Some thoughts about steerring commitee work

[Vladimir N. Makarov]

Joe Buck wrote:

>On Fri, Jun 15, 2007 at 08:50:49AM -0400, Vladimir N. Makarov wrote:
>  
>
>>Looking at the last SC announcement, it is probably easy to get the
>>impression that SC is shrunk to David Edelsohn, may be Mark Mitchell
>>and Gerald Pfeifer.
>>    
>>
>
>That would be a mistake.  Different SC members play different roles.  Many
>members play a role similar to outside members of boards of directors, and
>the intent is to represent users, not just developers.  For example, David
>Miller represents the interests of the Linux kernel, Joel Sherill
>represents embedded systems, Toon represents Fortran, etc.  David Edelsohn
>has been handling most of the announcements of decisions lately, but he is
>not personally appointing people; he's announcing the results of a vote.
>
>  
>
>
Thanks, for the clarification, Joe.  I always like to put users first.  
But I've just been thinking how some SC members which are not involed 
development make right decision during a vote about the appointments.

>>Some GCC developers don't follow all GCC
>>development and it would be nice to have an explanation even for
>>trivial cases of appointments.
>>    
>>
>
>If you feel that someone should be appointed to some role, you can
>contact an SC member and it can be discussed.
>
>  
>
Sorry, it is even make me a bit scary becuase I don't know when the SC 
decides that we need more maintainers and what maintainers.  When should 
we propose.  After that I am just starting to think who usually propose 
them.

In this situation, in my humble opinion it is better to inform 
developers about doing such decision and ask them candidates.

I am agree with Richard that is a tricky political question.  In this 
case people could send candidates anonymously.

>>For example, about latest appointments of Diego and Ian as GWP.  They
>>are good guys but I don't see Diego actively working on RTL or Ian
>>actively working on tree-SSA.
>>    
>>
>
>They were not granted unlimited GWP, but rather a limited form that
>we call "non-algorithmic".  See
>
>http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2006-11/msg00582.html
>
>for an explanation of what this means.  Ian can't mess with the guts
>of tree-SSA without approval from a maintainer in that area, for example.
>These kinds of things represent a judgment call.  In many cases the key
>factor is whether the person knows what he does not know, and when he
>needs to ask others for help.
>
>
>  
>
Please don't get me wrong, I am not against Ian or Diego.  I think a lot 
of people could do non-algorithmic GWP (altough another question do they 
want to).  I've just thinking about improving the decision making.

I am sorry, I feel like I am annoying, please just tell me about that 
and I will stop.

Vlad