[geofft]

Sorry, 'stonogo was not making a personal attack. The personal attack was this sentence: "If you have an axe to grind with GCC over their priorities, maybe you should try convince them that your priorities are more important than theirs, rather than complain in a HN thread that has nothing to do with having proprietary compiler modifications to GCC." Calling something an "axe to grind" is an argument over the making of the argument, not a response to the argument itself. (As is calling something "a point you don't like", as opposed to a matter of disagreement.) See also http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html .

'stonogo and I believe that the points you are making are incorrect. That is not a personal attack, an assuming that you must be correct and need to help us understand is a great way to pull the argument back down into personal attacks.

So, why does GCC have a steering committee and Ring not? Is it possible that Ring could have a steering committee in the future? Can that happen without the enthusiastic consent of the maintainers?

[belorn]

"being demeaned for trying to explain a point you don't like" was a personal attack, since there was no intention of demeaning. The statement in your quote text was that this is not the place for criticizing GCC over what their steering group has decide, as neither Ring or the GNU project was involved in that internal decision between GCC steering committee and GCC maintainers (a steering committee which is made from current and historical GCC maintainers).

> Is it possible that Ring could have a steering committee in the future? Can that happen without the enthusiastic consent of the maintainers?

A steering group, or for that matter any form of leadership structure can only pop into existence if the project itself decide to create one. If we look at the announcement of the GCC steering group:

  "From its initial conception, the egcs project [now GCC] has strived to organize itself
  in a manner which prevents any particular individual or company from having control
  over the project.

  To that end, when the project was formed several individuals were contacted to
  make decisions for the GCC project.  These individuals come from a variety of
  backgrounds and represent various groups with an interest in the long term health of GCC.

  We feel it is in the best interest of the GCC project at this time to turn this
  informal group into an official steering committee, and to make public its membership.