GNU Toolchain Leaders Support Moving Their Infrastructure Under The Linux Foundation

Brought up in September was the proposal of moving the GNU toolchain infrastructure under the Linux Foundation's IT services. The GNU Toolchain leaders have now come out formally in support of this proposed move.

While SourceWare.org has been hosting much of the GNU Toolchain infrastructure for many years and SourceWare.org being funded by Red Hat, recently the idea has been coming together of moving this infrastructure under that of the Linux Foundation IT services. The Linux Foundation IT team already does a stellar job with managing Kernel.org and related infrastructure and thus the sensible idea of also managing that for GCC and related toolchain projects.

The Linux Foundation IT services would manage the Git repositories, mailing lists, bug trackers, web sites, continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD), and related infrastructure.

This week was a mailing list post with the GNU Toolchain project leadership formally coming out in support of the proposal.

"The GNU Toolchain project leadership supports the proposal to move the services for the GNU Toolchain to the Linux Foundation IT under the auspices of the Toolchain Infrastructure project (GTI) with fiscal sponsorship from the
OpenSSF and other major donors.

This support includes empowering the GTI Technical Advisory Committee to vote on issues surrounding key infrastructure requirements. Additionally we welcome any other projects at Sourceware.org that wish to join the effort.

The GNU Toolchain is the cornerstone of the GNU/Linux ecosystem, the Cloud, and embedded environments. Open Source security best practices and mandates from governments and industry on software supply chain security require a strong effort to ensure compliance with policies, maintain the trust of the distributors of software built by the GNU Toolchain, and the continued vitality of the GNU Toolchain projects.

We believe that utilizing the experience and infrastructure of the LF IT team that already is used by the Linux kernel community will provide the most effective solution and best experience for the GNU Toolchain developer community.

As with kernel.org, GTI has requested from the Linux Foundation IT that all software implementing the infrastructure for the GNU Toolchain projects must be Free Software. If Free Software versions of necessary security tools are missing, GTI will work with Free Software supporters to develop Free Software alternatives."

So at this stage it looks like the proposal continues moving forward for the Linux Foundation IT services becoming responsible for overseeing the GNU Toolchain infrastructure.