Re: on reputation and lines and putting things places (Re: gcc branches?)

[Stan Shebs <shebs at apple dot com>]

Tom Lord wrote:

> [...] I am asking [the SC] to first, start to understand
> `arch' and the related projects I've been advocating and how those
> things relate to the project; second, we can start to figure out
> together how to relate this to the volunteer _corporations_.
You'd do better to find an individual or subgroup who will get excited
about arch, use/improve it, and advocate it to other GCC developers.
IIRC, Larry McVoy got the Linux PPC port folks to start using BitKeeper
first, and then they helped sell it to the other kernel developers.

It would also help to be more specific about how arch will help *me*.
Despite the loose talk about altruism, 99% of GCC developers are really
doing it for selfish reasons - money, fame, joie de hack, scratching
an itch, whatever.  We only cooperate because we can do more working
together than separately.

Now, almost all of *my* merge difficulties have been because Apple
changes to GCC are logically contradictory to FSF code.  Does arch
include an intelligent merging component that is smart about C and
can figure out which pieces of FSF code need to be overridden by
Apple code, even if the FSF code changed?  If not, then for *me*
it doesn't have any advantage over CVS, and there's no point in
trying to sell it to me.

Technology advocacy is like any other kind of selling; if the
customer doesn't buy, it's your failure, not the customer's.

Stan