Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2015 07:37:16 -0400 From: Julio Merino <jmmv@freebsd.org> To: Mark Linimon <linimon@lonesome.com> Cc: Ian Lepore <ian@freebsd.org>, freebsd-arch <freebsd-arch@freebsd.org>, Bryan Drewery <bdrewery@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: Retiring in-tree GDB Message-ID: <6E0B7D30-78A6-4ABF-A617-01E43B093CB2@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <20151021000029.GB24405@lonesome.com> References: <2678091.es0AGJQ0Ou@ralph.baldwin.cx> <5626B15C.4080408@FreeBSD.org> <1445377905.99375.22.camel@freebsd.org> <20151021000029.GB24405@lonesome.com>
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> On Oct 20, 2015, at 20:00, Mark Linimon <linimon@lonesome.com> wrote: >=20 > I do not think we can ask "how many people need the base compiler". > Well, if asked, answered: all of them, if we want to keep being > FreeBSD. And why would that be? What makes this FreeBSD? Traditionally, a compiler has always been required because the only way = to upgrade a BSD system was by recompiling it from source, and the only = way to install extra software was by building it from ports. Things = have changed: it's now possible to have a fully-functional, up-to-date = system, with packages without ever compiling anything. Having a = compiler in the base system is not a necessity any more (for amd64, at = least). No, I'm not in favor of removing the compiler from the base system; I = think it has to stay for various other reasons. I'm just questioning = the axiom you threw above. What I'll argue is that subjecting the user to ever have to recompile = anything, for the majority of use cases, is bad. And FreeBSD does not = do this any longer: as mentioned above, it's now possible to have a = functional system without compiling anything, so the compiler could now = be optional. Also, as a long-time NetBSD user, I was a bit surprised when I came to = FreeBSD to find that the compiler tools were not optional. In NetBSD, = the compiler tools have always been part of a comp.tgz set separate from = base.tgz. Both are built from the source tree in unison, but when = installing a new machine you can easily choose not to have comp.tgz. I = have run lean servers without compilers for a long time, and it was just = fine. I guess we are off-topic now...=
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