From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 7076 invoked by alias); 16 Apr 2002 00:16:16 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org Received: (qmail 7033 invoked from network); 16 Apr 2002 00:16:12 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO dragon.nuxi.com) (66.92.13.169) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 16 Apr 2002 00:16:12 -0000 Received: from dragon.nuxi.com (obrien@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g3G0G6Ym001396; Mon, 15 Apr 2002 17:16:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from obrien@dragon.nuxi.com) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.12.2/8.12.2/Submit) id g3G0Em6I001373; Mon, 15 Apr 2002 17:14:48 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 17:19:00 -0000 From: "David O'Brien" To: David Edelsohn Cc: Bryce McKinlay , Toon Moene , Neil Booth , Mark Mitchell , gcc@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: GCC 3.1 Release Message-ID: <20020415171448.C1064@dragon.nuxi.com> Reply-To: obrien@FreeBSD.org References: <200204142226.SAA25484@makai.watson.ibm.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <200204142226.SAA25484@makai.watson.ibm.com>; from dje@watson.ibm.com on Sun, Apr 14, 2002 at 06:26:30PM -0400 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT Organization: The NUXI BSD group X-Pgp-Rsa-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Rsa-Keyid: 1024/34F9F9D5 X-SW-Source: 2002-04/txt/msg00655.txt.bz2 On Sun, Apr 14, 2002 at 06:26:30PM -0400, David Edelsohn wrote: > I conducted a survey about the GCC release schedule. *NONE* of > the companies (Linux distributors, free software and open source projects, > embedded systems companies) wanted a release on a six month cycle. No one > wants to have to transition and re-validate their software and repackage a > new distribution with great frequency. Nine to twelve months is the > soonest that bulk end-users who create the dependence on GCC versions want > to be burdened with updating. > > If we want to remain on a six month cycle, alternating between > "technology preview" releases and "production" releases (e.g., GCC 3.0 and > GCC 3.1) would be a good plan, IMHO. For that type of approach to work, I > think that we need to make every effort to ensure that radical, invasive > changes are merged into the mainline for even numbered releases so that > odd numbered releases are not substantially destabilized and developers do > not need to wait 18 months for their contributions to be accepted. We Waiting 18 months for the next major stable usable compiler release would be hard for FreeBSD. As I mentioned, nine months is perfect for us. I strongly feel the GCC SC needs to take a stronger look at following the FreeBSD (and now OpenBSD) model of treating the release branch as not cast in stone. A lot more things could be merged from 3.2 to 3.1 than I know will be. It just takes creating the culture where committers are socially pressured to "merge from maintain" their changes where safe. IMHO too many changes are labeled "unsafe to merge" just so no one has to think about or deal with the merge.