basic-improvements merge plan

basic-improvements merge plan

[Zack Weinberg]

I have merged mainline onto the basic-improvements branch, using the
3.3 branchpoint tag as the end-of-merge tag.  My computer is currently
running a bootstrap of the merge, and then a bootstrap of mainline at
the merge point for comparison; this will take all night.  Assuming
that goes well, I will commit the merge to the branch tomorrow morning.

I will then post a call for testers to the gcc mailing list.  Please
test architectures other than i386 and operating systems other than
Linux.  Both native and cross configurations are of interest, but
don't bother testing a 32bit->64bit cross configuration; I know that's
broken.  Please send test results to the mailing list as well as to me.

Meantime I will develop a patch to deal with the 32x64 breakage.  This
should be ready for review by tomorrow afternoon.  Once that goes in,
I will then merge the branch onto the trunk.

This is going to take at least all weekend, instead of a few hours.
I don't feel that I can in conscience ask people to refrain from
checking anything into the mainline for that long.  However, I will
ask that major destabilizing patches be held off until this gets done.
If you're developing major functionality on a branch, you might want
to consider resyncing with basic-improvements after I post the call
for testers.

zw