Re: Reproducible, precompiled .o files: what say policy+gpl?

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 09:16:17AM -0700, John H. Robinson, IV wrote:
> The only difference is in *performance*. If there are other differences,
> then there is a bug in one of the two compilers. If you are equating
> performance with functionality, then we are going to have a very hard
> time communicating.

I guess so.  I'd consider a security update that significantly reduced
the performance of the package due to a different compiler being used to
be a severe error.  I suspect the stable RM would agree.  You apparently
don't care, but I suspect you're in a tiny minority (and for the sake
of the quality of Debian stable releases, I hope so).

> > Huh?  You ignored what I said: you can't make a stable update using a
> > different compiler, because it can introduce both performance and (more
> > importantly) new bugs, which is completely unacceptable for a Debian
> > stable security update.
> 
> Actually, later in my previous message I accepted your agrument on
> pragmatic grounds.

It's one real-life example of why depending on non-free components to
build Debian is unacceptable.  That's why Debian exists: to build an
entirely free system--not "entirely free, except you'll need these non-
free tools to actually build it".

> You are the one that brought up the bogus argument that if the icc
> packaged one were introduced into main, that any end-user would have to
> accept the icc license.

No, I didn't.  I said that you'd have to do that if you wanted to produce
the package, which is entirely true; if you don't do so, you can only
build with a different compiler, which gives you a different thing.

> This is almost akin to saying that if a package were built on a vmware
> virtual machine, the end-user would have to accept the vmware license,
> or that the package would have to go into contrib.

This, on the other hand, is entirely bogus.  Building in a VM doesn't
change the output; building with a different compiler certainly does.

-- 
Glenn Maynard