Re: Why are GCC Internals not Specification Driven ?

[Seima Rao <seimarao at gmail dot com>]

On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 1:48 AM, DJ Delorie <dj@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> Seima Rao <seimarao@gmail.com> writes:
>>      Has gcc become proprietory/commercial ?
>
> By definition: no, yes.  It's been this way since the beginning, and
> hasn't changed in decades.
>
>>      Or has it become illegal to publish specification models
>>      of gcc internals ? Does this make the product sell less ?
>
> This sounds like you're trying to start an argument, instead of asking a
> simple question.  It is certainly not illegal to publish our
> specifications, and we certainly *do* publish many of our specifications
> (have you read the internals manual?  You don't say whether or not you
> did, but that would be a key bit of information to have disclosed).
> Whether the product "sells" or not is rarely a driving factor for our
> project.  Most of us work on it because we need it to work better for
> our own purposes.
>
> If you have specific questions about our documentation or development
> process, please ask them.  Please do not ask vague, leading, and
> emotionally loaded questions.  RTL and Gimple are documented.  Are they
> documemented well?  That depends on your needs.  Are they documented as
> well as they could be?  Probably not, but good enough for us so far.
>
> And as always, if you want to improve the situation, by all means feel
> free to volunteer to do so ;-)

Got your point that GCC is more inclined as a reference then a
specification driven technology.

Sincerely,
Seima Rao.