Danny Smith left MinGW project

[Biplab]

I was browsing the MinGW developer mailing list and I read this email. :shock:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.mingw.devel/2565

Danny Smith, the MinGW-GCC admin, has left the project due to some unspecified reasons. This leaves that crucial project without an admin and they are looking for volunteers to fit into his role.

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.mingw.user/23730

I hope they will find a suitable successor in future. But surely this is a big jolt to the project.

[JGM]

Thats something to worry about  .

[thomas]

Danny sure is a big loss for that project. He has been in that position for as long as I can remember.
The MinGW project has lost an admin and a packager, but most importantly, a captain who held the ship's course in rough sea for many years.

However, as dramatic as it looks, let's not panic. They still have 3 admins and 40+ developers, so this shouldn't necessarily be the death of the project.
Also, Danny is still listed under developers, so he may just be taking a break from being admin (I found no reference that said he wanted to quit), so he may give the new captain a hand when he needs.

[Biplab]

Danny sure is a big loss for that project. He has been in that position for as long as I can remember.
The MinGW project has lost an admin and a packager, but most importantly, a captain who held the ship's course in rough sea for many years.

However, as dramatic as it looks, let's not panic. They still have 3 admins and 40+ developers, so this shouldn't necessarily be the death of the project.
Also, Danny is still listed under developers, so he may just be taking a break from being admin (I found no reference that said he wanted to quit), so he may give the new captain a hand when he needs.

I hope so that they will restart soon with a new captain. But honestly the lasts part of the message (Second link in my original post) posted by Keith scared me a lot. I'm quoting that part.

Unless someone is willing to step forward, I fear that development of GCC, as a MinGW project, will either die, or it will henceforth remain frozen in its present state, for the forseeable future.

Well, it's not explicitly written that he's quitting, but we can guess that he'll be inactive. He's still listed as a member of MinGW project, but if you note his status, it's undefined.

[wwolf]

Now you've made me to seriously consider to contribute there. However I have not worked on GCC ever before, so...   I would like to learn compiler technology, but I am not sure if I can do it fast enough to actually benefit the community...

[stahta01]

Now you've made me to seriously consider to contribute there. However I have not worked on GCC ever before, so...   I would like to learn compiler technology, but I am not sure if I can do it fast enough to actually benefit the community...

Try to build the minGW GCC from source code and if you can then think about starting as a developer.
Note, I failed building minGW GCC from source code twice now, I am waiting till I have free time to try again.

Tim S

[kelo81]

I don't know if I'm wrong, but I thought that GCC 4.3 was adding windows as a supported platform... (or at least as an experimental one)

[stahta01]

I don't know if I'm wrong, but I thought that GCC 4.3 was adding windows as a supported platform... (or at least as an experimental one)

It is adding MinGW as an secondary ?target/platform? just like Cygwin is/was.

Tim S

Edit: http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.3/criteria.html

Secondary Platform List

The secondary platforms are:

    * hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11
    * powerpc-ibm-aix5.2.0.0
    * powerpc-apple-darwin
    * i686-pc-cygwin
    * i686-mingw32
    * ia64-unknown-linux-gnu
    * s390-linux-gnu

[darthdespotism]

Yes I've read this some time ago but I didn't find anything on gnu.org about it yet.

[wwolf]

Now you've made me to seriously consider to contribute there. However I have not worked on GCC ever before, so...   I would like to learn compiler technology, but I am not sure if I can do it fast enough to actually benefit the community...

Try to build the minGW GCC from source code and if you can then think about starting as a developer.
Note, I failed building minGW GCC from source code twice now, I am waiting till I have free time to try again.

Tim S

I think I am going to ask the gcc guys on the Kona C++ standardization meeting. I guess they can tell me if it is hopeless to get up to speed or not.

[Roman]

I hope so that they will restart soon with a new captain.

Where is that guy 20-40? May be he is a new capitan? 

[thomas]

You are obviously joking. 

See, the problem with with Danny Smith stepping back is not that they lost some random fool that can easily be replaced with an even bigger fool.
They lost someone who knows what he is doing, someone who has a lot of knowledge and years of experience in maintaining such a project. A captain who has been holding a steady course through the sea of naysayers, wiseacres and grudgers. And, his course was a good one. Maybe not the fastest one, but the safest. During all the years, MinGW has never failed me.

Coming back to your original question "Where is that guy 20-40": He is not welcome here any more.

[Biplab]

They have assigned a new maintainer.

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.mingw.devel/2571

[thomas]

Looks like someone we know (guessing from the email)

[TDragon]

They have assigned a new maintainer.

Judging by context, I believe Keith was asking Chris to be the new maintainer for libmingwex, but not for MinGW/GCC.