> Am 03.06.2025 um 12:22 schrieb Richard Sandiford via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>:
>
> Hi,
>
> At the moment, all reviewers and maintainers have to be appointed by the
> Steering Committee. I wonder if we could add a second, more community-based
> route: someone can be appointed as a reviewer or maintainer with the agreement
> of a given number of people who already have an equal or greater remit.
>
> It's already possible for reviewers or maintainers to defer to the
> opinion of someone they trust and rubber-stamp that other person's
> review or patch. Having the ability to appoint the other person as a
> co-reviewer or co-maintainer of that area is really just replacing
> patch-by-patch trust with a more ongoing trust.
>
> If that seems a bit woolly, and if a more formally defined process
> seems necessary, then how about this strawman:
>
> * Someone can be nominated to be a reviewer of an area by sending a
> private email to every reviewer and maintainer who covers a non-strict
> superset of that area. The nomination is approved if it is supported
> by at least two such reviewers or maintainers and if there are no
> objections. People would be given at least a week to respond.
>
> * The process would be the same for maintainers, with the same set of
> addressees, except that there must already be at least one maintainer
> for that area and, in addition to the previous requirements, all such
> maintainers must be in favour.
>
> (So if the area is maintained by one person, the nomination would
> need the support of that maintainer and at least one reviewer of a
> wider area. If the area is maintained by two of more people, they
> would all need to agree.)
>
> The idea with making it private is that it allows for a more honest
> discussion. But the convention could be to have a public discussion
> instead, if that seems better.
I think the formal request and approval should be public to also allow not
strictly participating people voice their opinions.
The most serious flaw of the suggested scheme is that any global maintainer
(and reviewer) would have a veto right. Some form of qualified majority should
be enough for an approval? Say, require 50% of the vote eligible people to
approve in case there’s an objection from someone?
Otherwise I’m all for more transparency.
Note first getting approval in private from the nominee would be a good
standard.
Richard
> Like I say, this would just be a second, alternative route. It would
> still be possible to ask the SC instead.
>
> In case it sounds otherwise, I'm really not trying to pick a fight here.
> I just don't remember this being discussed on-list for a long time,
> so it seemed worth bringing up. (Maybe it has been discussed at the
> Cauldron -- not sure.)
>
> Thanks,
> Richard
