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Re: [PATCH, RFC] Enable IBM long double for PPC32 Linux


Mark Mitchell <mark@codesourcery.com> wrote:

> As I've indicated before, I'm not pleased with this situation either.
> It was as much a surprise to me as anyone.  There is no question that
> this change is not in keeping with our branch policy.

> [...]

> Also, at the time these changes were suggested for 4.1, there were
> none (minimal?) objections; at this point, the developers have been
> working
> on the changes for quite some time.  If there were significant
> objections, they should have been made immediately, and, if necessary,
> the SC involved at that point.

This is a little unfair, though. So now the burden on enforcing the policy is
not on the maintainers that prepare the patches? The people involved in this
change have been working on GCC much longer than those who (later) objected.
They should have known our rules much better, and they should have asked a
buy-in from SC before starting this work, instead of silently forcing it in,
and then see if they could shut up the people who object (if any).

I won't buy the argument "I won't hold up the release for this" as well, since
it misses the point that many important resources in GCC are being used in
fixing and testing this new feature, instead of putting GCC in shape for the
release. So the release has been already delayed because of this, and will be
even more. That's something which already happened.

Sorry for the rant, but as a small, minor, spare-time contributor, I have seen
5-lines patches of mine being delayed because "hey, we are in Stage 3 now, are
you crazy". I am not stupid enough to believe that the rules for RedHat will
ever be the same of those enforced against me, but I wouldn't want to hear that
it was *my* duty to monitor RedHat's changes. SC could be a little more
proactive, rather than waking up only when explicitly called for.

Giovanni Bajo


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