Re: crosstool-0.40 released: gcc-4.1 rc1 support

[Robert Schwebel <r dot schwebel at pengutronix dot de>]

On Tue, Feb 21, 2006 at 01:35:16PM -0800, Allen Curtis wrote:
> I work in embedded systems. My clients have new and old Linux based 
> projects. 

Same here. 

> In many cases the client will choose to stick with older toolchains
> and libraries because they are a known quantity. 

I think this is a fairy tale. We have long worked with gcc-3.3.3 and
glibc 2.3.2, built with crosstool-0.32, thinking that it is rock solid.
Newer userlands turned out there have been serious bugs which lead to
internal compiler errors and endless loops with some code. 

It's all a question of having control over the processes. We are being
able to do regression tests for all releases, so new constellations can
be qualified quickly. And for projects which are frozen to old versions
there is no reason _not_ to stay with the crosstool which successfully
built it. You changed anything, new patches, new host system? Well, then
you'll have to re-qualify anyway, so there is no difference to using
current versions. 

> It would be detrimental to me and my clients if this utility did not
> support older versions of GCC and libc.

For our toolchains it's simply a matter of maintainance. Usually nobody
wants to pay for toolchain regression testing, because everyone thinks
it's just there. 

The result is clearly visible: although Dan definitely does quite a lot
of important work, there is no real progress in development and much
more consumers of crosstool than contributors.

Thanks for the fruitful discussion - I'll go that way to do our work in
the berlios project and hope that we manage to feed things back to the
crosstool mainline. 

Robert
-- 
 Dipl.-Ing. Robert Schwebel | http://www.pengutronix.de
 Pengutronix - Linux Solutions for Science and Industry
   Handelsregister:  Amtsgericht Hildesheim, HRA 2686
     Hannoversche Str. 2, 31134 Hildesheim, Germany
   Phone: +49-5121-206917-0 |  Fax: +49-5121-206917-9


------
Want more information?  See the CrossGCC FAQ, http://www.objsw.com/CrossGCC/
Want to unsubscribe? Send a note to crossgcc-unsubscribe@sourceware.org