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Re: Criteria for GCC 4.0
Joe Buck wrote:
We've been talking about the new parser a lot for at least a year before
3.4.0 went out, and it was at the top of the "changes" document long
before there was a release.
Unfortunately, all that talk takes place here, in this mailing list.
Nevertheless, GCC gets far less attention than the Linux kernel gets, so
I'm not surprised that people were surprised.
That's because Linux has kerneltrap.org and a thousand other sites that
pay attention to it. There isn't an equivalent of kerneltrap or Linux
Newbies or distrowatch for GCC.
I've thought about creating a "GCC watch" web site, which does for GCC
what kernel trap does for the kernel. I think such an effort would
benefit both the user community and GCC developers.
That item is on my "to do" list, however. ;)
It's not possible to change the economic model. In free software,
whatever contributors are willing to contribute and the maintainers are
willing to accept becomes the priority.
To people outside the GCC developer community, it is very unclear as to
what those priorities are and how they are set. As it stands now, GCC
appears to be driven by those who pay for its development: vendors who
sell software compiled with GCC. That is a fairly narrow base; it does
not account for the needs of 90% of those who compile code with GCC.
Unfortunately, that vast majority is a disparate group with no cohesive
identity that can fund development.
The solution is to broaden the economic and political base for GCC
development. How that is to be accomplished is a tale for another
thread, however.
It is possible for a sufficiently motivated volunteer to make a
difference, though, by leading an effort to restructure the
documentation and write new documentation.
Motivation only goes so far; blind altruism is a poor way of feeding
one's family.
..Scott
--
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)
Software Invention for High-Performance Computing