Maintainer policy for GDB - take N

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow at false dot org>]

Hi folks,

Below I have a complete copy of the MAINTAINERS file, adjusted for all
the changes I've proposed and for all the feedback I received when I
posted them in November.  Sorry about the delay; the end of the year
was unexpectedly hectic.

I'm going to be traveling much of next week.  I'll have access to
email, but limited time to respond, so I may be out of touch from
Sunday to Friday.  I'm eager to hear any feedback on this revision,
especially from Eli, Chris, and Mark.

Some next steps after discussion of this, assuming we finalize on
something similar:
  - Ping maintainers about continued interest in / availability for their
    listed positions.
  - Potentially redo the set of areas covered under Responsible Maintainers
    (in broader chunks instead of fine-grained, maybe move the fine-grained
    ones down to Authorized Committers).

Replacement text for MAINTAINERS:


		GDB Maintainers
		===============


		   Overview
		   --------

This file describes different groups of people who are, together, the
maintainers and developers of the GDB project.  Don't worry - it sounds
more complicated than it really is.

The groups are:

  - The GDB Steering Committee.

    These are the official (FSF-appointed) maintainers of GDB.  They have
    final and overriding authority for all GDB-related decisions, including
    anything described in this file, but they are not involved in day-to-day
    development.

  - The Global Maintainers.

    These are the developers in charge of most daily development.  They
    have wide authority to apply and reject patches, but defer to the
    Responsible Maintainers (see below) within their spheres of
    responsibility.

  - The Release Manager.

    This developer is in charge of making new releases of GDB.

  - The Patch Champions.

    These volunteers make sure that no contribution is overlooked or
    forgotten.

  - The Responsible Maintainers.

    These are developers who have expertise and interest in a particular
    area of GDB, who are generally available to review patches, and who
    prefer to enforce a single vision within their areas.

  - The Authorized Committers.

    These are developers who are trusted to make changes within a specific
    area of GDB without additional oversight.

  - The Write After Approval Maintainers.

    These are developers who have write access to the GDB source tree.  They
    can check in their own changes once a developer with the appropriate
    authority has approved the changes; they can also apply the Obvious
    Fix Rule (below).

All maintainers are encouraged to post major patches to the gdb-patches
mailing list for comments, even if they have the authority to commit the
patch without review from another maintainer.  This especially includes
patches which change internal interfaces (e.g. global functions, data
structures) or external interfaces (e.g. user, remote, MI, et cetera).

Most changes to the list of maintainers in this file are handled by
consensus among the global maintainers and any other involved parties.
In cases where consensus can not be reached, the global maintainers may
ask the Steering Committee for a final decision.

The term "review" is used in this file to describe several kinds of feedback
from a maintainer: approval, rejection, and requests for changes or
clarification with the intention of approving a revised version.  Review is
a privilege and/or responsibility of various positions among the GDB
Maintainers.  Of course, anyone - whether they hold a position but not the
relevant one for a particular patch, or are just following along on the
mailing lists for fun, or anything in between - may suggest changes or
ask questions about a patch!


			The Obvious Fix Rule
			--------------------

All maintainers listed in this file, including the Write After Approval
developers, are allowed to check in obvious fixes.

An "obvious fix" means that there is no possibility that anyone will
disagree with the change.

A good mental test is "will the person who hates my work the most be
able to find fault with the change" - if so, then it's not obvious and
needs to be posted first. :-)

Something like changing or bypassing an interface is _not_ an obvious
fix, since such a change without discussion will result in
instantaneous and loud complaints.


	     GDB Steering Committee
	     ----------------------

The members of the GDB Steering Committee are the FSF-appointed
maintainers of the GDB project.

The Steering Committee has final authority for all GDB-related topics;
they may make whatever changes that they deem necessary, or that the FSF
requests.  However, they are generally not involved in day-to-day
development.

The current members of the steering committee are listed below, in
alphabetical order.  Their affiliations are provided for reference only -
their membership on the Steering Committee is individual and not through
their affiliation, and they act on behalf of the GNU project.

