R lz5+hOiUu/EswDmqi93TApsEzC81b7J5DpWk X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJxpNNrZK8y9uzjoF53zGC4zCRkiYVy1humZ0pzfH9u/zZVbFqlu7sASt3MWLAbyEOT87tmUHw== X-Received: by 2002:a5d:47ce:: with SMTP id o14mr27605083wrc.273.1623242470692; Wed, 09 Jun 2021 05:41:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [10.19.0.5] ([188.241.83.106]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id l31sm9672185wms.31.2021.06.09.05.41.09 (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 bits=128/128); Wed, 09 Jun 2021 05:41:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: GCC Mission Statement To: Giacomo Tesio Cc: Valentino Giudice , Siddhesh Poyarekar , "gcc@gcc.gnu.org" References: <5ed046a2-a2f1-f5e3-7399-dbf31808b8ef@gotplt.org> <736215d3-72b8-b2e2-f406-80d3d38688e0@gmail.com> <20210609121128.0000240f@tesio.it> From: Gabriel Ravier Message-ID: <8feed312-8129-7fed-0885-1aee018a9a99@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2021 14:41:09 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/78.10.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20210609121128.0000240f@tesio.it> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Language: en-US X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.5 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, DKIM_SIGNED, DKIM_VALID, DKIM_VALID_AU, DKIM_VALID_EF, FREEMAIL_FROM, NICE_REPLY_A, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE, SPF_HELO_NONE, SPF_PASS, TXREP autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on server2.sourceware.org X-BeenThere: gcc@gcc.gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: Gcc mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2021 12:41:14 -0000 On 6/9/21 12:11 PM, Giacomo Tesio wrote: > Hi Gabriel, > > On Wed, 9 Jun 2021 11:44:10 +0200 Gabriel Ravier via Gcc wrote: >> Speaking on the "change it recklessly" issue, I would personally say >> that SC has indeed arguably done this [...] >> some people threatened to pull away from GCC entirely if it remained >> tied to the FSF. I personally happen to agree with the change (which >> seems to have especially avoided what would have been a painful split >> that could have had disastrous consequences for GCC as a whole), but >> find it rather disconcerting that such changes with potentially major >> consequences were done without any direct discussion of them with the >> community whatsoever. > Did you consider that, in fact, the lack of transparency of the > Steering Committee has shown since then (or even just the lack of > professionalism, when it comes to explicit intruduce major changes in > major versions) is a "disastrous consequence for GCC as a whole"? I do consider that a lack of transparency is pretty bad, and that discussions on subjects like this should be done in public, but I wouldn't say it's just as bad as the potential risk that a fork would incur. As for a lack of professionalism, I think it's pretty clear that GCC 11 is the cutoff point here, and although there might be some problems with licensing bug fixes to old versions (which could not be reasonably avoided unless GCC made no major releases until GCC 11.5 is out), there isn't much reason to make a major version just for this when there was a major version a month ago. Note that releases are done ~1 time per year, so there isn't much FSF-copyrighted work "lost" with this. > Unilateral undiscussed changes by the Steering Committe is the new norm. > > > And such Steering Committee is in no way representing the interests of > the worldwide users of GCC, first because its members do not know them > (the vast majority is from the US, work for US corporations or both) > and second because they do not listen to any objection / request that > does not comes from their own circle / social group. From what I know on this subject, the SC is meant to represent the GCC community (those that actively participate in GCC development, at least), and they are composed of well-recognized members of that community. Adding in random unknown people to represent the "worldwide users" of GCC would certainly not be taken well by the community and would heavily hurt the credibility of the SC in the eyes of everyone involved in working on GCC, which would consequently hurt the project. You might have your own views on the subject, but I would prefer having a credible SC that might not represent everyone in the world well than have an SC representing everyone in the world that isn't trusted by the people involved with the project (which could then result in the SC becoming trusted... by the few people who remain after all those that don't trust it leave). > Are you sure that an explicit fork with two projects with different > names and governance would had been worse than what GCC has become? To be clear: From what I can see, the GCC project has effectively declared their independence (which they already pretty much had, they've just made it publicly clear) from the FSF in terms of who is at the helm of the project. It is their right to do so, and they certainly had the power to do so when the only power the FSF could exert over them was very minor, with as the only leverage some minor reputation loss from the loss of association with GNU and the DNS records for gcc.gnu.org. If RMS wants to try to do anything, the most he can do is expel the SC as the maintainers of the "GNU Compiler Collection", take the DNS records for gcc.gnu.org and make a fork that would most certainly be considered by everybody to be "FSF GCC" or something like that to distinguish it from what would most certainly be the GCC basically everyone uses. The only result of this would be that basically everyone would move over to gcc-compiler.org or something like that, and the situation would be functionally unchanged from what it is now. Note: GCC as it has been for the past 2 decades was already a fork of the original GCC: RMS just decided to accept EGCS (former name of the current GCC) as the official version of GCC endorsed by GNU (this is why it was already effectively independent). > Giacomo