Re: Compiler for Red Hat Linux 8

[David Edelsohn <dje at watson dot ibm dot com>]

>>>>> "H J Lu" writes:

HJ> The same thing can happen with 3.0.2 ... That means the current
HJ> unmodified *released* gcc may not be usable for Linux. That will
HJ> last at least from one bug fix release to the next one. If it happens
HJ> more than half a year within a year, people may say you shouldn't use
HJ> the unmodified *released* gcc on Linux.

	Various distributions and user communities frequently use patched
versions of GCC, but that does not mean that the variants need to be
incompatible or start from a non-FSF source base.  The two questions are:

1) What GCC sources should be used as the base for the patched version?
2) Should the patched version maintain binary compatibility with the base?

	I personally strongly encourage Red Hat to consider using the FSF
GCC release as the base.  This is not a question of either using the
vanilla FSF GCC release or using a completely separate branch.  There are
other options besides those two extreme positions.

	I also personally encourage Red Hat to maintain compatibility with
the FSF GCC releases.

	Red Hat employs a large number of highly skilled GCC developers.
If GCC 3.0 or the GCC trunk is not stable enough / correct enough to use
in a GNU/Linux distribution, Red Hat's developers can work to improve and
stabilize a particular FSF GCC source base as effectively as any other GCC
source base.

	Red Hat's GNUPro "devo" source base is synchronized with the FSF
sources and, therefore, contains roughly as many problems as the FSF
sources.  A Red Hat 8 branch in GNUPro would need a similar amount of
stabilization work and performance improvement as the FSF sources.

	Maybe Red Hat could request a branch in the FSF GCC repository to
which they could have exclusive write access for their own development
effort -- using their own patches and acceptance criteria?  Maybe the
generic "GNU/Linux GCC" branch for all distributors, which another person
proposed, is the solution.

	I would like to find a way for Red Hat to develop their Red Hat
Linux 8 GCC release from the FSF GCC sources.  I think that we can find a
solution more easily by starting with a discussion of Red Hat's
requirements and how to fit those into the FSF GCC development environment
instead of starting from the pre-defined, limited proposals which have
been mentioned so far.

Thanks, David

	P.S. Speaking for myself; representing neither IBM nor the GCC
Steering Committee.

===============================================================================
David Edelsohn                                      T.J. Watson Research Center
dje@watson.ibm.com                                  P.O. Box 218
+1 914 945 4364 (TL 862)                            Yorktown Heights, NY 10598