[haiku-development] Re: To __BEOS__ or not to __BEOS__?
- From: "Michael Lotz" <mmlr@xxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 9 May 2008 19:02:04 +0200
On Fri, 9 May 2008 12:19:03 -0400, Ryan Leavengood wrote
> To conclude my contribution to this thread: I will be happy as long
> as I can run my GCC4 compiled WebKit and browser on the standard Haiku.
> If the standard Haiku is GCC2, with just GCC4 "compatibility"
> libraries, fine. I am just wanting to avoid the chance of a
> "pseudo-fork" of a GCC4 Haiku just so I can run my browser and let
> people test it.
It has been possible to mix GCC2 and GCC4 for quite some time now (see
//www.freelists.org/archives/haiku-development/08-2007/msg00089.html). It
simply requires that a set of the base libraries you need are available
compiled with the same GCC as your application. The only thing that needs to
be "solved" is how to package this in an elegant way. As Ingo pointed out it
is easy for the runtime_loader to distinguish between GCC2 and GCC4 apps and
the libraries could therefore be put at distinct paths and loaded depending on
GCC version. It just has to be thought about to be a bit future proof and it
has to be implemented. GCC4 works well under BeOS R5 BTW, so even developers
still using BeOS (me included) would be able to build a fully capable dual-GCC
image of Haiku. I can provide the binary GCC4 cross-compiler for BeOS (the
same way as the current GCC2 cross compiler is provided) if that becomes
necessary.
So overall I don't see how GCC4 apps would be "crippled" in any way. They will
work just fine alongside a GCC2 base system (or the other way around for that
matter). There are certainly numerous projects that will benefit from or
simply require GCC4. But that does not mean that we have to give up GCC2 to
get them working. I don't see why we should suddenly switch our focus and
break away from binary compatibility that enables numerous nice little things,
if we don't have to at all.
BTW I for one use BeOS as my sole OS. And because of that I have quite a list
of apps that I'd simply like to continue using when switching over to Haiku.
If they work out of the box and I don't have to wait for someone to pick them
up again and update them or re-port them first, then this is quite an added
benefit to me. Of course I don't want to miss out on the cool new GCC4 stuff
either, but as I see it it will be no real problem having both side by side.
Therefore this whole discussion about breaking compatibility now does not
really make sense to me. It would only make sense if it was an either/or
decision which it is not.
Regards
Michael
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