[llvm-commits] RFC: LLVM incubation, or requirements for committing new backends

[Owen Anderson]

Hi Duncan,

On Jul 17, 2012, at 1:00 AM, Duncan Sands <baldrick at free.fr> wrote:

> so this would be something like the linux kernel's "staging" tree?  Well, why
> not.  However another important thing which I think should be extended is the
> notion of "code owners" (corresponding more or less to the linux kernel's
> subsystem maintainers).  Who is the code owner for backends in general?  Maybe
> Evan or Anton?  A new backend shouldn't go in unless OK'd by that code owner.
> But who knows who the right person is?  I think we need to designate code owners
> for all major subsystems, and list them in some easy to find place.  One problem
> people have when they send in patches but don't get any review is that they
> don't know who to turn to.  They should turn to the code owner, and part of the
> code owner's responsibility should be to take action in such cases (which may
> just mean delegating the review work to someone else).  Currently they often
> turn to Chris, but Chris doesn't scale.

I'm not familiar with Linux's staging tree.  I had Apache Incubator in mind when I wrote the concept.

I have to admit, I'm somewhat skeptical of the how well our system of code ownership has work out in the past, and I'm not sure it will scale well into the future.  It seems like the code ownership scopes, as defined in the past, were so broad as to be meaningless, since those people designated owners could not realistically review every patch in their assigned part of the codebase.

An alternative idea that would integrate with my incubator proposal would be to have each incubation project "chaperoned" by established community members chosen at the start of the incubation who will be the gatekeepers on whether it gets to graduate to mainline.

--Owen