GCC review process: how to handle external submissions

[Wolfgang Bangerth <bangerth at ticam dot utexas dot edu>]

This week, I got three mails on the same subject, two of which read like 
this:

> I submitted this to gcc-patches in November, resubmitted it in December,
> opened a bug report in January, wrote to gcc-bugs. I got no replies.
>
> I believe that this patch fixes a legitimate, reproducable bug and
> follows all patch submission guidelines on the gcc website.
>
> Please consider applying this patch. I would appreciate a reply in any 
> case.

and

> The state of this is totally defunct.
> I have tried different request strategies for a few years
> and have concluded that only if I become a gcc insider
> can I get even the simplest changes made.
> I don't have the time, energy, or interest in that.

I get such mail about once every two weeks, when I ping people who 
submitted PRs with patches about what happened to the patch. Gnats is full 
of reports with patches in them.

I think we have a serious problem here. We are not only losing the 
contributions from these people, we are also scaring them away, and I 
don't think this is wise.

Can we at least discuss the reasons for this, and maybe come up with 
suggestions about how we could improve this process? I think it would be 
tremendously helpful if there were someone who

- could be contacted if there is a patch from somebody from outside gcc
- is willing to help with small problems like missing ChangeLog entries 
  or wrong formatting
- identifies port/front-end/... maintainer that would be qualified to
  review the patch
- will take on some mediator function between patch submitter and 
  reviewer, if necessary
- most of all: takes care that patches are not silently dropped

I don't know whether this is reasonable, and even less if someone would 
take over this position, but I think that in this respect our present 
processes are inadequate.

As a final note: even if I say that we have many of these cases, they may 
amount to 5-10 or so per month, and maybe 50-100 in gnats. Most of these 
would probably be easy to review, if just someone cared -- the mail from 
which I took the first quote contains everthing the patch submission 
guidelines ask for, and did so back the first time it was submitted; the 
patch is actually only two lines long; yet it was ignored 3 times.

Regards
  Wolfgang

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wolfgang Bangerth             email:            bangerth at ticam dot utexas dot edu
                              www: http://www.ticam.utexas.edu/~bangerth/