Re: Which ObjC2.0 features are missing in the latest GCC?

[Yavor Doganov]

Johannes Brakensiek wrote:
> On 25 Nov 2019, at 14:34, Yavor Doganov wrote:
> > Off the top of my head, Rik theme is about the single piece of
> > software that can't be built on stock Debian because of us
> > sticking to GCC.
> 
> thank you for making clear your point. I understood GNUstep would
> have to provide an updated runtime for all supported architectures
> and upstream software/applications that rely on clang and its
> features to make the Debian maintainers distribute it.

No, that was not my point and nowhere near to what I said.  Debian
will consider moving to Clang and the new runtime when:

1. The pool of new software is large and worthy enough to justify the
   major regression that is dropping support for about half of the
   architectures.  It means there has to be much more than Rik that we
   can't build and package now.  And it appears Rik is buildable with
   GCC, albeit a less capable version.  So it's not even a proper
   example.

2. The release team approves building an entire software stack with a
   non-default compiler and as a direct consequence dropping
   architecure support.

3. There is someone willing to do the actual work and carry out such
   transition.  That's always the case in Debian for any kind of work.

If GNUstep upstream drops GCC support, 1) will become pointless but 2)
and 3) remain.

If GNUstep upstream continues GCC support and the condition outlined
in 1) does not change, we'll stick to GCC.  We will not move just
because of some blurry promise for great new software.  I've seen this
before and it's nothing more than a wet dream.