Re: How to submit large patch for xtensa-linux?

["H. J. Lu" <hjl at lucon dot org>]

On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 03:49:56PM -0700, Roland McGrath wrote:
> > Is this a new policy?  The current glibc sources certainly contain a
> > number of ports that I would consider "non-mainstream".  Are they going
> > to be removed in future releases?  Who decides when an architecture
> > becomes mainstream?  Can you explain how this works?
> 
> In the past we have not had any formal policy on this.  We have not
> before articulated the full policy we now have in mind.  What Ulrich
> said was correct, but did not elaborate on the rationale and methodology
> very much.  I'll try to make it more clear now.
> 
> The policy is that the main glibc source tree actively maintained by the
> core glibc developers should contain only the ports that are maintained
> by people actively involved in glibc development on a daily basis.
> There is a central maintenance cost associated with each port that
> resides in the main source tree.  The intent of the policy is to keep
> the maintenance burden of each port on those who benefit from and care
> about it.  Each of the active glibc developers has some ports that he is
> particularly interested in (or responsible for in his job), and for
> those the core developers as a group are willing to share collectively
> some of those burdens of other developers' pet ports in appreciation of
> the overall collective benefit of those other developers' daily
> contributions.  In other cases, we are not willing the shoulder that
> burden--if your contributions only benefit the community of Xtensa users
> and we and the larger community we care for are not among them, then we
> are not volunteering any efforts that are specifically in your aid.
> That's the way freedom works.

Ulrich has been doing a superb job maintaining glibc. I don't think
anyone can ask him to do more. I support not to include any ports
without an active maintainer. Gcc and gdb have the similar issues. They
are obsoleting non-active targets. I think glibc should start obsoleting
ports without an active maintainer. Each major release should list
tested, working targets and mark those untested being obsoleted. Those
marked will be obsoleted in the next major releae.

Glibc needs more active developers. I think glibc should consider a
policy similar to what gcc, gdb, binutils have. Glibc shouldn't accept
a new port without a maintainer. I hope we won't rush to a decision
which may not help the development of glibc unintentionally.



H.J.