Alternatives to gcc (was Re: gcc 4.3: when will it become standard compiler?)

[Michel Talon]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 08:05:52PM -0800, Maxim Sobolev wrote:
> Pegasus Mc Cleaft wrote:
> >	Would this approach get around the need to have 4.3 installed as a 
> >	BSD default? 
> 
> Well, this is workaround not a solution. Sooner or later FreeBSD will 
> hit some principal limitation of the current compiler, like for example 
> it was in the old days of gcc 2.xx, when FreeBSD had stuck with version 
> that was outdated by few years resulting in inability to use any more or 
> less modern C++ code with the system compiler. Existing processors 
> develop all the time (SSE 4.2 for example) and the new architectures 
> emerge (Cell for example), so that it's just matter of time when it 
> happens again.
> 
> -Maxim

I agree completely with that. Keeping an old compiler in FreeBSD so that
it is GPL V2 is untenable. I see only two solutions, either removing the whole
build chain of the base system (compiler + buildutils) and maintening it as a
port, up to date, or revisiting this issue of the GPL V3 and arrive at the
conclusion that it is obvious that this is a non problem for FreeBSD. 
Apparently the FreeBSD project doesn't want to include any GPL V3 because
there are industrial partners who have banned the GPl V3, out of purely
ideological position, without any rational basis. I wonder why the FreeBSD
project has any reason to follow them.
Of course one can also wait that a BSD alternative is available, with the same
level of performance and reliability as Gcc, perhaps in ten years, if ever.


-- 

Michel TALON