source mgt. requirements solicitation

[Tom Lord]

Thanks for the replies so far.   These are helpful.

My intention is to read these over, take lots of notes, and make a
succinct-as-possible, coalesced reply.  I'll also (so far) reply
individually to shebs' issue with merging (since it sounds like an
interesting and relevant technical problem).  If there's some other
issue you'd like to see pulled out from a coallesced reply, please say
so explicitly.

One quick request: someone said "Hey, testing is already automated."
Can I please see a slight elaboration on the form and function of that
automation?  (I have some idea, but maybe there's something I've
overlooked.  What I _think_ I know already is that `make test' works,
and that there's some infrastructure for mailing in `make test' output
and having it show up on a web site.  Presumably individual testers
have their own scripts for that.  I'm not aware that there is any
infrastructure for easily testing arbitrary combinations of patches,
but one comment implied that there is.  Someone mentioned QMtest,
which can really tighten-up that automation -- but last I heard,
prospects for its adoption by GCC were slim: has that changed?)


Still listening,
-t