Re: [PATCH] Update program requirements.

[Patrick McCarty]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 10:44 PM, Mark Polesky <address@hidden> wrote:
> Patrick McCarty wrote:
>>> * New compiling requirements:
>>>  -  GCC 4.0
>> Are you sure this is required?
>> OpenBSD's gcc 3.3.5 apparently works okay with this patch:
>> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2009-12/msg00324.html
>
> I think Graham was suggesting that by updating the requirement,
> we're not saying that older versions will fail, but rather that we
> are no longer officially supporting them.  GCC 3.3.5 is from 2004
> (http://gcc.gnu.org/viewcvs/tags/gcc_3_3_5_release/?view=log) and
> there have been six major releases since then.  GCC 4.0 came in
> 2005, so it's not such a huge leap.

I don't know what LilyPond's previous policy has been with regard to this.

But it seems that by specifying a *minimum* version in configure, we
are suggesting that earlier versions *will* fail (depending on the use
case).

> Besides, shouldn't GCC 3.3 users be upgrading anyway?

Maybe.

> Because of this, I wouldn't mind moving the requirement up to
> 4.2.4, but there may be some issues I'm not aware of.  Let me
> know if there are.

GUB uses 4.1.2 to compile LilyPond for certain platforms:

http://github.com/janneke/gub/blob/master/gub/specs/gcc.py

> Otherwise, what do you think?

I think we need more feedback from others regarding GCC before taking
action.  The Guile and Ghostscript minimum versions are fine with me.

Thanks,
Patrick