[patch,committed] Make Fortran maintainers "Non-Autopoiesis Maintainers"

[FX Coudert]

> Mostly what I want is some discussion about what we expect this to  
> mean as a formal rule, and how strictly we're expecting to  
> interpret it.  For values of "we" meaning both the GFortran  
> maintainers, and the wider GCC maintainer community.

I agree with your intrepretation of this rule exactly as you stated  
it, and as it is stated on http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/ : approval of  
non-obvious patches is required as a rule, but the scope of "obvious"  
can be extended at times, and it's also possible to send a patch  
asking if anyone has comments, saying that you plan on committing it  
on a given date. I did change the Fortran maintainers from the  
standard category to this new one because it seemed close to what we  
currently do.

To come to the heart of the issue, I don't think it will be  
intepreted to our disadvantage by the GCC community. From the past,  
it seemed that the steering committee and release managers have kept  
to a simple line: the Fortran maintainers have a system that works,  
even though it's not completely the same as the usual GCC  
maintainership. If it works well, let's keep it that way. [1] I feel  
that we have a wide margin to make our decisions. After all, IIRC,  
the "mostly non-autopoiesis" system that we have is something we came  
up with, not the steering committee.

In short: I understand your point of view, and I think we have been  
given enough liberty for Fortran choices in the past not to worry  
about this MAINTAINERS category not 100% describing our policy.

FX


[1] I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding the policy that is applied to  
us; and I want to note that I'm only speaking about maintainership,  
not the development and branches rules, for which we're going slowly  
toward the standard GCC practices.