	Jim Blandy (Red Hat)
	Andrew Cagney (Red Hat)
	Robert Dewar (AdaCore, NYU)
	Klee Dienes (Apple)
	Paul Hilfinger (UC Berkeley)
	Dan Jacobowitz (CodeSourcery)
	Stan Shebs (Apple)
	Richard Stallman (FSF)
	Ian Lance Taylor (C2)
	Todd Whitesel


		  Global Maintainers
		  ------------------

The global maintainers may review and commit any change to GDB, except in
areas with a Responsible Maintainer available.  For major changes, or
changes to areas with other active developers, global maintainers are
strongly encouraged to post their own patches for feedback before
committing.

The global maintainers are responsible for reviewing patches to any area
for which no Responsible Maintainer is listed.

Global maintainers also have the authority to revert patches which should
not have been applied, e.g. patches which were not approved, controversial
patches committed under the Obvious Fix Rule, patches with important bugs
that can't be immediately fixed, or patches which go against an accepted and
documented roadmap for GDB development.  Any global maintainer may request
the reversion of a patch.  If no global maintainer, or responsible
maintainer in the affected areas, supports the patch (except for the
maintainer who originally committed it), then after 48 hours the maintainer
who called for the reversion may revert the patch.

No one may reapply a reverted patch without the agreement of the maintainer
who reverted it, or bringing the issue to the GDB Steering Committee for
discussion.

At the moment there are no documented roadmaps for GDB development; in the
future, if there are, a reference to the list will be included here.

The current global maintainers are (in alphabetical order):

Jim Blandy			jimb@redhat.com
Kevin Buettner			kevinb@redhat.com
Andrew Cagney			cagney@gnu.org
J.T. Conklin			jtc@acorntoolworks.com
Fred Fish			fnf@ninemoons.com
Daniel Jacobowitz		dan@debian.org
Mark Kettenis           	kettenis@gnu.org
Peter Schauer			Peter.Schauer@regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
Stan Shebs			shebs@apple.com
Michael Snyder			msnyder@redhat.com
Elena Zannoni			ezannoni@redhat.com
Eli Zaretskii			eliz@gnu.org


			Release Manager
			---------------

The current release manager is: Joel Brobecker  <brobecker@adacore.com>

His responsibilities are:

    * organizing, scheduling, and managing releases of GDB.

    * deciding the approval and commit policies for release branches,
      and can change them as needed.



			Patch Champions
			---------------

These volunteers track all patches submitted to the gdb-patches list.  They
endeavor to prevent any posted patch from being overlooked; work with
contributors to meet GDB's coding style and general requirements, along with
FSF copyright assignments; remind (ping) responsible maintainers to review
patches; and ensure that contributors are given credit.

Current patch champions (in alphabetical order):

	Joel Brobecker  <brobecker@adacore.com>
	Daniel Jacobowitz  <dan@debian.org>



			Responsible Maintainers
			-----------------------

These developers have agreed to review patches in specific areas of GDB, in
which they have knowledge and experience.  These areas are generally broad;
the role of a responsible maintainer is to provide coherent and cohesive
structure within their area of GDB, to assure that patches from many
different contributors all work together for the best results.

Global maintainers will defer to responsible maintainers within their areas,
as long as the responsible maintainer is active.  Active means that
responsible maintainers agree to review submitted patches in their area
promptly; patches and followups should generally be answered within a week.
If a responsible maintainer is interested in reviewing a patch but will not
have time within a week of posting, the maintainer should send an
acknowledgement of the patch to the gdb-patches mailing list, and
plan to follow up with a review within a month.  These deadlines are for
initial responses to a patch - if the maintainer has suggestions
or questions, it may take an extended discussion before the patch
is ready to commit.  There are no written requirements for discussion,
but maintainers are asked to be responsive.

