On 11/28/18 11:39 AM, Martin Sebor wrote: > On 11/28/18 6:35 AM, Richard Biener wrote: >> On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 3:52 AM Martin Sebor <mse...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Ping: https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2018-11/msg01759.html >>> >>> If there are no objections or suggestions for tweaks I'll commit >>> this updated comment this week. >> >> Please do not commit such changes w/o approval. > > Since you're the second maintainer to ask me that in response > to a patch to update comments I'd like to get some clarity here. > > I have been assuming that the GCC Write access policy (quoted > below) lets those of us with write-after-approval make a judgment > call as to when a change is sufficiently safe to commit: > > Obvious fixes can be committed without prior approval. Just > check in the fix and copy it to gcc-patches. A good test to > determine whether a fix is obvious: "will the person who > objects to my work the most be able to find a fault with my > fix?" If the fix is later found to be faulty, it can always > be rolled back. We don't want to get overly restrictive about > checkin policies. > > (https://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/svnwrite.html#policies) > > If we are not at liberty to make this judgment call in even > the most innocuous cases like comments, when does this policy > actually apply? (It should be updated to make it clear.) The thing is I looked at the patch and it was far from obvious what was going on. Thus I put it in my queue of things to dig deeper into. I haven't done that digging yet.
Comments are actually important. They often describe what the code is supposed to do, rationale, historical context, etc. Just because we're changing a comment doesn't mean it's inherently trivial/obvious. I'm generally supportive of lessening friction for developers and I welcome proposals to do that. Jeff
