C++ ABI Issues

[Jeff Law]

 In message < 20020826202838.4996c482.bkoz@redhat.com >, Benjamin Kosnik writes:
 >Please, let's not do another release where we have a two week period
 >to find bugs. That's insanity. Instead, let's actually have some kind
 >of public, check-in-and-GPL'd ABI testsuite g++ users can cling to and
 >say, hey! We have an ABI and here's what we are checking.
 >
 >If I were king, I'd say, finish up the codesourcery ABI tester. Fix
 >all the bugs you find. Then, do a bug-fix ABI release in a year, after
 >g++ has successfully shown to be inter-operable with another compiler
 >so it actually means something.
This all sounds good to me.  Though I'd mention that we should be using
bits from all parties that have been building ABI conformance testsuites,
including Intel, Codesourcery, Red Hat, etc.

If we're going to be serious about ABI compatibility going forward, then
the next step is clearly to have a comprehensive open testsuite for the
ABI and the library APIs.

jeff