OpenBSD Journal

Theo and Otto Interviewed at The Jem Report

Contributed by merdely on from the you-down-with-pcc-yeah-you-know-me dept.

Ray Lai writes about Theo and Otto's interview over at The Jem Report:

A few weeks ago, the OpenBSD Project announced that the Portable C Compiler (PCC) had been added to the OpenBSD source tree. There has already been some explanation of why the traditional GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is troublesome and why a new compiler is needed, but there are still some details left uncovered. In this interview, Theo de Raadt and Otto Moerbeek of the OpenBSD Project offer more information about PCC and GCC and where they are headed within the project.

Read the complete interview!

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By Karl Sjödahl (Dunceor) dunceor@gmail.com on

    It covers some nice background of the decision but the interview was a bit short. An insight on what to expect in the near future and what they focus on to implement now would be nice.

    Very interesting at least!

    Comments
    1. By Ray Percival (sng) on http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=search&sort=time&query=sng

      > It covers some nice background of the decision but the interview was a bit short. An insight on what to expect in the near future and what they focus on to implement now would be nice.
      >
      > Very interesting at least!

      The interview was pretty clear on what to expect in the near future. That would be "nothing".

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (203.20.79.132) on

        > > It covers some nice background of the decision but the interview was a bit short. An insight on what to expect in the near future and what they focus on to implement now would be nice.
        > >
        > > Very interesting at least!
        >
        > The interview was pretty clear on what to expect in the near future. That would be "nothing".

        You mean like how OpenBSD never eventuated? Or how OpenSSH never really materialized? Oh and how about pf! Pfft, nothing come of that hey! And OpenBGP, OpenCVS and OpenNTP were nothing more than glints in some dev wannabe's eye... right?

        Yeah, nothing will probably come from OpenBSD+PCC.

        Comments
        1. By Karl Sjödahl (Dunceor) on

          > > > It covers some nice background of the decision but the interview was a bit short. An insight on what to expect in the near future and what they focus on to implement now would be nice.
          > > >
          > > > Very interesting at least!
          > >
          > > The interview was pretty clear on what to expect in the near future. That would be "nothing".
          >
          > You mean like how OpenBSD never eventuated? Or how OpenSSH never really materialized? Oh and how about pf! Pfft, nothing come of that hey! And OpenBGP, OpenCVS and OpenNTP were nothing more than glints in some dev wannabe's eye... right?
          >
          > Yeah, nothing will probably come from OpenBSD+PCC.
          >

          He didn't say that nothing would come out of PCC, he said that nothing would come out of PCC in the near future. Big difference.

          Ray Percival: Well it wasn't that clear on it but maybe you are right. We'll just have to wait and see.

        2. By tedu (204.14.154.69) on

          > > > It covers some nice background of the decision but the interview was a bit short. An insight on what to expect in the near future and what they focus on to implement now would be nice.
          > > >
          > > > Very interesting at least!
          > >
          > > The interview was pretty clear on what to expect in the near future. That would be "nothing".
          >
          > You mean like how OpenBSD never eventuated? Or how OpenSSH never really materialized? Oh and how about pf! Pfft, nothing come of that hey! And OpenBGP, OpenCVS and OpenNTP were nothing more than glints in some dev wannabe's eye... right?
          >
          > Yeah, nothing will probably come from OpenBSD+PCC.

          yeah, ray must be mistaken. i'm sure pcc will be the compiler for openbsd 4.3.

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (203.20.79.132) on

            > > > The interview was pretty clear on what to expect in the near future. That would be "nothing".
            > >
            > > You mean like how OpenBSD never eventuated? Or how OpenSSH never really materialized? Oh and how about pf! Pfft, nothing come of that hey! And OpenBGP, OpenCVS and OpenNTP were nothing more than glints in some dev wannabe's eye... right?
            > >
            > > Yeah, nothing will probably come from OpenBSD+PCC.
            >
            > yeah, ray must be mistaken. i'm sure pcc will be the compiler for openbsd 4.3.

            Yes, sorry. I misinterpreted that badly.

    2. By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on

      They pretty much spelled out what needs to be done, making sure PCC can compile the majority of the code base, implementing more archs, position independent code, stack smash protection, __attribute__ support ...

  2. By Anonymous Coward (199.18.139.74) on

    I think it will be interesting to see how this times out - There is a lot old cruft that will have to get sorted through to use a new compiler. There are so many things that, every time I see them, I start wrestling with myself... must not go there, I'm working on something else... There Be Dragons... want to clean up and beat into submission...

  3. By justwords (84.18.238.22) on

    i've seen people around saying that we're always replacing gpl->bsd programs. so here's an interesting quote:

    "What other hurdles remain in replacing GPL-licensed programs in OpenBSD?

    TdR: But that's never really been the agenda, see. Some people think we hate GNU code. But the thing is we hate large code, and buggy code that upstream does not maintain. That's the real problem"

    Comments
    1. By William Palmer (wcpalmer) on http://wcpalmer.com

      > i've seen people around saying that we're always replacing gpl->bsd programs. so here's an interesting quote:
      >
      > "What other hurdles remain in replacing GPL-licensed programs in OpenBSD?
      >
      > TdR: But that's never really been the agenda, see. Some people think we hate GNU code. But the thing is we hate large code, and buggy code that upstream does not maintain. That's the real problem"

      I've actually been wanting to look into compiler design/theory, but I'm terrified of GCC's codebase. I've only heard bad things about it.

      I think, to prevent permanent scarring/damage, I may take a look at PCC instead.

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