Why can't gcc-4.2.1 build usable libreoffice?

[Walter Hurry]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:35:35 -0800, Kevin Oberman wrote:

> Just for the record, is find that it works fine for me with gcc-4.6.
> 9.1-STABLE on i386 system. Building it with the default compiler results
> in a successful build, but the program would simply exit after a few
> seconds with no error. The exist status was 0. No messages. When I built
> with 4.6, it builds and runs fine, at least for the things I've tried.
> (4.6 invoked by setting WITH_GCC.)

I confess I don't understand what all the fuss is about. LO *wants* to 
build with clang, clang is part of base, and LO builds and runs perfectly 
with clang (for me at any rate: 9.1-RELEASE on amd64).

What is the issue? Is there some reason of which I am unaware, why people 
want to avoid using clang/llvm?