GCC 3.0 Status Report

[Mark Mitchell <mark at codesourcery dot com>]

GCC 3.0 Status Report
=====================

Overall
-------

  The last major piece of functionality for the release (the 
  new ABI-compliant exception-handling model) has been installed.
  Accompanying this are improvements to the C++ standard library
  to work with the new model.  Thanks to Richard Henderson 
  and Benjamin Kosnik for implementing these changes.

  We are getting close to zero unexpected FAILs in the testsuites
  on many major platforms.  We will achieve this goal soon.  I have
  fixed many, many bugs in the last week or so, and disabled some
  tests that do not represent regressions.
  
  If you are a platform maintainer/tester, and you know of a bug that
  you believe is essential for the release -- in other words, that is
  is a regresssion from GCC 2.95.x -- please make sure it is in GNATS
  and marked "high" priority.  Remember that the criteria here is a
  *regression*.  At this point, if it is broken with GCC 2.95.x and
  not already fixed, it is going to stay broken.  It would take an
  earth-shatterring bug of doom to make me think otherwise.

  Please do not send me your list of bugs directly.  Put them in 
  GNATS; that is what it is for.  If you send them to me, I will
  likely delete them.  Then, I will deny every having received
  them. :-)

Schedule
--------

  I will be on vacation May 25th through June 2nd.  I was hoping
  to make the release before May 25th.  Now, I hope to make a test
  release before I go.

  At this point, I am finally willing to set a schedule.

  Previously, I believed that we should wait until certain functional
  criteria were met.  We are now very close to those requirements.
  And, time *does* matter; there really is value in getting this beast
  out the door.  

  Therefore, we're now going to pretend that the company has told us
  that we must ship by a certain date, or the copmany will be unable
  to raise additional financing, that we will be summarily fired
  without severance, and that all of our stock options will be
  worthless.  If you've worked at a dot-bomb recently, this should
  sound familiar.

  The release will be made on or before 11:59PM GMT -8 (Pacific
  Daylight Time) June 15th, 2001 A.D.  Because otherwise I will
  commit suicide at 12:00 AM on June 16th, and you will all feel
  very, very bad.

Requests for Help
-----------------

  Is there anyone willing to work on the release script?  This
  script builds a tarball from what's in CVS, but also needs to 
  add generated files not in CVS (e.g., `parse.y').  We need to 
  test that the generated tarball actually works.  This is a
  classic release engineering task.  It would be very helpful to
  me if someone who is skilled in this area would step forward,
  thereby freeing me up to continue fixing bugs.
  	
  Please track down GNATS bugs that apply to your targets,
  front-ends, etc.  Fix 'em, post 'em, check 'em in.

  Please try to test GCC on as much software as you can.  Build
  X windows.  Build the Linux kernel.  Run 'em.  File bugs in GNATS.
  
  Repeat.

Volunteer of The Week
---------------------

  This weeks winner is tireless in his efforts to clean up 
  crufty old bits of GCC.  Always willing to look for away to
  avoid the "expedient hack", he has often gone where angels, and 
  even fools, fear to tread.  Recently, he's tackled issues
  involving crufty old headers installed by GCC, ancient Makefile 
  ugliness, and ancient configury ugliness.  Someday, I fully 
  expect that he will the README.ALTOS and README.ACORN from the
  GCC directory itself.

  All of this effort will make the GCC 3.1, and every release 
  thereafter, easier -- so our Volunteer of the Week is ...

  ... Zack Weinberg!

  Congratulations.