Re: freeze exception for gcc-4.5 (i386, amd64 only)

[Arthur Loiret <aloiret@debian.org>]

Hello,

2010/8/20, Neil McGovern <neilm@debian.org>:
> I don't think that stable is the place for doing active development.

Are you saying that we are developing an operating system which is not
suitable for active development, or that it shouldn't be made suitable
for active development?

If it's the former, I think you should consider we have software
developers among our users, which are *not* Debian developers. Hence,
following the fourth point of our social contract (Our priorities are
our users and free software), we should improve our operating system
to please those users.

If it's the latter, then, please try to avoid making your personal
opinion fail to compile with our social contract.


Also, although I really don't know how common this is, I know people
who use stable for active development, by obligation.


Now, to be clear, what nice things would gcc-4.5 bring to our users?
There is a complete list here [0], but those ones are, in my opinion,
very nice:
 - The new link time optimiser.
 - Improved C++0x support.
 - Plugins support.

Especially the plugins support. It obviously allows to do lots of nice
things with the toolchain, which our users should be allowed to do.

[0] http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.5/changes.html


>> >You mentioned:
>> >>- the upload will build several runtime libraries from the 4.5
>> >>   sources.  Regression tests did pass for the runtime libs built
>> >>   from the 4.5 sources and for 4.4 using the runtime libs from
>> >>   4.5.
>>
>> This didn't answer my question. "Is there anything more you would expect?"
>>
>
> I was asking for details as to what these actually did. Are they just
> "will the binary run?"

Of course not, allowing gcc-4.5 on i386 and amd64 asks much more
tests. Here are a few which have been done, but Matthias can probably
expend the list:
 - General testsuite regressions: it means the binaries run fine.
 - More important: testsuite regressions in the runtime libraries.
 - Still about the runtime libraries: using them for real, by using
for example OpenOffice.org.

All those tests went fine, and more details about them, or
explanations about what needed to be tested and why, can be sent if
required.


This is only a personal opinion, but I think we have compelling
reasons to have gcc-4.5 in Squeeze (improvements for our users), and
that it has been conscientiously tested (see above).

What else makes you feel it shouldn't be allowed? If you have more
questions, please just ask them.


Finally, thanks a lot for the time you spent on this issue. I hope
this mail doesn't seem rude to you, this of course isn't intentional
at all.


   Arthur.