Re: Repository Write Access: A privilege or a right?

[Gerald Pfeifer <gerald at pfeifer dot com>]

On Sun, 9 Apr 2006, Roger Sayle wrote:
> My understanding (which is admittedly mostly personal and historical)
> is that someone is granted write access once they have demonstrated
> an understanding of the rules and policies for submissions to GCC.

This is my understanding as well.

> There does however appear to be another school of thought that
> suggests that write access should be immediate, following the
> acceptance of FSF copyright assignments, possibly implicitly by
> becoming a employee of a "blanket-assignment" company.

I think neither of this is good policy.  In fact, this points to some
of the major pieces still missing in GCC-land: lack of a tutor/mentor 
concept, where such a tutor/mentor is responsible for teaching and
guiding a new contributor with write access approval, including full 
responsibility for any mistakes the new contributor may make.

> There's also the new/recent complication that companies/groups now
> maintain their own GCC branches, perhaps requiring write access even
> for programmers who don't contribute to FSF GCC.

It is my understanding that we do not accept any changes in our tree
which have not been assigned to the FSF (or which have been put into
the public domain), even on branches.

Gerald