Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@nas.nasa.gov> writes:
> Why?
> 
> What does making cross compilers part of the base system give us which
> having them(*) in the package system does not?

The package system is

1) Designed for things that are not internally maintained by the
   project
2) Designed for things that are not core to project management and
   maintenance. 

The cross compiler system *is* internally maintained and *is* about to
become critical. (Without it, I don't expect we're going to be able to
get out future releases in a prompt manner.)

> That strikes me as a lot of bloat. I mean we're the OS which doesn't want
> to add perl to the base distribution, and here we're talking about adding
> 10 cross compilers???

You don't have to compile all of them, any more than you are required
to compile games.

> Oops. Since object format counts in the matrix above, we have i386-aout,
> i386-elf, sparc-aout, and sparc-elf above.

Unnecessary. All that is really needed is the ability to cross-build
current releases.

-- 
Perry Metzger		perry@piermont.com
--
"Ask not what your country can force other people to do for you..."