Re: ep9312 Maverick Crunch support

[Richard Earnshaw <rearnsha at gcc dot gnu dot org>]

On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 17:00, Petko Manolov wrote:
>  	Hi Wouter, list,
> 
> Vladimir will comment on the technical details, but i would like to say 
> that we have Maverick Crunch FPU supported in GCC-3.4.0-pre_something 
> since last December.
> 
> Our work didn't make it to the final gcc-3.4.0 partially because we didn't 
> have copyright assignment by the release date and partially because GCC 
> core maintainers refused to apply the patch since it didn't fix a 
> regression.  Sounds like having a completely broken port in an official 
> release is a better idea...

Changes made to 'dot' releases are a trade-off of risks.  The priority
is in fixing problems where previous releases of the compiler was
correct but the new one fails (regressions).  Fixing bugs that have
always existed comes a distinct second to that.  Big changes can be made
if there is no chance of affecting known working parts of the compiler. 
If a change affects (or potentially affects) working code then the
likelihood of a change being accepted depends substantially on the size
of the change and the potential for it to affect existing ports that do
work.  Larger changes are obviously more likely to be viewed with
suspicion.

> 
> Nucleus Systems still haven't received that copyright assignment though. 
> I've written three times to FSF (in March, April and May), three times 
> they claimed they've sent it, but the fact is i still don't have the 
> papers in my mail box.  I am not sure what is going on there, but it looks 
> like i'll have to pay for UPS or DHL service if i really want to get that 
> assignment.
> 
> Sorry about this bitter email, but we've spent months hard working and
> people still can't use the benefits.  Instead of help from the GNU 
> community we've been stumbling upon something very much like government 
> bureaucracy.

Regrettably there's nothing we (the GCC developers) can do about all
this.  The FSF owns the copyright in GCC and insists that, as the
maintainers of the code, we ensure that all contributions have correct
assignments in place before incorporating them into the main
distribution.

R.