Alexey Starovoytov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> In some sense this project is a supplement project to "support GCCfss and gcc
> 4 in ON" project, but can be considered separately.
>
> GCCfss (GCC for SPARC Systems) is a big step forward on sparc comparing to
> /usr/sfw/bin/gcc.
> Higher performance, higher reliability, internally supported.
>
> GCCfss 4.0.2 was released in March. GCCfss 4.0.3 is about to be released.
I think I asked this before when you announced GCCfss on the main gcc list:
how much work would it be to turn GCCfss into a generic (i.e. both sparc
and x86) GCC with the Sun backend? It seems that the backend interface is
identical between sparc and x86, so it may be not much more than a
recompile of GCCfss on x86. We should strive for feature parity between
sparc and x86 as much as possible.
> The first idea was to propose plain gcc 4 for x86 side, but gcc needs few
> extra features to build ON, so it can't be plain gcc4. Yet another gcc branch
> with Solaris required features may be too costly.
I had already suggested a plan for that before:
http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=6799&tstart=0
http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=6911&tstart=0
This should happen in a solaris vendor branch in the main GCC repository,
not an isolated development work. As far as possible, the solaris-specific
changes need to be identified and integrated upstream, with the few
remaining ones kept on a properly maintained solaris branch. Once this is
done, the result can be integrated into SFW practically unchanged.
> GCCfss contains all these extras already. For sparc and for x86 it can be
> made to be built from the same source tree. It will use Sun Studio backend on
> sparc and plain gcc backend on x86. GCCfss is sort of gcc plugin that allows
> gcc front-end to use Sun Studio backend. If plugin is off, vanilla RTL
> backend is called.
It would be beneficial to have even the GCCfss code on a GCC vendor branch,
but this will probably meet much resistance due to licensing
etc. concerns. You certainly remember the heated discussions when you
announced GCCfss ;-(
> Anyway it doesn't have to be decided right now. If ON community wants plain
> gcc 4 for x86 integrated in SFW, we can try to make it happen.
I consider it quite important for Sun/the OpenSolaris community to be seen
as an integral part of the GCC community: working there as much as possible
gives us much more credibility than doing things in our own private hole.
Besides, all efforts there would be for the benefits of both vanilla GCC
and it's users on Solaris as well as the OpenSolaris community.
This would e.g. mean having a proper Solaris port maintainer (which is
lacking right now). While the SPARC backend maintainer, Eric Botcazou
makes sure GCC continues to work reliably on Solaris/SPARC, the situation
of Solaris/x86 is considerably worse. We need to change this ASAP.
Rainer
--
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Rainer Orth, Faculty of Technology, Bielefeld University
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