gcc-3.0 release criteria

[Horst von Brand <vonbrand at inf dot utfsm dot cl>]

Under the release criteria linux-2.2.14 is mentioned. Current version is
2.2.15, and by the time of release either 2.2.16 or even 2.2.17 will be
current 2.2 version, and most probably 2.4.x will be the latest stable
version by then. I think it is unwise to stick to an old version here.

BTW, the kernel has shown bugs in the compiler, and the compiler has shown
bugs in the kernel, with various workarounds through special compiler flags
and patches to both sides. Will patches to the kernel be allowed for
meeting the criterium?

Some repeatable way to check that it does indeed qualify as a release
candidate are needed, but the kernel is infinitely configurable (and its
working does depend a lot on the hardware it runs on) and it has no
regression test suite I know of. This can turn out to be quite hard to
check farther than "compiles, doesn't crash on sight here" (for various
values of "here").

[I guess the same goes for many other projects, but the kernel is special
in that it is _only_ compiled with gcc, and it tends to stress extensions
and low-level facilities much more than any other package in sight. It is
very important as a test object, but a somewhat elusive one]
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                       mailto:vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +56 32 654239
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