Re: Why not contribute? (to GCC)

[Theodore Papadopoulo <Theodore dot Papadopoulo at sophia dot inria dot fr>]

On 04/24/2010 09:35 PM, Thomas Neumann wrote:
> > What reasons keep you from contributing to GCC?
> >      
> I tried this a while ago, but ultimately gave up because I could not get my
> patches in. Some were applied, but many never made it. Admittedly they were
> perhaps not of general interested, there were only improving compatibility
> of the gcc base with C++ (what Ian Lance Taylor then did later).
> The most frustrating part was not getting patches rejected (I could then
> improve them, after all), but having patches ignored. You submit a number of
> patches, and the result is... nothing. No response at all. Not exactly what
> encourages gcc as a free time activity.
>
> On the other hand I am a professional developer, too (even working on
> compilers), and I myself would perhaps also be reluctant to spend time on
> reviewing and merging patches that I do not really care about. So I
> understand the gcc developers. But it is still frustrating for outsiders.
>    

    Sorry to reply so late (was away off internet for a while).

From my experience, the reasons for not contributing are:

- Code complexity: Doing even the simplest stuff in gcc requires quite 
some time to a newcomer.
  Occasionnally, I got some good advices which helped to produce a 
functional patch, but in many
  cases, having access to a simple hint (just to localize the actual 
code that needs to be modified)
  is often difficult. C does not help here (even though I'm fluent in 
that langage), but I do not want
  to re-open a war...

- Time involvement: I can spend a few days (mostly over the week ends) 
or hours after work and can
  spend an equivalent amount of time for dealing with consequences of a 
patch. I cannot afford to
  spend weeks of work (except exceptionnaly if this relates to my 
work). On one occasion, I submitted
  a prototype patch to remove default template parameters with some 
questions whether the flag I used
  was really available and request for comments.... The only answer I 
got was to use the new (completely
  undocumented and un-comprehensible to me after a few days of 
struggling with it -- this was several
  years ago) error message system.... Not even one comment on the 
usefulness of the feature or on
  my questions, I decided that the patch would anyway be never accepted 
(at the time INRIA had no
  copyright agreement -- and I'm still not sure I'm covered now --), so 
I abandonned. Since then
  Paolo IIRC also proposed something (probably much more elaborated 
than what I did), still such a "trivial"
  (for me it was some effort) functionality is not available unless I'm 
wrong. I agree that this is a minor
  functionality, and typically the kind of effort that might interest a 
newcomer, but the effort to get accepted
  is/was just too high.

- I'd like to help gcc not to fight/bother gcc people to get some more 
or less trivial stuff accepted.
  I can very well understand that they have more important things to 
do.....
  I must say though that I see some maintainers spending time to answer 
beginner questions, and I
  appreciate.

- Copyright assignment only comes fourth (and actually may be solved for 
me). I believe anyhow that
  most newcomers should first start with very small patches first (one 
liners, documentation, style, unused
  variables....). But those patch are often ignored (again, I can 
understand that for a gcc developper that
  might not be worth the effort).

- All in all, I believe that there is gap between skilled developpers 
and newcomers. Once one is skilled enough
  the list is very helpful. For newcomers, the answers form the list 
are just not reliable enough (in terms of useful
  answers). Again, I have seen recently some effort by a few 
developpers to anser basic questions and that's good.
  A slightly better way might be to offer mentorship (eventually 
pyramidal) on some small projects in order to help
  people jump in the bandwagon.... At least this is true for 
non-compiler people as I'm.