For me the strategy that worked was: 1) Find out who can sign the document. Sometimes someone can sign on behalf of some important and busy person. Don't leave this task to someone else, otherwise the document will be jumping from office to office and will get lost.
2) Go directly to the person that should sign the document. Try to skip secretaries and such. Go in person with the document in the hand completely filled except the signature. Wait until it is signed or you get a definitive appointment. 3) Sometimes they will say: "leave the document here and when it is signed we will send it to you". One word: Don't! Leave the document only if you get an appointment to collect it. When you go to collect it, probably they have forgot it or even lost it, so bring another copy completely filled and say that this time you won't leave until it is signed. 4) Don't over-explain. People just want to know how the document affects them, they don't care about compilers, they don't care about free software (if they cared, they would have signed the document already). The strangest it sounds to them, they hardest it is for them to assess if they have enough authority to sign the document. Total time: 2 weeks to find out the correct strategy + 1 morning to get an appointment + 1 morning to get the document signed. On 13/11/06, Basile STARYNKEVITCH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Le Tue, Nov 07, 2006 at 11:19:16PM +0100, basile écrivait/wrote: > on Sat, Oct 28, 2006 at 11:53:29PM +0200, I (Basile S.) asked > > > There are several topics that I wish to be covered a bit on the Wiki (or > > some other documentations), mostly related to configuration (and autoconf, > > with which I am not very familiar, especially in the context of GCC whose > > configuration is quite complex). > > I digged up a little bit this subject, and I wrote a very incomplete wiki page on it. > > http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/AboutGCCConfiguration Please review (and contribute or correct) the above wiki page! I added there (with the help of Sebastian Pop) a detailed description about how to add a new library in the Wiki page. It would be nice if someone could review it. I actually believe it should go (with corrections & enhancements) into the official GCC internal documentation, but I cannot yet submit official patches (into gcc/doc/) because my copyright assignment is not yet signed. I hope to have it signed before Christmas 2006, and possibly before end of november 2006. (A big thanks to Jonas Jacobson from the FSF for his patience, and to internal collegues at CEA). I really think that some GCC documentation should be helpful for GCC newbies (ie new hackers like me), and not only for GCC users (those compiling GCC, and/or using GCC to compile their stuff)... BTW, I find that having the copyright assignment in big organisations is a exhausting and painful work (internal lobbying, more than a full time month of work, even when authorised to work on GCC). Maybe we could share hints on this issue.... -- Basile STARYNKEVITCH http://starynkevitch.net/Basile/ email: basile<at>starynkevitch<dot>net mobile: +33 6 8501 2359 8, rue de la Faïencerie, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France
