"stable" version bootstrapping

[Tobias Burnus]

Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> “We will periodically pick a stable version of GCC, and require that that
> version of GCC be able to build all versions of GCC up to and including
> the next stable version. [...]
> Which version has currently been picked, and where can such information
> reliably (thinking of a permanent weblink) be found?

I leave that to others.

> Background to this question is that MirBSD might be transitioning to use
> pcc in the base system instead of the old GCC 3.4, and thus will need a
> series of bootstrap/stable compilers ported in order to be able to build
> the modern C++ beasts (LLVM/Clang and GCC 4.8 and up), so I’d like to know
> which version(s) I should pick, since pcc is C-only.

GCC since 4.8 requires a C++98 compiler, i.e. GCC since 3.4 should be 
fine. However, who knows when some C++11 features will start to get 
used. Thus, why not using the latest compiler which still builds with C, 
i.e. GCC 4.6 or GCC 4.7. (The latter bootstraps with C++, unless you use 
--disable-build-poststage1-with-cxx)

> (Also, general curiosity. This information might also be of interest and
> possibly value to other porters to minority operating environments such
> as FreeMiNT, the other BSDs, etc.)

(My impression that simply different host compilers get used without 
anyone singling out a specific version. If problems with a host compiler 
pops up, one can still fix GCC. To do so, it helps if the issue is 
reported while the version of GCC, which you try to build, is still 
maintained.)

Tobias