If a responsible maintainer misses these deadlines occasionally (e.g.
vacation or unexpected workload), it's not a disaster - any global
maintainer may step in to review the patch.  But sometimes life intervenes
more permanently, and a maintainer may no longer have time for these duties.
When this happens, he or she should step down (either into the Authorized
Committers section if still interested in the area, or simply removed from
the list of Responsible Maintainers if not).

If a responsible maintainer is unresponsive for an extended period of time
without stepping down, please contact the Global Maintainers; they will try
to contact the maintainer directly and fix the problem - potentially by
removing that maintainer from their listed position.

If there are several maintainers for a given domain then any one of them
may review a submitted patch.

Target Instruction Set Architectures:

The *-tdep.c files.  ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) and OS-ABI
(Operating System / Application Binary Interface) issues including CPU
variants.

The Target/Architecture maintainer works with the host maintainer when
resolving build issues.  The Target/Architecture maintainer works with
the native maintainer when resolving ABI issues.

	alpha		--target=alpha-elf ,-Werror

	arm		--target=arm-elf ,-Werror
			Scott Bambrough		scottb@netwinder.org
			Richard Earnshaw	rearnsha@arm.com

	avr		--target=avr ,-Werror
			Theodore A. Roth	troth@openavr.org

	cris		--target=cris-elf ,-Werror

	d10v		OBSOLETE

	frv		--target=frv-elf ,-Werror

	h8300		--target=h8300-elf ,-Werror

	i386		--target=i386-elf ,-Werror
			Mark Kettenis           kettenis@gnu.org

	ia64		--target=ia64-linux-gnu ,-Werror
			(--target=ia64-elf broken)
			Kevin Buettner		kevinb@redhat.com

	m32r		--target=m32r-elf ,-Werror

	m68hc11		--target=m68hc11-elf ,-Werror ,
			Stephane Carrez		stcarrez@nerim.fr

	m68k		--target=m68k-elf ,-Werror

	m88k		--target=m88k-openbsd ,-Werror
			Mark Kettenis		kettenis@gnu.org

	mcore		Deleted

	mips		--target=mips-elf ,-Werror

	mn10300		--target=mn10300-elf broken
			(sim/ dies with make -j)
			Michael Snyder		msnyder@redhat.com

	ms1		--target=ms1-elf ,-Werror
			Kevin Buettner		kevinb@redhat.com

	ns32k		Deleted

	pa		--target=hppa-elf ,-Werror

	powerpc		--target=powerpc-eabi ,-Werror

	s390		--target=s390-linux-gnu ,-Werror

	sh		--target=sh-elf ,-Werror
			--target=sh64-elf ,-Werror

	sparc		--target=sparc-elf ,-Werror

	v850		--target=v850-elf ,-Werror

	vax		--target=vax-netbsd ,-Werror

	x86-64		--target=x86_64-linux-gnu ,-Werror

	xstormy16	--target=xstormy16-elf
			Corinna Vinschen	vinschen@redhat.com

All developers recognized by this file can make arbitrary changes to
OBSOLETE targets.

The Bourne shell script gdb_mbuild.sh can be used to rebuild all the
above targets.


Host/Native:

The Native maintainer is responsible for target specific native
support - typically shared libraries and quirks to procfs/ptrace/...
The Native maintainer works with the Arch and Core maintainers when
resolving more generic problems.

The host maintainer ensures that gdb can be built as a cross debugger on
their platform.

AIX			Peter Schauer		Peter.Schauer@regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
			Kevin Buettner		kevinb@redhat.com
			Joel Brobecker		brobecker@gnat.com

