why is the SC relevant (was Re: SC issues revised)

[Joe Buck]

Tom Lord writes:

> ... perhaps the right role for
> an improved SC is to be a IETF-like secretariat, solicitor of public
> participation, and first-level protest reviewer, with the FSF playing
> the IAB-like ultimate authority role.

The IETF-like organization is this mailing list, where technical proposals
are hashed out.  I would welcome more ideas on increasing public
participation, but we should probably be thinking about an architectural
cleanup first so that more than about three experts understand the dark
areas of the compiler, otherwise the queue for patch review will just keep
getting longer if we attract more contributors.  The SC is already the
first-level protest reviewer, with the FSF settling anything that involves
legalities.

> Maybe a good (and not to expensive) place to start would be with a
> first-approximation documents track and initial working group areas,
> then any political reform (or not) can leverage that.  (And again,
> (apply this other-projects)).  Worked once...

Sigh.  We started egcs because we wanted a faster development cycle.
The SC-that-does-little was considered a feature, not a bug.
What does all this extra bureaucracy buy us?  It seems to me to be
a step in the wrong direction.

Further, if you increase the demands on SC members, then the only people
who will be able to serve will be those who are basically being paid to
do it, making the SC more the captive of the big gcc contributors than it
is now.  At least half of the SC would have to quit if you insist that
they do much more work.