On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 1:08 PM, Ramana Radhakrishnan <ramana.radhakrish...@foss.arm.com> wrote:
>> It's very improbable that I could fix and properly test all of them; >> I simply don't have the cycles and resources to fix e.g. sh/sparc/alpha/mips. > > I don't think anyone expects you to be testing the patch on every single port > ..... > > Even though these changes sit in the target hooks into various backends, you > may be best > placed to advise how target maintainers adjust their backends. If at that > point this appears to be > mechanical, it's been good practice in the community for folks to send patches > that the maintainers can fully test even if the testing has been light for the > proposed patch. > > However, I am not aware of a "policy" for these things other than that these > sort of changes are selectively enforced in the community. Maybe we should > think > about it .... The bug was not x86-specific. The fix happens to be in target-specific code, but that's the luck of the draw. Numerous other GCC developers have fixed bugs or added features that required tweaks to all ports. Not all targets are easily accessible and you certainly can ask port maintainers to test a patch. But writing that you don't have the cycles to fix all of the targets is not a collegial answer. Why do you believe that target maintainers have more cycles than you? I didn't see you tell Uros to fix the bug on x86. The approach may work for your one specific bug, but it does not scale if every GCC developer pursues the same process. It's poor form to fix a bug only on x86 that is common to all targets and leave the problem "as an exercise for the reader" for all other targets -- essentially banishing the other targets to second-class status with respect to conformance -- especially when the change is mostly mechanical. I don't expect developers to specifically enable and exploit every new feature on every architecture, but had expected bug fixes to be distributed to all targets. "It's just not cricket." GCC has thrived for over 25 years -- supporting a huge number of targets and languages -- through a general sense of cooperation and collaboration to ensure the success of the entire project. If this is going to degrade into a more parochial attitude, then maybe GCC will need an explicit policy to counteract that mindset. I am testing the attached patch for PPC. - David
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