djgpp native		Eli Zaretskii		eliz@gnu.org
			DJ Delorie		dj@redhat.com
MS Windows (NT, '00, 9x, Me, XP) host & native
			Chris Faylor		cgf@alum.bu.edu
GNU/Linux/x86 native & host
			Mark Kettenis		kettenis@gnu.org
GNU/Linux PPC native	Kevin Buettner		kevinb@redhat.com
GNU/Linux MIPS native & host
			Daniel Jacobowitz	dan@debian.org
GNU/Linux m68k		Andreas Schwab		schwab@suse.de
FreeBSD native & host	Mark Kettenis		kettenis@gnu.org
			David O'Brien		obrien@freebsd.org
hurd native		Mark Kettenis		kettenis@gnu.org
NetBSD native & host	Jason Thorpe		thorpej@netbsd.org
SCO/Unixware		Robert Lipe		rjl@sco.com
GNU/Linux ARM native	Scott Bambrough		scottb@netwinder.org
Solaris/x86 native & host (devolved)
			Peter Schauer		Peter.Schauer@regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
Solaris/SPARC native & host (devolved)
                        (Global Maintainers)



Core: Generic components used by all of GDB

generic arch support	(Global Maintainers)
			Any host/target maintainer can add to
			gdbarch.{c,h,sh}.
target vector		(Global Maintainers)

event loop		Elena Zannoni           ezannoni@redhat.com
                        For the part of top.c related to the event loop,
                        send questions to ezannoni@redhat.com

generic symtabs		Elena Zannoni		ezannoni@redhat.com
  dwarf readers		Elena Zannoni		ezannoni@redhat.com
  elf reader		Elena Zannoni		ezannoni@redhat.com
  stabs reader		Elena Zannoni		ezannoni@redhat.com
  coff reader		Philippe De Muyter	phdm@macqel.be
  xcoff reader		Any maintainer can modify this; please send tricky
			ones to Kevin Buettner <kevinb@redhat.com>
  HP/UX readers		Any [past] maintainer can modify this.
			Please send tricky ones to the symtabs maintainers.

tracing bytecode stuff  (Global Maintainers)
tracing			Michael Snyder		msnyder@redhat.com
threads			Michael Snyder		msnyder@redhat.com
			Mark Kettenis		kettenis@gnu.org
breakpoints		(Global Maintainers)
language support	(Blanket Write Privs Maintainers)
  C++			Daniel Jacobowitz	dan@debian.org
  Java support		(Global Maintainers)
  Pascal support	Pierre Muller		muller@sources.redhat.com
  Objective C support   Adam Fedor		fedor@gnu.org
shared libs (devolved)	Kevin Buettner		kevinb@redhat.com
  xcoffsolib		Peter Schauer		Peter.Schauer@regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de

sds protocol		(vacant)
rdi/adp protocol	(vacant)
documentation		Eli Zaretskii		eliz@gnu.org
testsuite		Michael Chastain	mec.gnu@mindspring.com
			(Global Maintainers)			
  lib/, config/, gdb.base/, ...
			Michael Chastain	mec.gnu@mindspring.com
			(Global Maintainers)			
  gdbtk (gdb.gdbtk)     Keith Seitz             keiths@redhat.com
  c++ (gdb.cp) 		Michael Chastain	mec.gnu@mindspring.com
  threads (gdb.threads) Michael Snyder          msnyder@redhat.com
			Michael Chastain	mec.gnu@mindspring.com
  trace (gdb.trace)     Michael Snyder          msnyder@redhat.com
  hp tests (gdb.hp)	(vacant)
  Java tests (gdb.java)	Anthony Green 		green@redhat.com
Kernel Object Display	Fernando Nasser		fnasser@redhat.com


UI: External (user) interfaces.

command interpreter	(Global Maintainers)
gdbtk (c & tcl)		Jim Ingham		jingham@apple.com
			Fernando Nasser         fnasser@redhat.com
			Keith Seitz		keiths@redhat.com
libgui (w/foundry, sn)	Jim Ingham              jingham@apple.com
			Keith Seitz		keiths@redhat.com
tui			Stephane Carrez		stcarrez@nerim.fr
			(Global Maintainers)


Misc:

gdb/gdbserver		Daniel Jacobowitz	dan@debian.org

Web pages.		Jim Kingdon		jkingdon@engr.sgi.com  ++
			(anyone can edit; kingdon is just lead maintainer)

