Re: Your patch to init.c

[Mark Mitchell <mark at codesourcery dot com>]

>>>>> "Joe" == Joe Buck <jbuck@synopsys.com> writes:

    >> Sure, but I don't really see write-after-approval as "special
    >> rights"; it's more of a convenience for the maintainers.  If
    >> frequent contributors can check in their own patches, I don't
    >> have to.

I agree; anyone who starts sending in lots of patches should be added.

    Joe> There's a balance we're trying to create.  The last thing I
    Joe> want to do is be a pain in the ass or make things harder, but
    Joe> the drift may well be to let Cygnoids do the checkin
    Joe> themselves, and not do the same for non-Cygnoids (since it's
    Joe> extra work to set up accounts) if we don't think about such
    Joe> things.  Folks like Mark Mitchell, who compete with you in
    Joe> providing paid compiler support for GCC, have a right to
    Joe> expect a level playing field.

I appreciate your zealousness as a steering committe member in
preserving that invariant.  For the record, CodeSourcery isn't just
me, so I'd prefer you refer to us as CodeSourcery, just as we refer to
Cygnus, rather than "Jeff and Jason and Jim and Rich and Nick and
<lots of other nice folks>". :-)

In this case, I just wanted to know what the situation was.  Jeff and
Jason Molenda were more than helpful setting up an account for Alex
Samuel, so I don't think there's any evidence of any problem
whatsoever.  Although it would abstractly be "more fair" if Cygnus
folks had to get a new account set up, I really don't see that as an
issue, and I think it would just create more work for people who
already have lots of work and help the GNU project considerably.

The important thing I wanted to verify is that people not be able to
check things in willy-nilly without getting approval.  That approval
happened; it was just the nofication of that fact that didn't happen.
I think all parties are clear on the protocol, and I'm more than
satisfied.

(Well, except that I'm not exactly sure why this change, if it makes a
difference, doesn't break the ABI.  I'm guessing it doesn't make a
difference on any currently shipping platform, but does on a new
platform not yet released.  In that case, I agree that it's safe.)

Thanks to all for taking the time to explain the patch, the situation,
and claify all these issues.

--
Mark Mitchell                   mark@codesourcery.com
CodeSourcery, LLC               http://www.codesourcery.com