On Sun, May 9, 2021 at 8:33 AM abebeos <lazaridis.com+abeb...@gmail.com> wrote: > > To me this sounds quite like an "disorganized mess, where bullies, abusers > and even IT-fascists can thrive". > > It is clear to me that some gcc project maintainers, the steering committee > and bountysource are crossing ethical (if not legal) boundaries.
The GCC project maintainers and the steering committee are definitely not crossing ethical or legal boundaries here. I don't know anything about Bountysource. Bountysource is completely separate from GCC. It appears from your link that John Paul Adrian Glaubitz posted a bounty for some GCC work. A number of people and organizations supported the bounty, but the GCC project itself did not. Although the work is for GCC, the GCC project has nothing to do with that bounty. That is handled entirely by Bountysource. > The Issue: > > https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=92729 > > The Bounty (a bit higher than $7K) > > https://www.bountysource.com/issues/84630749-avr-convert-the-backend-to-mode_cc-so-it-can-be-kept-in-future-releases > > The Complaint re Voting Process: > > https://github.com/bountysource/core/issues/1532 > > Bountysource may write whatever they want in their terms-of-service - the > relevant law is still above. And of course OSS-ethics, which are more that a > basic code-monkey-mentality of the kind "only code is work, only patch > authors are workers". > > * there is a bounty > * I start work (working around a major gcc project deficit, which is a > missing CI, testing testing testing, concluding, "reviving" and existent > patch) > * I claim 50% > * a dispute starts, which is then aborted non-transparently by some anonymous > coward, without waiting for the major backers votes, and all gcc > participants simply keep silence. > > I am aware that the effort to fight for 50% of a $7K bounty is not worth it - > even the distraction for opening a discussion here is essentially not worth > the effort. > > I cared more or less only on what Microchip ($5K contibution to the bounty) > had to say, and the other two top backers. And I'm still curious about this. > > If they too say "research, analysis and integration work is no work" and > "effort to validate abandoned patches and reuse of them is no work" - well, > then I guess I'll rest my case. > > But at least it gets "on file", so other people which struggle with gcc > (especially in combination with bountysource) have a point-of-reference. > > Very disappointing all this. > > I mean really? An OSS project which brute-force aborts a voting-procedure > (=IT-fascism)? Just to award a monetary value to an gcc-project insider? > > And everyone keeps silence? If I'm reading the Bountysource page correctly, the bounty was awarded to saaadhu, who I assume is Senthil Kumar Selvaraj. Senthil has been a GCC contributor for a while with some 70 committed patches. But I wouldn't describe them as a GCC project insider. They are not a GCC maintainer or reviewer. > We all know that reproducing such things in order to have an informed > opinion/vote costs terribly high amounts of time. The simplified method would > be: > > * enter the issues here: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=92729#c9 > * then, just try to validate the until then available patch > * => you'll fail, as no stable environment is available (major failure of > the steering comitee, which should insist "all targets need to have an > functioning CI" > * => here you start integrating a dev/ci environment, try to find reference > points/versions etc., etc. > > @ Steering Committee > > A functioning CI across targets is a non-disputable must requirement in > todays IT landscape: > > * https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=98574 > > Or at least reference-repos, like e.g. this one: > > * https://github.com/abebeos/avr-gnu > > We would not have this topic here, if the gcc-project had a decent CI, or a > build-setup used by all developers. I agree that having a good CI for GCC would be really great. It's also really hard. GCC generates code for many different targets, and the nature of GCC is such that running tests on a simulator rather than real hardware, while helpful, is simply not good enough in practice. So a good CI for GCC requires supporting a large variety of hardware. That is very desirable. It's also very hard and very expensive. The GCC project must rely on volunteers for this work. You can see the available support at https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/CompileFarm and on the gcc-testresults mailing list. Should the project have better CI? Yes, absolutely. Who is going to put in the time, effort, and money to make that happen? In any case, this is not the right place to raise your concerns about Bountysource. That is not part of the GCC project. Ian
