source: trunk/src/gcc/FAQ@ 988

                        GCC Frequently Asked Questions

   The latest version of this document is always available at
   [1]http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/faq.html.

   This FAQ tries to answer specific questions concerning GCC. For
   general information regarding C, C++, resp. Fortran please check the
   [2]comp.lang.c FAQ, [3]comp.std.c++ FAQ, and the [4]Fortran
   Information page.

   Other GCC-related FAQs: [5]libstdc++-v3, and [6]GCJ.
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                                   Questions

    1. [7]General information
         1. [8]What is the relationship between GCC and EGCS?
         2. [9]What is the relationship between GCC and Cygnus / Red Hat?
         3. [10]What is an open development model?
         4. [11]How do I report a bug?
         5. [12]How do I get a bug fixed or a feature added?
         6. [13]Does GCC work on my platform?
    2. [14]Installation
         1. [15]How to install multiple versions of GCC
         2. [16]Dynamic linker is unable to find GCC libraries
         3. [17]libstdc++/libio tests fail badly with --enable-shared
         4. [18]GCC can not find GNU as/GNU ld
         5. [19]cpp: Usage:... Error
         6. [20]Optimizing the compiler itself
    3. [21]Testsuite problems
         1. [22]Unable to run the testsuite
         2. [23]How do I pass flags like -fnew-abi to the testsuite?
         3. [24]How can I run the test suite with multiple options?
    4. [25]Older versions of GCC
         1. [26]Is there a stringstream / sstream for GCC 2.95.2?
    5. [27]Miscellaneous
         1. [28]Friend Templates
         2. [29]dynamic_cast, throw, typeid don't work with shared
            libraries
         3. [30]Why do I need autoconf, bison, xgettext, automake, etc?
         4. [31]Why can't I build a shared library?
         5. [32]When building C++, the linker says my constructors,
            destructors or virtual tables are undefined, but I defined
            them
         6. [33]Will GCC someday include an incremental linker?
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                              General information

What is the relationship between GCC and EGCS?

   In 1990/1991 gcc version 1 had reached a point of stability. For the
   targets it could support, it worked well. It had limitations inherent
   in its design that would be difficult to resolve, so a major effort
   was made to resolve those limitiations and gcc version 2 was the
   result.

   When we had gcc2 in a useful state, development efforts on gcc1
   stopped and we all concentrated on making gcc2 better than gcc1 could
   ever be. This is the kind of step forward we wanted to make with the
   EGCS project when it was formed in 1997.

   In April 1999 the Free Software Foundation officially halted
   development on the gcc2 compiler and appointed the EGCS project as the
   official GCC maintainers. The net result was a single project which
   carries forward GCC development under the ultimate control of the
   [34]GCC Steering Committee.
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What is the relationship between GCC and Cygnus / Red Hat?

   It is a common mis-conception that Red Hat controls GCC either
   directly or indirectly.

   While Red Hat does donate hardware, network connections, code and
   developer time to GCC development, Red Hat does not control GCC.

   Overall control of GCC is in the hands of the [35]GCC Steering
   Committee which includes people from a variety of different
   organizations and backgrounds. The purpose of the steering committee
   is to make decisions in the best interest of GCC and to help ensure
   that no individual or company has control over the project.

   To summarize, Red Hat contributes to the GCC project, but does not
   exert a controlling influence over GCC.
     _________________________________________________________________

What is an open development model?

   We are using a bazaar style [36][1] approach to GCC development: we
   make snapshots publicly available to anyone who wants to try them; we
   welcome anyone to join the development mailing list. All of the
   discussions on the development mailing list are available via the web.
   We're going to be making releases with a much higher frequency than
   they have been made in the past.

   In addition to weekly snapshots of the GCC development sources, we
   have the sources readable from a CVS server by anyone. Furthermore we
   are using remote CVS to allow remote maintainers write access to the
   sources.

   There have been many potential GCC developers who were not able to
   participate in GCC development in the past. We want these people to
   help in any way they can; we ultimately want GCC to be the best
   compiler in the world.

   A compiler is a complicated piece of software, there will still be
   strong central maintainers who will reject patches, who will demand
   documentation of implementations, and who will keep the level of
   quality as high as it is today. Code that could use wider testing may
   be integrated--code that is simply ill-conceived won't be.

   GCC is not the first piece of software to use this open development
   process; FreeBSD, the Emacs lisp repository, and the Linux kernel are
   a few examples of the bazaar style of development.

   With GCC, we are adding new features and optimizations at a rate that
   has not been done since the creation of gcc2; these additions
   inevitably have a temporarily destabilizing effect. With the help of
   developers working together with this bazaar style development, the
   resulting stability and quality levels will be better than we've had
   before.

     [1] We've been discussing different development models a lot over
     the past few months. The paper which started all of this introduced
     two terms: A cathedral development model versus a bazaar
     development model. The paper is written by Eric S. Raymond, it is
     called ``[37]The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. The paper is a useful
     starting point for discussions.