GCC 5.5 Released, That's It For GCC5

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GCC 5.5 Released, That's It For GCC5

Jakub Jelinek of Red Hat today announced the release of GCC 5.5 compiler that also marks the end of the GCC5 series...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GCC-5.5-Released

[Guest]

I'm wondering, why do they keep supporting old GCC version?

If user wants bug fixes, then he can just install the latest version. At least it forces users to do a upgrade, and not being stuck with historical software.

[Guest]

Likely for RHEL, Debian stable, SLE, etc...

[GI_Jack]

I'm wondering, why do they keep supporting old GCC version?

If user wants bug fixes, then he can just install the latest version. At least it forces users to do a upgrade, and not being stuck with historical software.

Bugfixes while maintaining compatibility with old versions. An old distro is going to be built around a specific version of GCC. That said forcing users to do an upgrade is never a good idea. Some users won't be able to.

There are many important use cases for this like Long Term Support distros. Those are far most important because that is what production commercial devices like servers and embedded run.

Embedded you assume that many single function or limited function devices won't want to upgrade to a newer stack, but still recieve important security updates for the life of the hardware, tied closely to the software, which again, could be decades.

GNU and Linux are strongest in embedded and server enviroments, so LTS takes precedent over desktops.

I for one think there is a need for 10-year and 25-year stable distros.

[Guest]

I for one think there is a need for 10-year and 25-year stable distros.

That would be amazing.

[TMM_]

'I for one think there is a need for 10-year and 25-year stable distros.'

Suse Linux enterprise is supported for 13 years

[starshipeleven]

I'm wondering, why do they keep supporting old GCC version?

If user wants bug fixes, then he can just install the latest version. At least it forces users to do a upgrade, and not being stuck with historical software.

Production software usually has relatively long support because migrating to the latest version is not something that can be done painlessly, or cheaply.

Compilers change and code that before was compiled fine in version X with the version Y breaks and requires fixes and attention, for example in this case.

Other software requires downtime, testing and troubleshooting and so on before it can replace the old major version.

While bugfixes-only patches can be installed painlessly as they don't affect functionality.

[RelaxTrolls]

maybe some embedded device developer doesn't want to upgrade his whole build toolchain to get one fix that is important to him. he will use new gcc for next project.

people usually like to have long support for software that they use.

Linaro is an example. they provide various toolchains, GCC-5.x among them... I use the GCC-5.x branch for building the kernel for my android device... Android in general uses older builds of GCC, so upgrading to say GCC-7 isn't a good option, as it would require a lot of fixes to my kernel sources and it isn't well tested/vetted, so might introduce issues for me, while GCC-5 is a nice fit for now.

[sdack]

I'm wondering, why do they keep supporting old GCC version?

If user wants bug fixes, then he can just install the latest version. At least it forces users to do a upgrade, and not being stuck with historical software.

True, but new releases don't just bring bug fixes, but they bring new bugs, too. Newer releases sometimes remove support for older hardware, they introduce newer standards and they use updated default settings.

All this makes it difficult if not impossible for some users to upgrade and so they're being thankful for when an older version continues to receive support in form of backported bug fixes. When a bug has been around for a long time, long enough to be found in older versions, and it doesn't require a complex fix then it's quite easy to apply the fix to every affected version. There is no really good reason why one should be lazy about it and why not to provide support in such a case.

[RelaxTrolls]

True, but new releases don't just bring bug fixes, but they bring new bugs, too. Newer releases sometimes remove support for older hardware, they introduce newer standards and they use updated default settings.

Good point on new bugs.. prime example, the gimp devs don't reccomend building gimp with GCC-7.x, but using an older build. there appears to be some problems/regressions with GCC-7.x for gimp / gegl...