Re: Accelerating Y2038 glibc fixes

[Joseph Myers <joseph@codesourcery.com>]

On Fri, 12 Jul 2019, Wolfgang Denk wrote:

> See for example [1] - there are just 7 lines of "code".  But Joseph
> does not accept our patches.  The arguments he gives are not on a
> technical level;

The patch is providing a technical specification that is supposed to 
underpin both subsequent patches in the series and maintenance of code in 
this area of glibc over several years - an area where complete clarity of 
the intended interface is critical.  That the specification in question is 
seriously vague with emphasis on the wrong concepts is very much a 
technical issue.  The code is very much the easiest and least important 
part of this patch.

> instead he says that only a native English speaker
> who has a with deep understanding of glibc internals and the
> previous development process will be capable to provide such a patch
> in an acceptable way.

That is not what I said.  I said it makes more sense for someone with that 
familiarity to do the editing - that is, that would enable the 
specification to achieve consensus sooner than going through a long 
sequence of patch reviews.

Writing detailed, precise explanations of exactly how something vague is 
vague and how the concepts referenced aren't quite the right ones is 
itself very time-consuming (listing all the deficiencies in a sentence 
such as "To be more specific - this flag focuses on higer level of 
abstraction, which indicates the system's ability to support 64 bit time." 
in the specification would result in an enumeration much longer than that 
sentence itself), but if you'd rather proceed with such reviews we can do 
so.  Based on previous experience with reviews of patches in this series, 
that would likely take several more iterations to get a specification of 
reasonable quality than simply rewriting the text in question.

> [1] https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/1114061/

This is not the most recent version of the patch posted.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com