From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Peter Seebach To: egcs@cygnus.com Subject: Re: testing consistency Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 21:33:00 -0000 Message-id: <199709120432.XAA09229@monolith.solon.com> X-SW-Source: 1997-09/msg00482.html I have, for many years now, used almost nothing but systems where gcc has been "the compiler". On Amiga Unix, BSD/OS, NetBSD, Lynx/OS, the NeXT, and Linux, gcc has been "the compiler" for quite some time. I would be *very* upset if I downloaded another version, compiled it, and found that it installed by default into /usr. I mean, *very* upset. It would make me very distrustful. I had never, before this, even *considered* the possibility that something I grab separately from my OS would try to install itself in the normal /usr; /usr is for *unified distributions*. I do not want anything going in /usr unless that exact version, as built, is *exactly* the one the rest of /usr is tested with. I would, in any event, never want a compiler or other "base" tool to overwrite "the system default", unless I went out of my way to tell it to. When I build a new version of a compiler, I expect it to keep itself nicely isolated from "the system" unless explicitly told to do otherwise; this prevents all manner of unfortunate mishaps. Saying "gcc is the system compiler" is deeply misleading. Bugs creep in and out. Code may, however wrong this is, *depend* on a given set of bugs, or a given set of implementation decisions. gcc is not always the same as, or even compatible with, gcc. I think it's great to be *able* to replace the system compiler with a more current version of gcc, but I think it is very bad for that to be the default behavior. My vote, as a regular user of several systems where gcc is "the compiler", would be very strongly that gcc should continue to, by default, install into /usr/local, and deciding that it should be installed into /usr should remain an act of explicit volition, either by the user running configure, or the person preparing a package for distribution. Your milage may vary. Some compilers not for use with some programs. Your sysadmin helps you put it together. -s