> You won't be able to build X86 kernels if you do that :)  Well, not
> with things like NTFS support, at least.  

That isn't really true, is it? Atleast in the NTFS code, I cannot find
such code (and I can't remember writing it, either :-).

> I'm most strongly of the opinion that this isn't Debian's problem.
> Our GCC should support whatever GCC has decided to support.

GCC maintainers will keep it "on" by default as long as somebody
shouts "I need it". I think Debian has a much clearer view of what is
needed and what isn't, so it is in a better position than the GCC
maintainers.

GCC is frequently blamed for being to generous in accepting code as C
and C++ which really isn't such code, for no apparent reason. Part of
the problem is that nobody dares to remove extensions that users have
long migrated away from.

Removing extensions must happen in a phased manner: First, disable the
option, then deprecate it, then remove support for it reporting that
this once used to be an option, then remove all traces. If Debian
starts to disable that feature today, there is a chance that it is
removed in GCC in 2010.

Regards,
Martin


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