Including GMP/MPFR in GCC repository?

[Mark Mitchell]

Kaveh R. GHAZI wrote:
> Has there been any thought to including GMP/MPFR in the GCC repository
> like we do for zlib and intl?

I do not think we should be including more such packages in the GCC 
repository.  It's complicated from an FSF perspective and it bloats our 
software.  GCC is a complicated piece of software, and to build it you 
need a lot of stuff installed on your system.  I think we should just 
accept that. :-)

I think that making our build system more complicated, and adding more 
packages, with the goal of making life simpler for people building from 
source is deceptive.  It doesn't seem particularly harder to build and 
install a few libraries and then install GCC.  But, making our build 
system more complex gives us more ways to make mistakes.  It also tempts 
us to add lots of configuration options for in-tree and "system" 
versions of the libraries, for building but not installing libraries, etc.

I do think we should do is provide a known-good version (whether via a 
tag in some version control system, or via a tarball) of these libraries 
so that people can easily get versions that work.

(For avoidance of doubt, the above statements are just my opinions as a 
GCC developer; they're in no way "official".)

-- 
Mark Mitchell
CodeSourcery
mark@codesourcery.com
(650) 331-3385 x713