Request for extended maintainers rights

Request for extended maintainers rights

[François Dumont]

Hi

     With 4 official Maintainers but only 1 dealing with patch requests 
who is moreover dealing with a lot of other tasks I fear that libstdc++ 
becomes really unattractive for occasional contributors.

     This is why I would like to apply for promotion to become an 
official Maintainer myself not limited to special modes anymore.

     Don't worry, my plan is not to commit anything that comes to my 
attention or all the patches that I proposed currently awaiting 
validation. I just think that I've broken the lib ABI or the build 
enough times to now know when I can commit a patch after a couple of 
days of announcement or if I still need review.

     Note that there are still 2 points on which I am unclear:

- The dev stage we are in. I see that stage 1 is almost over but I don't 
know if awaiting patches can be committed for instance. I count on th 
announcement period to allow someone to say 'Stop'

- The legal matter: I don't know when a patch can be considered as small 
enough that FSF DoR is not necessary. This is why I don't plan to commit 
someone else patch without proper agreement.

If you agree let me know if I should specify something like 'newby' in 
the MAINTAINERS file or just go ahead without changing anything.

François

Re: Request for extended maintainers rights

[Jonathan Wakely]

On 14/11/19 22:01 +0100, François Dumont wrote:
>Hi
>
>    With 4 official Maintainers but only 1 dealing with patch requests 
>who is moreover dealing with a lot of other tasks I fear that 
>libstdc++ becomes really unattractive for occasional contributors.

As I've said to other people in the past, anybody can review patches.

One of the key responsibilities for maintainers is reviewing other
people's patches, and anybody can do that whether they're a maintainer
or not. There wouldn't be such a backlog if more people helped by
reviewing patches (not approving them, because only maintainers can do
that, but just saying "I've reviewed this and it looks good" which
helps someone who *can* approve it to know it's not obviously wrong or
totally broken).


>    This is why I would like to apply for promotion to become an 
>official Maintainer myself not limited to special modes anymore.
>
>    Don't worry, my plan is not to commit anything that comes to my 
>attention or all the patches that I proposed currently awaiting 
>validation. I just think that I've broken the lib ABI or the build 
>enough times to now know when I can commit a patch after a couple of 
>days of announcement or if I still need review.

This sounds like you're just saying "I don't want to wait for approval
any more" :-)

There's more to being a maintainer than that.

>    Note that there are still 2 points on which I am unclear:
>
>- The dev stage we are in. I see that stage 1 is almost over but I 
>don't know if awaiting patches can be committed for instance. I count 
>on th announcement period to allow someone to say 'Stop'

Patches posted during stage 1 can still be committed after stage 1
ends. It's not ideal, but it's OK. That's why I've been concentrating
on my own patches and will review all the pending submissions ASAP.

>- The legal matter: I don't know when a patch can be considered as 
>small enough that FSF DoR is not necessary. This is why I don't plan 
>to commit someone else patch without proper agreement.
>
>If you agree let me know if I should specify something like 'newby' in 
>the MAINTAINERS file or just go ahead without changing anything.
>
>François
>

Re: Request for extended maintainers rights

[François Dumont]

On 11/14/19 11:02 PM, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
> On 14/11/19 22:01 +0100, François Dumont wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>>     With 4 official Maintainers but only 1 dealing with patch 
>> requests who is moreover dealing with a lot of other tasks I fear 
>> that libstdc++ becomes really unattractive for occasional contributors.
>
> As I've said to other people in the past, anybody can review patches.
>
> One of the key responsibilities for maintainers is reviewing other
> people's patches, and anybody can do that whether they're a maintainer
> or not. There wouldn't be such a backlog if more people helped by
> reviewing patches (not approving them, because only maintainers can do
> that, but just saying "I've reviewed this and it looks good" which
> helps someone who *can* approve it to know it's not obviously wrong or
> totally broken).
>
>
>>     This is why I would like to apply for promotion to become an 
>> official Maintainer myself not limited to special modes anymore.
>>
>>     Don't worry, my plan is not to commit anything that comes to my 
>> attention or all the patches that I proposed currently awaiting 
>> validation. I just think that I've broken the lib ABI or the build 
>> enough times to now know when I can commit a patch after a couple of 
>> days of announcement or if I still need review.
>
> This sounds like you're just saying "I don't want to wait for approval
> any more" :-)
>
> There's more to being a maintainer than that.

So I understand that there is no such maintainer grade corresponding to 
what I'm requesting.

I hope that once in git we'll use proper pull-request so that after a 
while patch proposals do not appear as forgotten.