Re: Getting the ARC port reviewed and accepted

[Richard Biener <richard dot guenther at gmail dot com>]

On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Andrew Haley <aph@redhat.com> wrote:
> On 10/01/2013 09:11 AM, Richard Biener wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 6:09 PM, Jeremy Bennett
>> <jeremy.bennett@embecosm.com> wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> You've probably seen that Joern Rennecke (amylaar) has been pinging
>>> repeatedly for help reviewing the ARC port:
>>>
>>>   http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2013-09/msg02072.html
>>>
>>> Joern is approved as a maintainer, and the tests have been reviewed and
>>> approved (thanks to Mike Stump). However approximately a year since the
>>> original submission, after making various changes suggested at that time,
>>> the port itself still awaits review of acceptance.
>>>
>>> We are in the curious position of a port that has a maintainer and testsuite
>>> accepted, but no actual port.
>>>
>>> What can we do to move this to completion for 4.9 stage 1? It is not the
>>> smallest port (the ARC is a complex reconfigurable processor family), but it
>>> has been in use for a long time, causes no regression errors in other
>>> targets, and has been submitted by a long-standing contributor to GCC.
>>>
>>> Advice on how to move this forward much appreciated.
>>
>> From a RM point of view we can accept a new port also during stage3 if
>> the required middle-end changes are minimal.
>>
>> That said, GCC is still mostly volunteer driven in this area (I don't know
>> of any company sponsoring review of ports that are not their own ...).
>> Also I guess the only reviewers that are able to approve the port technically
>> are global reviewers (and maybe the port maintainers themselves for
>> port specific parts?!).  Clarification from the SC would be most welcome here,
>> also ideas on how to address this (recurring) issue.
>
> I can't see the point of insisting on technicalities here.  Joern is very
> experienced, capable of maintaining the port over time, and it as long
> as there aren't middle-end changes it won't break anything.

Well, I want clarification as of whether assigning maintainership of the
port is equivalent to getting approval for checking in the port specific
parts.  Which _I_ would think is reasonable (for the maintainer being
Joern even more so).

Richard.

> Andrew.
>
>