I have a problem/concern with the GCC website http://gcc.gnu.org/

[Dennis Clarke]

The primary GCC website lists only two versions as being "Supported
Releases" and they are 6.3 and 5.4 which are both what I call "point
zero releases" in that the final digit in the release version is a
zero and has been a zero for a while.

Thus :

     version      release date
     -------------------------------
     gcc-6.3.0    2016-12-21 06:00
     gcc-6.2.0    2016-08-22 13:06
     gcc-5.4.0    2016-06-03 10:01
     gcc-6.1.0    2016-04-27 06:35
     gcc-5.3.0    2015-12-04 10:56
     gcc-5.2.0    2015-07-16 08:21

The only version of GCC that is not a point zero release is the 4.9
branch which has seen these releases :

     version      release date
     -------------------------------
     gcc-4.9.4    2016-08-03 04:01
     gcc-4.9.3    2015-06-26 16:30


I note that there is a page of some reference builds for both the
version 5.x and 6.x versions here :

     ver 5.x :    https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-5/buildstat.html

     ver 6.x :    https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-6/buildstat.html

The same page for ver 4.x is simply missing. Yet it is the only release
that is not a point zero release. Also the only release that I have seen
some successful builds and testsuites from on some rather strict
architectures. I do have 5.4.0 well built but the test suite fails badly
and I am yet working on that.

What I wonder is why have these update minor rev releases of 4.9.3 and
then 4.9.4 when there are no easy to access reference pages on the
primary GCC web site?  Has the ver 4.9.x tree fallen into darkness and
shadow along with Gandalf or is it yet still very alive? Personally I
still have a very stable and well tested 4.9.2 which serves me well but
it is a bit of a concern that the GCC site makes no mention of the 4.9
tree anymore nor even so much as a reference page to see other great
peoples work.  Here I am looking at Tom G. Christensen and Rainer Orth
who also do great work on SPARC systems.

Dennis Clarke
dclarke@blastwave.org

ps: this is tested to the n'th degree and works great :

$ /usr/local/gcc4/bin/gcc --version
gcc (genunix Fri Jan  2 11:56:03 GMT 2015) 4.9.2
Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


This compiles fine and then fails rather horrifically in its testsuite:

$ gcc --version
xgcc (genunix Fri Nov 18 01:23:21 GMT 2016) 5.4.0
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.