New Type of GCC Maintainer

[David Edelsohn <edelsohn at gnu dot org>]

GCC has increased in size, scope, and complexity, but the number of
maintainers has not scaled commensurately.  While there is a need for more
reviewers, there also is a concern of too many maintainers stepping on one
another and GCC development becoming more chaotic.

After a lot of brain-storming and discussion with current maintainers and
after considering many options, the GCC Steering Committee has voted to
create a new type of maintainer: non-algorithmic maintainer.  A
non-algorithmic change is one which maintains an overall algorithm and
does not introduce new functionality, but may change implementation
details.  Non-Algorithmic maintainers can commit and review bug fix
patches written by themselves or by other developers, such as patches
appropriate for GCC Development Stage 3, and should help general
maintainers with recommendations about other patches.  In other words,
general maintainers effectively are technical architects for their area of
the compiler.

The term "algorithmic change" is somewhat ambiguous and the SC has decided
not to provide a formal definition that could overly-constrain
maintainers.  This is not a language standard inviting developers to parse
words.  Instead, any other maintainer with authority over the area
unilaterally may revert a patch approved or committed by a non-algorithmic
maintainer, if necessary.  Hopefully the maintainers would resolve the
concern through discussion without having to invoke this provision.

Let the experiment begin ...

Happy Hacking,
David