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