Re: binutils patch posting policy

[Ian Lance Taylor <ian at zembu dot com>]

   Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 03:34:00 +0000
   From: Jonathan Larmour <jlarmour@redhat.co.uk>

   I noticed that some people have been checking in patches to binutils without
   posting the patches to the list. I don't know whether the patches had been
   approved in private or not.

   Is that permitted, or should they have their knuckles rapped?

This is permitted.  Any official binutils maintainer is permitted to
check in patches without either posting them or seeking prior
approval.  If you're not sure whether you have permission to do this,
then you do not.

I'm not big on formal process.  Formal process is what we need when
things aren't working.  If things are working, it's more efficient to
keep things informal.

The binutils have problems because the maintainers are overloaded and
patches are not getting either approved or checked in.  I don't think
that people checking in bogus patches is a big problem for the
binutils (please feel free to correct me on this).  Getting stricter
about checking in patches will fix the theoretical problem at the cost
of making the real problem worse.  Let's not do it.

Ian