Re: GCC2 merging (was "native language support now available")

[mrs at wrs dot com (Mike Stump)]

> Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 16:16:11 +0100
> From: John Vickers <jvickers@acorn.com>
> To: Richard Kenner <kenner@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu>
> CC: davem@dm.cobaltmicro.com, gcc2@cygnus.com, egcs@cygnus.com

> Richard Kenner wrote:
> > 
> >     Why not make EGCS the definitive source base and be done with it.
> > 
> > Because there remains a need for both types of source bases: one that
> > encourages rapid development and testing of experimental code (for the
> > development community) and one that encourages stability (for the
> > commercial community).

Well, you know what company I work for, and our market share speaks
for itself.  I do consider us commercial, further I think that egcs
better fills our needs than gcc2, and that is the only source base
that I would consider using at this point in time, other than legacy
source bases.  As a company we also use proprietary compilers and
contracted compilers that may be different from egcs, but the
migration path and first choice solution (if it work) is egcs.

> I thought egcs releases these days got a lot more testing and more
> systematic testing than gcc2 releases.  I haven't seen a whole lot
> of traffic on gcc2 regarding testsuite results or testing by
> building known packages (or regarding anything else for that
> matter).

Anybody that is interested can review the past year of egcs and gcc2
and see what exactly is tested and what exactly isn't.  I do feel egcs
has gcc2 beat on actual real live testing.

> > We also would like these companies and others to get the benefits
> > of work in EGCS that's ready for production use.

If there is a part of egcs 1.1 that isn't ready for production use,
could you improve it, prepare it for production use, and call that
gcc-2.9 or 2.10?  At some point, the sources need to merge, or one of
the sources needs to die.  Could we have a roadmap from you stating
gcc2's future?  The egcs source base has a clear future to me.

> Perhaps it's time to drop the "experimental", which was only
> ever really a polite fiction.

I agree.  It is a polite fiction.  I find nothing experimental about it.

> > Moreover, so long as that project remains in Cygnus, there is
> > another potential conflict: Cygnus is moving to become a company
> > who's major product is a proprietary IDE.

And they recently introduced a royalty free source OS which vies for
becoming a major product.

> > That puts it in competition with these other companies, most
> > notably Wind River,

Yes.  And my goal is to work with the egcs community at large and
incorporate improvements and contribute testing results.  gcc2 is a
stable unchanging compiler, all the features and all the bugs remain
stable.  People that sit back in this world and relax and don't do
anything, quickly find themselves without an audience.  This is also
in part why I pick egcs over gcc2.  I knew what would happen within a
year, and it did.

> > It's uncomfortable for most companies to put control of an
> > important asset in the hands of somebody who has become a
> > competitor.

For people that understand the concept (maybe most don't?), it isn't
as scary as you might think.  Either egcs is technically superior,
well tested, well respected, trusted, has an active following that is
responsive to bug reports and incorporates work that is critical to
your companies success in the marketplace, or it isn't.  I am paid in
part to make that determination based upon all I know and the people
and organizations involved.  The day egcs isn't the technical
solution, is the day I switch.

> > One company I was talking to (not one that I listed) is already
> > concerned about this and the problem will get worse, not better,
> > over time.

?  I don't follow this part.  Could you please state the fears that
the person has.  If Cygnus ever does something that you feel is wrong,
I hope you will complain loudly.  So far, there have been a few things
that I didn't like, and I complained.  I hope to see them resolved.
The most notable is the licensing and legal status of the new
libstdc++ rewrite.  My perference is the status quo, FSF owned, libgcc
style copyright.  It works and has been working for years.  Why change
it?  I can't fathom a heathly reason why.  The worst case isn't
exactly what I want to see happen, but I have a strategy for solving
that problem, should it ever need a solution.  Some of my fears were
eased when the clarified they wanted it to be freely usable, but not
all.

If Kenner would accept the donation of egcs 1.1, and Cygnus were to
assign copyright to the FSF, then I would ask Kenner to put the libgcc
style copyright back on the libstdc++ code, and the entire problem
solved.  Kenner, if you fail to do this, then I have a whole lot less
leverage on getting this accomplished.  And I may have to pay for your
decision.