GCC 4.1 Released

Luineancaion writes "Looks like GCC 4.1 has been released. From what I know this includes the GNU Classpath merge and means that Azureus can now be used in a 100% Free-Software system. Thanks to everyone that worked on it, and keep up the good work!"

Re:Changelog?

[Yotsuya]

Google to the rescue.

http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.1/changes.html [gnu.org]

Actually, it's not released yet

[Dan Berlin]

I'm not sure what gave the person who submitted the story, or the editor who posted the story, the idea that 4.1 was released, but it isn't. In fact, it was just branched less than a week ago. We haven't even put out an RC yet! Really, it's not out. When it is, you will see something sent to gcc-announce

Re:But...

[strider44]

You're making too much of this. Between 4.0 and 4.1 isn't that big-a change. The only reason why it took so long for many distros to move between 3.3 and 3.4/4.0 was the change in the binary interface between the compilers. In other words a program compiled with 4.0 couldn't link to a library compiled with 3.3. There isn't this restriction between 4.0 and 4.1 so there's no reason why it can't go into the repositories straight after testing.

Re:Home depot

[Lisandro]

GCC is an impressive piece of software - either considered asopen source or in general. A lot of people preffer more "serious" C/C++ compilers, like Intels', but it's a remarkably good compiler by itself, very fast, produces stable and well optimized code AND it is available for every platform you could dream of developing on. Ah, and constantly improving support for other languages (specially Java) is a nice perk aswell :)

    It's safe to say that if we have a healthy OSS community, is because of the great developing tools available on OSS platforms. GCC is a strong contender for that crown, IMHO.

Still not released

[lancelott]

GCC 4.1.0 is not yet out as far as I know. This story is misleading. Just because the site lists 4.1.0 on the front does not mean it is out. Notice that it doesn't have a release date on it.

Re:Java status?

[Anonymous Coward]

Changelog here

      http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.1/changes.html [gnu.org]

Re:But...

[larry bagina]

Just to clarify, the ABI changes only apply to C++ libraries/code, not C.

Java like a sieve

[Danuvius]

Java leaks like a sieve. Azureus can't run for more than 24 hours without causing noticable slowdown... java is still an unprofessional mess more than a decade after it was supposed to change the world.

Re:What was wrong with Azureus?

[sr180]

Azureus is programmed in Java. Therefore it had to execute under a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) as provided by Sun or IBM. All of these JRE's are not free. Now Azureus can be compiled by GCC (which is free), Azureus can be executed in a 100% free environment.

But what about fixes?

[DoofusOfDeath]

About a month ago, I submitted a bug report for an internal compiler error. The GCC guys jumped on it, but I don't see in that change log a mention of what particular bugs got fixed in GCC 4.1.

Is the changelog just oddly incomplete, or am I looking in the wrong place for the list of bugs that got fixed in this release?

Re:That's good.

[jZnat]

Porn [empornium.us] and upgrades to Azureus I'd imagine would be a better response.

Re:But...

[strider44]

No actually that's wrong, if only slightly. GCC 3.3.* and below use a different C++ ABI to GCC 3.4, 4.0, and 4.1. Even Debian has upgraded from GCC 3.3 to GCC 4.0 so an incremental version upgrade shouldn't be too much of a deal.

Re:Masters of understatement

[diegocgteleline.es]

Hey, I like this: "GCC can now emit code for protecting applications from stack-smashing attacks. The protection is realized by buffer overflow detection and reordering of stack variables to avoid pointer corruption"

Re:on the java side

[ghakko]

The caching JIT has been available since 3.4, but is disabled by default. To turn it on, you'll need to add these switches to your gij command line:

-Dgnu.gcj.jit.compiler=/usr/bin/gcj -Dgnu.gcj.jit.cachedir=/tmp -Dgnu.gcj.jit.options=-O2

In practice, this is not a great help because gij and gcj are so slow. You may be able to get much better results compiling directly from Java source to machine code, and then prelinking the resulting executables and shared objects to reduce startup time.

Re:GCC is the Key to Open Source's Success

[Cardoe]

This isn't necessary correct. You can still install from stage1 and stage2, it just won't be documented directly in the Install Doc because of too many users that were a bit too clueless at Linux attempting to do a stage1 install. Also it reduces the confusion and complexity for first-timers.

Also considering the age of the packages found in all the stage tarballs all of them have been replaced by newer versions so when you install Gentoo you will actually recompile everything from source.

Some minor corrections ...

[ghakko]

GCC 4.1 has not been released yet.

A modified version of Classpath has been included with GCJ since 3.2.

Azureus may start in GIJ 4.0, but won't work properly because it relies on parts of the Sun JDK which aren't completely implemented yet in GCJ.

Re:But what about fixes?

[imroy]

The "changes" document appears to just list the added features, changes in ABI, and changes in the language parsers. The GCC homepage has two links to their bugzilla system: serious regressions [gnu.org] and all known regressions [gnu.org]. Your bug *should* be in there somewhere.

