Re: gdb-patches Digest 19 Jan 2001 14:34:08 -0000 Issue 519

["Eli Zaretskii" <eliz at is dot elta dot co dot il>]

> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 10:49:56 -0800
> From: Jim Ingham <jingham@apple.com>
> 
> HOWEVER, the patch (and thus the current state of gdb) had an obvious 
> gaffe that caused gdb to crash in a pretty common usage.  Moreover, 
> apparently both the bug and the fix were known pretty soon after the 
> original patch was checked in.  To make matters worse, the fix for the 
> crashing bug was a no-brainer - probably just a cut & paste error.
> 
> So it was important to decouple the discussion of whether the overall 
> patch should be reverted or not from the decision to check in a fix that 
> kept gdb as it stood in the CVS repository from crashing on people.

Was someone opposed to get this fixed in the way suggested by whoever
proposed the fix?

If there was no opposition, I don't see how the situation you
described contradicts a principle I was proposing.

> This sort of case may very well arise again, since it was not the result 
> of bad will on anybody's part, as far as I can tell.  And regardless of 
> larger design concerns we really should have a way to expedite fixes in 
> this context, so that gdb stays pretty reliable most of the time.

I agree that we must have a way to take action when the responsible
maintainer is unavailable.  I just think that when considering changes
in areas that aren't areas of our immediate expertise, we should
exercise more cautious approach.

If there are people who are experts in some area, they can step
forward as back-up maintainers, so that, shall the main maintainer
become unavailable, changes can still be quickly committed.