FYI: FreeBSD 5 has imported gcc 3.2 + branch patches

[Loren James Rittle <rittle at latour dot rsch dot comm dot mot dot com>]

(This was written with my GCC maintainer hat on.)

This e-mail is to advise the general gcc developer population and the
GCC SC that FreeBSD 5 (unreleased but being used by early adopters and
developers) has imported gcc 3.2 plus official FSF branch patches as
its system compiler.  Since some long-term FreeBSD-only patches remain
and it is not an exact FSF release, its version reports as:

	3.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20020901 (prerelease)

The total number of non-FSF patches appears to be approximately 150
changed lines plus 850 new lines.  Mainly, these extra patches exist
to support the ability to produce classic aout and ELF with the same
compiler driver (status unknown); to support a bsd compliance --std
switch setting (status unknown, looks generic enough to pull into FSF
source base if any other systems cared); and to support special
warnings required by the kernel source (submitted and rejected).

Alexander Kabaev <ak03@gte.com> did and is doing the on-going work
supported by the usual FreeBSD.org cast (Note: I didn't help do any of
the work except correspond on FSF-tree-side issues; I am just
reporting here since no one had yet).  Alexander is watching bug
reports from FreeBSD 5 users and will be requesting permission to
transfer FSF mainline patches to the FSF 3.2.X branch when
appropriate.  I believe that his focus is on buggy code generation and
ICEs.  He knows the correct FSF testing procedure (i.e. always
bootstrap and report patch regression results against current FSF
source base, etc).

I grant this might be enlightened self-interest speaking to a degree,
but timely review of his patch move requests should help stabilize the
FSF release branch for all users on all platforms.  The FreeBSD
project attempts to build over 5000 software packages nightly (or
weekly?) against this system compiler configuration.

Alternatively, if the above process doesn't work in a timely fashion,
the FreeBSD system compiler repository will begin to collect patches
from FSF mainline as required (and perhaps additional non-FSF patches)
but no one else using 3.2.X will gain the benefits.  IMHO, this
situation would really be in no one's interest.

Regards,
Loren