Makefile.in, configure*	ALL

mmalloc/		ALL Host maintainers

NEWS			ALL

sim/			See sim/MAINTAINERS

readline/		Master version: ftp://ftp.cwru.edu/pub/bash/
			Elena Zannoni		ezannoni@redhat.com
			Host maintainers (host dependant parts)
			(but get your changes into the master version)

tcl/ tk/ itcl/		Ian Roxborough		irox@redhat.com


		Authorized Committers
		---------------------

These are developers working on particular areas of GDB, who are trusted to
commit their own (or other developers') patches in those areas without
further review from a Global Maintainer or Responsible Maintainer.  They are
under no obligation to review posted patches - but, of course, are invited
to do so!

	Andrew Cagney (powerpc, powerpc-linux)
	Hans-Peter Nilsson (cris)	
	Jeff Johnston (ia64)
	Joel Brobecker (mips)
	Kei Sakamoto (m32r)
	Kevin Buettner (powerpc)
	Orjan Friberg (cris)
	Randolph Chung (pa)
	Ulrich Weigand (s390)


			Write After Approval
			   (alphabetic)

To get recommended for the Write After Approval list you need a valid
FSF assignment and have submitted one good patch.

David Anderson					davea@sgi.com
John David Anglin				dave.anglin@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Shrinivas Atre					shrinivasa@kpitcummins.com
Scott Bambrough					scottb@netwinder.org
Jan Beulich					jbeulich@novell.com
Jim Blandy					jimb@redhat.com
Philip Blundell					philb@gnu.org
Per Bothner					per@bothner.com
Joel Brobecker					brobecker@gnat.com
Dave Brolley					brolley@redhat.com
Paul Brook					paul@codesourcery.com
Kevin Buettner					kevinb@redhat.com
Andrew Cagney					cagney@gnu.org
David Carlton					carlton@bactrian.org
Stephane Carrez					stcarrez@nerim.fr
Michael Chastain				mec.gnu@mindspring.com
Eric Christopher				echristo@apple.com
Randolph Chung					tausq@debian.org
Nick Clifton					nickc@redhat.com
Brendan Conoboy					blc@redhat.com
DJ Delorie					dj@redhat.com
Philippe De Muyter				phdm@macqel.be
Dhananjay Deshpande				dhananjayd@kpitcummins.com
Klee Dienes					kdienes@apple.com
Richard Earnshaw				rearnsha@arm.com
Steve Ellcey					sje@cup.hp.com
Frank Ch. Eigler				fche@redhat.com
Ben Elliston					bje@gnu.org
Adam Fedor					fedor@gnu.org
Fred Fish					fnf@ninemoons.com
Brian Ford					ford@vss.fsi.com
Orjan Friberg					orjanf@axis.com
Paul Gilliam					pgilliam@us.ibm.com
Raoul Gough					RaoulGough@yahoo.co.uk
Anthony Green			 		green@redhat.com
Matthew Green					mrg@eterna.com.au
Jerome Guitton					guitton@act-europe.fr
Ben Harris					bjh21@netbsd.org
Richard Henderson				rth@redhat.com
Aldy Hernandez					aldyh@redhat.com
Paul Hilfinger					hilfinger@gnat.com
Matt Hiller					hiller@redhat.com
Kazu Hirata					kazu@cs.umass.edu
Jeff Holcomb					jeffh@redhat.com
Don Howard					dhoward@redhat.com
Martin Hunt					hunt@redhat.com
Jim Ingham					jingham@apple.com
Baurzhan Ismagulov				ibr@radix50.net
Manoj Iyer					manjo@austin.ibm.com
Daniel Jacobowitz				dan@debian.org
Andreas Jaeger					aj@suse.de
Jeff Johnston					jjohnstn@redhat.com
Geoff Keating					geoffk@redhat.com
Mark Kettenis					kettenis@gnu.org
Jim Kingdon					jkingdon@engr.sgi.com  ++
Jonathan Larmour				jlarmour@redhat.co.uk
Jeff Law					law@redhat.com
