Release Plan Updates

[Mark Mitchell <mark at codesourcery dot com>]

This email describes decisons by the Steering Commitee's to adjust the
release schedule.  The primary goal of these changes is to accomodate
the schedules of the various GNU/Linux and other free system distributors.
These distributors would like to upgrade to a stable compiler whose C++
ABI is less likely to change henceforth.

Therefore, as independently suggested on this list, the SC has decided
that:

1. The 3.1.1 release will proceed as planned.  (More on that in my next
  email.)

2. There will be no 3.1.2 release.  Instead, there will be a GCC 3.2
  release which is GCC 3.1.1 with those C++ ABI fixes present on the
  mainline.  This release will take place shortly after GCC 3.1.1.
  (It will happen approximately as quickly as I can create branches
  and Jason can commit the relevant fixes.)

3. GCC 3.2.1 (and perhaps GCC 3.2.2) will be released when GCC 3.1.2
  (and perhaps GCC 3.1.3) would otherwise have been released.  Despite
  their release numbers, these will be compilers off what we now think
  of as the GCC 3.1 sourcebase.

4. GCC 3.3 will be released when GCC 3.2 was originally scheduled, and
  will be made from the current mainline.

If you're a GCC developer, none of this makes too much difference to
you; all the same check-in rules and guidlines are in place.

However, if you're a GCC user you should be aware that fixes that GCC
3.1.1 be the last release C++ ABI-compatible with GCC 3.1.

Finally, if you're a distributor you should be aware that there's no
way to be 100% sure that GCC 3.3 will be ABI compatible with GCC 3.2;
this special re-jigerring of things only ups the odds that things will
remain copmatible.  While maintaining the ABI is amongst our most
important goals, there are events that could make it necessary to make
changes.

Your Release Manager,

--
Mark Mitchell                mark@codesourcery.com
CodeSourcery, LLC            http://www.codesourcery.com