Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 17:02:53 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com> To: Gabriel Paubert <paubert@iram.es> Subject: Re: Linux 2.0.3x & gcc 2.8 On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Gabriel Paubert wrote: > > Admittedly things would be much better if the gcc documentation were > consistent, and the documentation did correctly describe what is > implemented (I did go to the length of reading and trying to understand > the source code of several versions of the compiler). But it's hard to > understand the guts of the compiler in a few days... Right. But Linux uses the _documented_ behaviour of gcc, and the behaviour that has worked under previous versions of gcc. As such, I will not consider Linux to be buggy until the gcc maintainters officially fix their documentation and come out of the woodwork to _admit_ that they changed documented behaviour. What I have heard so far from the gcc people is just these silly things about "Linux sources are buggy", and until they change that to "gcc-2.8.0 has changed documented behaviour and we have updated the documentation to say so" I will consider this a compiler problem. In short, it may not be a technical gcc problem, but it IS a problem with the gcc-2.8.0 _release_. Right now it isn't entirely clear whether the 2.8.0 behaviour is a mistake or not, and I'm personally rather unhappy with people claiming that it is a Linux problem. Linus