Will tree-ssa be GCC 3.5?

[Scott Robert Ladd]

Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> It's correct that ``the gcc developers'' and National Labs will never
> meet.  That's because ``the gcc developers'' have no way to even
> accept funding, much less propose a schedule.

Granted. The discussion has wandered far fom my original intent, which 
was merely to find out if tree-ssa was going to become mainline. I did 
not raise the issues of funding or contracts.

> However, there are many companies and individual contractors who work
> with gcc (including my employer, Wasabi Systems).  They are in a
> position to accept funding and propose a schedule, just like any other
> commercial software developer.  When writing a contract such as this,
> it is normal to stipulate that the work must be contributed back to
> the mainline of gcc development, and I've seen contracts which even
> make some portion of the payment contingent upon the work being
> accepted back.

I'm quite aware of this. The problem is, the Labs were not interested in 
makign such a contract available for gfortran development, due to 
concerns about its quality and timeline.

Here's the sequence of events:

1) Through a message by Toon Moene, I discoevred a report written by 
representatives of several U.S. National Laboratories. The report cites 
the need for a quality Fortran 95 that addresses the HPC environments 
used by the labs. They concluded that they would need to create a NEW 
project, and fund it, given their impressions of the state of Open 
Source compilers.

2) I was contacted by the National labs, in a private e-mail, regarding 
my publicly-expressed opinions of their report. They asked some specific 
questions, some of which I answered and for some of which I sought answers.

3) I did not know if tree-ssa was a purely theoretical project or the 
future of GCC mainline, so I asked.

Certain people have presented chipped shoulders about version numbers 
and funding, neither of which are germaine to the question "Will 
tree-ssa become mainline?"

> I don't know how National Labs handles their funding, but a typical
> way to get them to fund gcc would be to have them issue an RFP for the
> work they want done, and make sure that companies which invest in gcc
> learn about the RFP and make proposals.  Another typical way would be
> to simply provide contact information for the right people at National
> Labs, or simply announce that we should go through you.

No contract or RFP has been issued; they have some very specific intents 
and guidelines. Quite honestly, I'm not certain their faith in GCC is 
sufficient for them to issue a GCC-focused RFP. I was trying to bolster 
their confidence, and asked a few questions that have been extrapolated 
quite annoyingly.

-- 
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)
Software Invention for High-Performance Computing