From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 11 10:39:46 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 156E4106566C for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:39:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ohartman@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de) Received: from outpost1.zedat.fu-berlin.de (outpost1.zedat.fu-berlin.de [130.133.4.66]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 948648FC13 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:39:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ohartman@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de) Received: from inpost2.zedat.fu-berlin.de ([130.133.4.69]) by outpost1.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Exim 4.69) with esmtp (envelope-from ) id <1LLxjG-0008Tn-BJ>; Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:39:38 +0100 Received: from e178053161.adsl.alicedsl.de ([85.178.53.161] helo=thor.walstatt.dyndns.org) by inpost2.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Exim 4.69) with esmtpsa (envelope-from ) id <1LLxjG-0007CP-8D>; Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:39:38 +0100 Message-ID: <4969CC6D.6030707@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:39:41 +0100 From: "O. Hartmann" User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 (X11/20090110) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Peter Jeremy References: <61484.71762.qm@web32708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20090111044448.GC5661@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <20090111044448.GC5661@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Originating-IP: 85.178.53.161 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 12:17:30 +0000 Cc: "Pedro F. Giffuni" , freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alternatives to gcc (was Re: gcc 4.3: when will it become standard compiler?) X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:39:46 -0000 Peter Jeremy wrote: > On 2009-Jan-09 19:22:38 -0800, "Pedro F. Giffuni" wrote: > >> - Remove gcc from the base and make the compilation depend on a packaged C.. somewhat like was made with perl. >> > > ... schnipp ... > IMO, the > FreeBSD base system should come complete with the necessary tools to > build/install itself. > > I agree. And it woukd be preferable having a fast and efficient C and/or C++ compiler. Well, initially my question was triggered by reading a performance duell between FreeBSD 7/8, most recent U(n)buntu and OpenSolaris and someone stated the 3% performance gain of U(n)buntu over FreeBSD was due to the gcc4.3 compiler, which generates more efficient code. 3% mean performance gain could mean (as I made this experience) a better advantage in some special cases and having in mind numerical modelling running on my lab's FreeBSd box (yet, but I think this is about to change and move towards a RH Linux system due to the better support of HPC and, a pitty, our admins build the cluster with RH and not FBSD). I'm not an expert in politics and OS development, but as far as I know, SUN tried to extract the compiler out of the base system and failed by doing this. In my opinion, being independend on the base system and additionally having a very fast C compiler could also losen the tight bindings to licensing restrictions. I never took care about GPLv2 and v3 differences but know, this seems to come to relevance in some way. Well, as I understand the discussion about the binutils (there seems to exist a very similar problemacy), did RH already cut off the leashes by introducing their elftools? Correct me, if I'm wrong. Oliver