David Lecomber					david@streamline-computing.com
Robert Lipe					rjl@sco.com
H.J. Lu						hjl@lucon.org
Michal Ludvig                                   mludvig@suse.cz
Glen McCready					gkm@redhat.com
Greg McGary					greg@mcgary.org
Roland McGrath					roland@redhat.com
Bryce McKinlay					mckinlay@redhat.com
Jason Merrill					jason@redhat.com
David S. Miller					davem@redhat.com
Mark Mitchell					mark@codesourcery.com
Marko Mlinar                                    markom@opencores.org
Alan Modra					amodra@bigpond.net.au
Jason Molenda					jmolenda@apple.com
Pierre Muller					muller@sources.redhat.com
Joseph Myers					joseph@codesourcery.com
Fernando Nasser					fnasser@redhat.com
Nathanael Nerode				neroden@gcc.gnu.org
Hans-Peter Nilsson				hp@bitrange.com
David O'Brien					obrien@freebsd.org
Alexandre Oliva					aoliva@redhat.com
Ramana Radhakrishnan 				ramana.radhakrishnan@codito.com
Frederic Riss					frederic.riss@st.com
Tom Rix						trix@redhat.com
Nick Roberts					nickrob@snap.net.nz
Bob Rossi 					bob_rossi@cox.net
Theodore A. Roth				troth@openavr.org
Ian Roxborough					irox@redhat.com
Grace Sainsbury					graces@redhat.com
Kei Sakamoto					sakamoto.kei@renesas.com
Mark Salter					msalter@redhat.com
Richard Sandiford				richard@codesourcery.com
Peter Schauer					Peter.Schauer@regent
Andreas Schwab					schwab@suse.de
Keith Seitz					keiths@redhat.com
Stan Shebs					shebs@apple.com
Aidan Skinner					aidan@velvet.net
Jiri Smid					smid@suse.cz
David Smith					dsmith@redhat.com
Stephen P. Smith				ischis2@cox.net
Jackie Smith Cashion				jsmith@redhat.com
Michael Snyder					msnyder@redhat.com
Petr Sorfa					petrs@caldera.com
Andrew Stubbs					andrew.stubbs@st.com
Ian Lance Taylor				ian@airs.com
Gary Thomas					gthomas@redhat.com
Jason Thorpe					thorpej@netbsd.org
Tom Tromey					tromey@redhat.com
David Ung					davidu@mips.com
D Venkatasubramanian				dvenkat@noida.hcltech.com
Corinna Vinschen				vinschen@redhat.com
Keith Walker					keith.walker@arm.com
Kris Warkentin					kewarken@qnx.com
Ulrich Weigand					uweigand@de.ibm.com
Nathan Williams					nathanw@wasabisystems.com
Jim Wilson					wilson@specifixinc.com
Elena Zannoni					ezannoni@redhat.com
Eli Zaretskii					eliz@gnu.org
Wu Zhou						woodzltc@cn.ibm.com
Yoshinori Sato					ysato@users.sourceforge.jp


			Past Maintainers

Jimmy Guo (gdb.hp, tui)				guo at cup dot hp dot com
Jeff Law (hppa)					law at cygnus dot com
Daniel Berlin (C++ support)			dan at cgsoftware dot com
Nick Duffek (powerpc, SCO, Sol/x86)		nick at duffek dot com
David Taylor (d10v, sparc, utils, defs,
  expression evaluator, language support)	taylor at candd dot org
J.T. Conklin (dcache, NetBSD, remote)		jtc at redback dot com
Frank Ch. Eigler (sim)				fche at redhat dot com
Per Bothner (Java)				per at bothner dot com
Anthony Green (Java)				green at redhat dot com
Fernando Nasser (testsuite/, mi, cli)           fnasser at redhat dot com
Mark Salter (testsuite/lib+config)		msalter at redhat dot com



Folks that have been caught up in a paper trail:

Chris Faylor					cgf@alum.bu.edu
Jim Kingdon					jkingdon@engr.sgi.com
David Carlton					carlton@bactrian.org

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery