Re: Policy for wrong-code bugs

[Mark Mitchell <mark at codesourcery dot com>]

Joe Buck wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 10:10:02PM +0200, Volker Reichelt wrote:
>  
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > our current policy with bug reports is:
> >
> > Close a PR, if the bug
> > a) is not a regression, and
> > b) is fixed on mainline.
> >
> > IMHO this is not a good idea in the case of wrong-code bugs:
> > I think we should close them, only if they are fixed on mainline *and*
> > all open release branches (or if explicitly marked as WON'T FIX on those
> > branches).
> >    
>
> An intermediate policy would be to close them when a compiler that fixes
> the bug is actually released to the public.
>
> In any case, it would be nice to be able to track wrong-code bugs that
> exist in current, shipping compilers.
>  
I think that Volker's proposal makes sense in the abstract, but will be 
confusing in practice.  People are still using really old compilers -- 
we have a customer where we are still supporting GCC 2.8.1, for 
example.  Keeping PRs open for all current, shipping compilers means 
never closing any PR ever.  I think using "closed" to mean "a fix is 
available somewhere" is useful; for example, it means that you can 
perhaps backport the change to some older compiler.

--
Mark Mitchell
CodeSourcery, LLC
(916) 791-8304
mark@codesourcery.com