which compilers do we want to support with KDE 4 ?

[Andy Fawcett]

On Sunday 22 January 2006 06:08, Gregory Hayes wrote:
> Personally, I would target the LSB 3.x. The minimum gcc supported is
> 3.4.4. The release notes (
> http://www.linuxbase.org/LSBWiki/ReleaseNotes3 ) specifically state:

Remember, there's life for KDE outside the LSB...

At least here in FreeBSDland, we would want to support back to at least 
3.4.2, as one of our supported versions uses that (and will, through 
into 2007 at least). One of our requirements is that KDE should build 
with the compiler shipped with the base operating system.

Other non-Linux platforms may have different requirements. I can't speak 
for the NetBSD/OpenBSD/DragonflyBSD/Solaris/AIX/HPUX/... packagers, 
they will have to comment themselves.

> "However, in accordance with the roadmap published in August 2004
> when LSB 2.0 was released, LSB 3.0 requires a newer release of the
> underlying ABI used for C++ support. For most vendors, this means
> that *gcc 3.4* or later (actually, the minimum acceptable level is
> 3.4.4), or compatible equivalent must
> be used, and any C++ application built with *gcc 3.3* or earlier must
> be recompiled."
>
> I really can't see any vendors _not_ supporting at least gcc 3.4
                         ^^^^^^^
"Linux vendors"

One of our currently supported platforms for KDE 3.5.x is still using 
gcc 2.95.x (that's FreeBSD 4.x) and that will be a version supported 
until 2007 by FreeBSD. We probably won't worry too much if KDE4 can't 
build/run on that one though.

> (probably 4.x) by the time KDE 4 is released. If we want to, we can
> get things working with a broken and depreciated c++ compiler, but it
> doesn't seem worth the effort.

That's sadly the attitude of many linux-oriented developers.

> Especially when it is in contradiction to the definition of the
> "standard" Linux system we can expect from end users at release.

Again, there's life outside Linux.

Regards,

Andy

-- 
Andy Fawcett                                     | andy at athame.co.uk
                                                 | tap at kde.org
"In an open world without walls and fences,      | tap at lspace.org
  we wouldn't need Windows and Gates."  -- anon  | tap at fruitsalad.org