Re:Know and love GCC

[kjots]

I think someone might notice half the Internet disappearing overnight.

Re:RMS wrote GCC to pursue software freedom.

[jbn-o]

So it's wrong to sneak software Freedom in through a back door?

Free software would be just as free by any other name, but the Open Source movement doesn't work to get people to recognize and cherish software freedom in its own right. RMS is asking people to recognize that his work was done in pursuit of software freedom, not the developmental goals of the Open Source movement. By the way, GCC was initially developed well before the Open Source Initiative existed.

Open Source Software is software that is available also in source code format.

Not according to the first sentence of the introduction to the definition of the term "Open Source" as defined by the Open Source Initiative, which claims credit for coining the term and starting the Open Source movement. That definition tells us that "Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code.". I take it you mean to refer to the OSI's work since you cite them as an authority on the matter.

Here's a quote from opensource.org:

The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves.

That is a development methodology chiefly aimed at programmers, not a call for defending user's freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify software.

If the OSI is so sympathetic to software freedom, they shouldn't continue to call freedom-talk "ideological tub-thumping" in their FAQ and they shouldn't try to phrase Peruvian Congressman Villanueva's work as pursuit of "Open Source" when Villanueva explicitly told the Microsoft representative that he wanted to call attention to free software (as the OSI does on their front page). Villanueva told Microsoft [dewtronics.com] that his bill doesn't call for "Open Source". Microsoft just uses that term to try and steer the conversation to matters Microsoft's people believe they can address better—price and reliability. Furthermore, I think RMS hit the nail on the head when he talked about the philosophical differences between the two movements [gnu.org] and when Eben Moglen talks similarly in his speeches [gnu.org]. If the OSI and its defenders are so sympathetic to software freedom, they should be fine with people explicitly engaging in freedom talk, not just (as you say) "inherently" agree with freedom talk but never mentioning it.

It's telling that in an instance where the preeminent Free Software movement advocate, RMS, writes a program to make software freedom a reality, and doing so well before there was an Open Source Initiative, Open Source advocates are arguing that it's okay to associate RMS' work with a movement he "is not against [...] but [doesn't] want to be lumped in with" (quoting his aforementioned essay). These admonitions suggest that even in cases like this one, the objective is to get everyone to remain silent about software freedom so that we can all get on with pleasing business and framing issues in terms of increasing developmental efficiency. I won't go along with that. I will continue to find the ethical and social examinations the Free Software movement raises far more compelling. And I will continue to associate what was initially RMS' work with the movement he started.

Re:GCC is the Key to Open Source's Success

[gnarlin]

Free Software is a subset of Open Source Software, so to say that GCC is Open Source is absolutely correct, if perhaps more general than RMS would prefer.

First of all, it is true that if one only goes by the definition of open source [opensource.org] then the GNU compiler collection does fulfill all the conditions of that definition. GCC also fulfills the Free software definition [gnu.org]. Since this software package seems to satisfy both we must therefore look at some other facts to see which group this software appropriately belongs to.

Who started writing it and for what reason?
Richard Stallman did so that we could have more freedom. Not because he thought it simply had more technical merit to publish the code. So GCC would not exist if it were not for the philosophical base upon which it was started continues to rely on. GCC was not started because of any open source philosophy.

What about the name of the software package?
Humm, it appears to have the GNU name right at the beginning. I thus deduce that it is strongly involved with the Free software movement.

In the GCC mission statement [gnu.org] it says that GCC is not only a Free software project, but more importanly that one of the main goals is Supporting the goals of the GNU project, as defined by the FSF. Not to mention that the copyright of GCC are kept by the Free Software Foundation.

You can make that group as broad as you want or as narrow as you want, but there is a happy medium where the label is non-offensive and clear to any and all that hear it .

First of all, when talking about open source software you are referring to all software that fulfills the open source definition. That is just as specific and narrow as Free software and the free software definition.
Regarding the non-offensive jib. There is absolutely nothing offensive about free software nor is there anything offensive about open source. Although I feel all warm inside whenever I hear about someone spending their lives work in defending and increasing my freedom in a non-violent manner.

Regarding the clarity of "Free software", that is something which is only a problem in the english speaking world. In most other languages the word for freed(dom) and the word for free(of charge) are different.
Open source is not quite as clear to a non insider of the computer idustry. Freedom is something generally a lot more meaningful then "open source(code)", since most people have no idea what source code is nor how it can be more open or closed but do have some grasp of the meaning of freedom. Many people have certainly heard of open source in the media and such but infer no real meaning from it, except perhaps that it "makes your computer go faster or something" (this is something which I have heard many people say when asked about what open source means to them). If you were to ask those same people if they cared about their freedom, I think you would get at least a little more intelligible answers. Going too narrow may provide more information but at a loss of understanding to your audience.

