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[bangerth@ticam.utexas.edu: GCC review process: how to handle external submissions]
- From: Christopher Faylor <cgf at redhat dot com>
- To: gdb at sources dot redhat dot com
- Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2003 15:21:34 -0500
- Subject: [bangerth@ticam.utexas.edu: GCC review process: how to handle external submissions]
- Reply-to: gdb at sourceware dot org
Hmmmm.... Interesting thread over in the gcc list.
cgf
[NOTICE: Reply-To set because I don't want to read replies to this in my inbox]
----- Forwarded message from Wolfgang Bangerth <bangerth at ticam dot utexas dot edu> -----
From: Wolfgang Bangerth <bangerth at ticam dot utexas dot edu>
To: gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org
Subject: GCC review process: how to handle external submissions
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2003 00:40:09 -0600 (CST)
This week, I got three mails on the same subject, two of which read like
this:
> I submitted this to gcc-patches in November, resubmitted it in December,
> opened a bug report in January, wrote to gcc-bugs. I got no replies.
>
> I believe that this patch fixes a legitimate, reproducable bug and
> follows all patch submission guidelines on the gcc website.
>
> Please consider applying this patch. I would appreciate a reply in any
> case.
and
> The state of this is totally defunct.
> I have tried different request strategies for a few years
> and have concluded that only if I become a gcc insider
> can I get even the simplest changes made.
> I don't have the time, energy, or interest in that.
I get such mail about once every two weeks, when I ping people who
submitted PRs with patches about what happened to the patch. Gnats is full
of reports with patches in them.
I think we have a serious problem here. We are not only losing the
contributions from these people, we are also scaring them away, and I
don't think this is wise.
Can we at least discuss the reasons for this, and maybe come up with
suggestions about how we could improve this process? I think it would be
tremendously helpful if there were someone who
- could be contacted if there is a patch from somebody from outside gcc
- is willing to help with small problems like missing ChangeLog entries
or wrong formatting
- identifies port/front-end/... maintainer that would be qualified to
review the patch
- will take on some mediator function between patch submitter and
reviewer, if necessary
- most of all: takes care that patches are not silently dropped
I don't know whether this is reasonable, and even less if someone would
take over this position, but I think that in this respect our present
processes are inadequate.
As a final note: even if I say that we have many of these cases, they may
amount to 5-10 or so per month, and maybe 50-100 in gnats. Most of these
would probably be easy to review, if just someone cared -- the mail from
which I took the first quote contains everthing the patch submission
guidelines ask for, and did so back the first time it was submitted; the
patch is actually only two lines long; yet it was ignored 3 times.
Regards
Wolfgang
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Wolfgang Bangerth email: bangerth at ticam dot utexas dot edu
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