a more constructive discussion ;-)

[Igor Markov]

> > Is there anything else I can say to help stimulate the production of gcc
> > in both forms?
> 
> Even if we wanted to do it, there's no one that we can order to do the job
> (the release manager and principal developers have their hands full and,
> to the extent that they have free time, would prefer to improve the
> compiler to dealing with packaging issues).  It would need to be done by a
> skilled, careful volunteer who would not announce the result until he/she
> had conducted thorough testing.  libstdc++/libc collisions are a frequent
> problem on Linux, and this has to be managed carefully when doing binary
> distributions.
> 
> Even then, the RPM should not install the new compiler in /usr/bin,
> wiping out the system compiler.  For one thing, people would no longer
> be able to build Linux kernels without manual intervention (as one
> must specify -fno-strict-aliasing to build the kernel correctly).

   Joe, great words.... esp.,

> Installing a new gcc package with a binary-incompatible
> C++ library is another matter, one best left to the folks who put out
> the distribution.

   interestingly, my suggestion does not conflict with this at all.
   Given the feedback that I got from this list so far, I would boil
   it to the following:
    
     1) create a mailing list "gcc-binaries"
     2) maintain a page with "binary distributions"
     3) maintain "binary packaging test status" on a separate page,
        i.e., a list of reported successful/failed installation
        on various systems; 
     4) keep a list of volunteer "contacts" for various platforms
        who are willing to assume some limited responsibily and
        take care of bug reports

   in the simplest for, the status page will be empty... as long as
   someone reports success installing smth on some system and a link
   to the binaries (+ a description of the operation), we can add a line
   to the status page.

   If that sounds good, I would be willing to contribute some of my time
   to this activity. OTOH, I am not sure if I am the best candidate for
   this as I don't have much experience hacking various systems (never had
   a non-RH Linux or BSD here, never loged in to an HP or an SGI system,
   never used gcc on Windows and know little about DLLs, registry etc).
   I would simply like to show "a good faith effort" here and motivate
   others and hope that some common sense and the ability to put out Web
   pages will be useful here (after all, no one can be expected to actually
   have access to all the systems, so we will have to rely on email and tally
   successes/failures).

     comments?
								Igor   
-- 
  Igor Markov  office: (310) 206-0179   
  http://vlsicad.cs.ucla.edu/~imarkov