What is the relationship between GCC and Cygnus / Red Hat?

[Russ Allbery]

Gerald Pfeifer <pfeifer@dbai.tuwien.ac.at> writes:

> I believe by having the following entry in our FAQ, we actually reach
> the opposite of what it was originally ment to -- namely calm fears of
> Red Hat controlling GCC -- and I believe the situation has sufficiently
> changed since then, so I would like to remove it.

> However, this is my personal opionion, so I'd like to hear what others
> think about it, especially folks from Red Hat and competing companies!

I certainly have no objections to removing it entirely; GCC and in general
GNU toolchain development hasn't looked even remotely dominated by Cygnus
or Red Hat to me for a long, long time now.  But if that isn't acceptable
for whatever reason, an alternate suggestion:

> -<p>It is a common mis-conception that Red Hat controls GCC either
> -directly or indirectly.</p>
> -
> -<p>While Red Hat does donate hardware, network connections, code and
> -developer time to GCC development, Red Hat does not control GCC.</p>

Remove these two paragraphs.  I think they come across as alarmist
(unnecessarily so), since this is no longer a common conception (at least
as far as I'm concerned).

> -<p>Overall control of GCC is in the hands of the
> -<a href="steering.html">GCC Steering Committee</a>
> -which includes people from a variety of different organizations and
> -backgrounds.  The purpose of the steering committee is to make
> -decisions in the best interest of GCC and to help ensure that no
> -individual or company has control over the project.</p>

Leave this.

Add:

  <p>Red Hat does donate hardware, network connections, code and
  developer time to GCC development, as do many other companies.  Such
  contributions are coordinated by the GCC Steering Committee.</p>

or something similar to continue to give credit where credit is due and to
head off any feelings that Red Hat's involvement is being masked somehow.

Then, this too can be dropped:

> -<p>To summarize, Red Hat contributes to the GCC project, but does not exert
> -a controlling influence over GCC.</p>

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>