public inbox for gcc@gcc.gnu.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
* remove intl/ directory?
@ 2022-06-18 17:01 Bruno Haible
  2022-06-18 17:42 ` Iain Sandoe
  2022-06-20 19:45 ` Eric Gallager
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 16+ messages in thread
From: Bruno Haible @ 2022-06-18 17:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: gcc

Hi,

As the long-term GNU gettext maintainer, I would suggest to remove the intl/
directory from the GCC distribution.

The effect for the users would be:
  * On systems without glibc, users who want an internationalized GCC
    installation would have to install GNU gettext first. Then the GCC
    binaries would be linked with the shared library libintl.so
    (unless gettext was built with --disable-shared); they would no longer
    contain the libintl code in 'cc1', 'cc1plus', etc.
  * On systems with glibc, no change.

The effect for the GCC maintainers would be:
  * Easier to stay up-to-date with upstream libintl.
  * Less maintenance work with *.m4 files such as
      codeset.m4
      glibc21.m4
      intdiv0.m4
      inttypes_h.m4
      inttypes.m4
      inttypes-pri.m4
      lcmessage.m4
      stdint_h.m4
      uintmax_t.m4
      ulonglong.m4
  * Reduced risk of a CVE that would impact GCC binaries.

Rationale:
  * This intl/ code is from 2003; of course several bugs have been
    fixed in it over the last 19 years.
  * At that time GNU packages were still favouring static libraries.
    GNU libtool became widely reliable only about in 2005.
  * Since then, distros have been favouring shared libraries over
    static libraries, in order to be able to fix CVEs without
    rebuilding many dependent binaries.
  * For this reason, GNU gettext removed the support for this way
    of packaging libintl in version 0.20 (May 2019). The NEWS entry
    said:
    - The --intl option of the gettextize program (deprecated since 2010) is
      no longer available. Instead of including the intl sources in your
      package, we suggest making the libintl library an optional prerequisite
      of your package. This will simplify the build system of your package.
    - Accordingly, the Autoconf macro AM_GNU_GETTEXT_INTL_SUBDIR is gone
      as well.

This point came up while discussing with Eric Gallager, who is working on
the GCC configury.

I don't volunteer to implement this suggestion, but I can give advice where
needed.

Bruno




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 16+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2022-06-23 15:50 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 16+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2022-06-18 17:01 remove intl/ directory? Bruno Haible
2022-06-18 17:42 ` Iain Sandoe
2022-06-18 18:14   ` David Edelsohn
2022-06-19  0:53     ` Bruno Haible
2022-06-19  0:32   ` Bruno Haible
2022-06-19  8:40     ` Iain Sandoe
2022-06-19 20:15       ` Iain Sandoe
2022-06-21  2:05         ` Bruno Haible
2022-06-22 20:21           ` Iain Sandoe
2022-06-23  4:24             ` Bruno Haible
2022-06-23  6:51               ` Iain Sandoe
2022-06-23 15:40                 ` Iain Sandoe
2022-06-23 15:50                   ` Iain Sandoe
2022-06-23 15:13               ` Eric Gallager
2022-06-20 19:45 ` Eric Gallager
2022-06-21  2:09   ` Bruno Haible

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).