Offering GHC builder build slaves

[Simon Peyton Jones]

| > The suggestion at https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Builder is
| > that I post a username and password to ghc at .  There are two issues
| > with this:
| 
| Actually, I think this wiki page is not valid any more -- the original
| builder infrastructure was abandoned last year.  I have started to
| replicate the whole thing for my own clients, and it works well (for
| me, and nowadays for Karel) since then.
| 
| However, my efforts has not been "blessed" and I am not sure if there
| are at least plans to make the builders part of the official
| haskell.org infrastructure.  Either way it goes, I can update the
| corresponding wiki page with my contact information and start
| accommodation further clients until the fate of the service is decided,
| if there will not be any objections in the next few days.

Bless you, my son!

Seriously, I advertised a couple of weeks ago for help with our nightly-build infrastructure.  Quite a few people responded -- thank you very much.  

So we have willing horsepower.  But the moment we lack leadership.  Alain rightly says "I don't know what the process is" because we don't *have* a process.  We need a mechanism for creating a process, taking decisions, etc.

I think what is needed is:

* A group of people willing to act as a kind of committee.  That
  could be everyone who replied.  You could create a mailing list,
  or (initially better) just chat on ghc-devs.  But it would be 
  useful to have a list of who is involved.

* Someone (or a couple of people) to play the role of chair.
  That doesn't mean an autocrat... it means someone who gently pushes
  discussions to a conclusion, and says "I propose that we do X".

* Then the group can formulate a plan and proceed with it.
  For example, should Pali's efforts be "blessed"?  I don't 
  know enough to know, but you guys do.

In my experience, people are often unwilling to put themselves forward as chair, not because they are unwilling, but because they feel it'd be "pushy".  So I suggest this: if you think (based on the traffic you've seen) that X would be a chair you'd trust, suggest them.

In short: power to the people!  GHC is your compiler.

Thanks!

Simon