> If the SC now has a different mission/etc than they used to, they > should, you know, tell the rest of us and put it on the page, since > clearly nobody understands exactly what the GCC's project governance > is like?
I don't believe that the SC's mission or interest has changed. The term "GCC project" has, from its inception, meant "the FSF's GCC project". That was the case prior to ecgs, was the case when egcs was merged back into the GCC project, and is still the case today. The SC has always acted as the FSF's representative for the GCC project. Mark's analogy with a Cabinet department is exactly correct: The Treasury Secretary has authority delegated to him by the President to run the departments under him in a way that he sees fit PROVIDED they're run consistently with the President's expressed wishes, if any. Likewise for the SC (or the official maintainer of ANY FSF project): they have been delegated the responsibily by the FSF to maintain their project in a way that's consistent with the FSF's wishes. In both cases, for the vast majority of things, the President doesn't get involved in a Cabinet member's detailed decisions and the FSF doesn't get involved in the maintenance of one of their projects. But they always can and when they do and can't be convinced they're wrong, the project maintainer (in our case the SC) has exactly two choice: go along or resign. When I was the GCC maintainer, it was because that position was delegated to me by the FSF. Any authority I had was because I was speaking in the name of the FSF on that project. But I had to respect the wishes of the FSF. However, as a practical matter, the FSF very rarely made any requests of me in this regard and they make few of the SC, from what I understand. When egcs merged back into GCC, my position was the GCC maintainer was replaced by the SC. There was a desire that, on a project of this size, no single person or entity would have the role of being the GCC maintainer and that the role would be undertaken collectively by the SC, who in turn, made the same promise. But the change of who was the GCC maintainer (from me to the SC) didn't change the ROLE of the GCC maintainer, which was to act as a representative of the FSF in maintaining a software development project OF THE FSF. The FSF always had and will always have absolute control over their projects, of which GCC is one.
