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Re: Review of release criteria?
- To: Benjamin Kosnik <bkoz at redhat dot com>, "gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org" <gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org>
- Subject: Re: Review of release criteria?
- From: Mark Mitchell <mark at codesourcery dot com>
- Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 12:20:15 -0700
> There are a lot of people who worked very hard on this release who are
> not on the SC and would like to know what is up. I consider myself one
> of these people. Part of your duty, as I see it, as release manager
> involves communicating with developers, trying to figure out what went
> wrong (and how it can be fixed) and what went right (and should be
> made part of the process.)
I agree somewhat. At least one SC member, however, has been upset when I
stated my opinions about what we should do publicly. I think this is
because there is some possibility that people will take what I say as a
statement about how things will be, and that will make it difficult for the
SC to decide differently. So, rather than risk being accused of trying to
"create facts on the ground", I decided to keep mum publicly.
I certainly encourage the kind of feedback you provided in your email,
and I'm delighted to hear what people liked and what they didn't.
The transparency, or lack thereof, of the SC is a bigger issue; it's
not just about releases. It's a complex issue. The SC is the GNU
maintainer for GCC. Most maintainers are a single person, and they
make decisions inside their own brains, which is private. On the
other hand, they should try to explain their thought processes to the
contributors and users. I'm not sure exactly what to do.
I think I need to stop dropping hints, and push the SC to decide. Then
we can announce the decision, whatever it is, and why it was made. Then,
if people don't like it, we can try to change it around.
Sorry,
--
Mark Mitchell mark@codesourcery.com
CodeSourcery, LLC http://www.codesourcery.com