Building Tools From Source

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 09/21/2012 11:31 AM, Chris Johns wrote:
> Ralf Corsepius wrote:

>>>> I don't know if Apple or a trustworthy 3rd
>>>> party supplies binaries for gmp, mpfr, mpc on MacOS (I would be
>>>> surprised if this does not apply), you're likely better off using these
>>>> libraries and to apply shared linkage and not to use your "homegrown"
>>>> static versions.
>>>
>>> I have no idea what Apple provide on MacOS, or what is provided on
>>> FreeBSD (I use both) nor do I need to be concerned.
>>
>> Well, that's the difference in your way of thinking and mine.
>>
>> I trust more in OS vendors' dedicated package maintainers who are
>> supposed to be deeply familiar with packages and supposed to take more
>> care about packages, than I ever could myself.
>>
>
> Yes agree for the host OS.
The libgmp, libmpfr, libmpc etc. this threat started with are host 
libraries, a host's GCC uses underneath.

As all of them undergo continuous upstream + OS-vendor development and 
bug-fixing it's not necessarily advisable to statically link against them.

[To oversimplyfy: Code generation bugs can easily originate from inside 
your host's libgmp, libmpfr, libmpc etc. and may already be fixed in 
later OS-vendor versions of these.]

> I hope that the tools we release are tested
> and stable. I am only talking about gcc and the dependent libraries it
> now includes and making sure these do not vary even if the OS vendor has
> decided they need to for reasons specific to the host os.
The latter is a lost fight, because these libraries also occasionally 
suffer from bugs.

I.e. when statically linking you are making a choice towards 
"reproducability/staying bugward-compatible", while when dynamically you 
are making a choice towards "correctness" and against "reproducability".

Ralf