How can you fail to put across your meaning if you are being as specific, lengtly and clear about your explinations as possible?! This is just nonsense.

RMS is in error here, but not because he thinks that software designated Free Software ought not be referred to as Open Source software, but because he thinks that anyone cares.

Well, the government of my country seemed to care enough for the minestry of education to both endorse his visit and our local LUG [rglug.org] (with money and other resources) and to hold a special ministry session were they listened to his recommendations and from that wrote a

Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

The 4.1 *branch* was created recently (in fact last week).

The *release* is still months away.

Toon Moene (GCC Steering Committee).

Re:Know and love GCC

[kocsonya]

> I see them more as a symbiosis.
>
> Where would GCC be without Linux?
> Where would Linux be without GCC?

Well, I was using gcc way before Linux hit the streets. Gcc and the GNU tools were the compiler and utility package that you could run on a bunch of systems without much tweaking of your makefiles. The same input created a binary with the same behaviour. So, I think gcc would be alive and well without Linux. On the other hand, Linux was possible because of the availibility of the GNU tools. So, RMS actually has a point in insisting that it should be called GNU/Linux. As soon as you log in, you probably run bash (GNU), when you type rm, ls, cc, make and so on, it is likely that you invoke a GNU tool or even if not, whatever you start will quicly suck in the C library (GNU).

Zoltan

Re:Know and love GCC

[Per Abrahamsen]

Eh, GCC was the default compiler for several platforms before Linux existed, and was the prefered compiler for cross-compilation to embedded platforms, and for software that ran on a wide range of platforms. It was also the preferred compiler for ANSI C (GCC got support for ANSI C very early).

In other words, GCC would be exactly where it is today, had it not been for Linux.

Re:Actually, it's not released yet

[vidarh]

I guess you didn't see the "(released [date])" bit after the version numbers then... (and the corresponding lack of one for 4.1. Nor the lack of a release history on the 4.1 page.

GCC is NOT open source

[CarpetShark]

Please refer to GCC as Free Software. Open Source is something completely different, and not nearly as inspiring, imho. Moreover, when GCC pretty much started the whole Free Software movement, it deserves a bit more caution in terminology ;)

Re:What were the BSDs using?

[kl76]

If by *BSDs, you mean 386BSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD etc, then, yes, they've always used GCC (starting with GCC 1.39 in 386BSD, I think). Before that (ie. 4.3BSD and earlier), there was the closed-source pre-ANSI pcc (Portable C Compiler). Not sure whether 4.4BSD used pcc or GCC...

Re:I'm thinking of contributing to GCC...

[multipartmixed]

Parent's not kidding. GCC contribution is non-trivial.

I got an A in my 4th-year undergrad compiler construction course, and build toy languages with flex and bison on a regular basis (about one every 18 months for 8 years).

And the GCC code is way hard stuff.

Re:GCC is NOT open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Please refer to GCC as Free Software. Open Source is something completely different, and not nearly as inspiring, imho.

Translation: I'm a 14-year-old who just learned the difference between the terms "Free Software" and "Open Software" and now feel like I'm le shit hot correcting others.

Re:GCC is the Key to Open Source's Success

[Anonymous Coward]

Typing "echo *" probably. Ever screwed up your machine so badly that ls doesn't work? I have. :)

Re:Home depot

[Anonymous Coward]

LLVM would be one. See http://llvm.org/ [llvm.org]

But, LLVM uses the GCC front ends, and the GCC folks are actually discussing the integration of LLVM into GCC itself.

Re:Home depot

[Anm]

100% speedup takes 50% of the time:

speed = progress / time

So since a 100% improvement is 2x the original:

2*speed = 2*progress / time

or

2*speed = progress / ( time/2 )

egcs

[Per Abrahamsen]

The one thing that is correct is that the official gcc was growing stagnant. But that was due to the official maintainer, who was (and is, he still contribute to gcc) a great compiler engineer, but a poor free software project leader. The majority of the work was done by Cygnus Support, whose customers were mostly in the embedded arena. Cygnus then decided to open up development based on their own branch, under the name egcs (and with an understanding from FSF), in order to involve more people in the development. It became a huge sucess, and the egcs branch became the official FSF branch.

The biggest contribution from Linux may be that Linux (together with the favorite /. hate-object, ESR's, Cathedral and Bazaar paper), served as an inspiration to move away from the traditional relatively closed FSF style of maintainership.

Today, SUSE makes good contributions. So does Red Hat, although it is hard to see which part of those contributions come from the old Cygnus part of the company (Red Hat bought Cygnus during the .com boom, and showed their first profit right after, most of their listed "wins" were in the old Cygnus business area). But the maintainer is from CodeSourcery, who does contract compiler work in a rather wide area. And the main contributor may, somewhat ironically, be Apple, it is certainly their email adress I see most on the developer list. Other than that, HP, IBM and Intel contribute a lot.