From: <ho...@br...> - 2006-05-06 00:21:34
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I am wondering why packages like fftw3 are depending on g95 rather than gfortran? While this may be useful in the short term I think we would be far better off with gfortran in the long run. As far as I know the g95 source still is devoid of a decent test suite so there is no good way to monitor breakage in g95. Also I believe recent benchmarks have shown that the gfortran code is starting to make gains over g95 code in performance. Jack |
From: Martin C. <cos...@wa...> - 2006-05-06 06:31:33
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Jack Howarth wrote: > I am wondering why packages like fftw3 are depending on g95 > rather than gfortran? While this may be useful in the short term > I think we would be far better off with gfortran in the long run. > As far as I know the g95 source still is devoid of a decent test > suite so there is no good way to monitor breakage in g95. Also > I believe recent benchmarks have shown that the gfortran code is > starting to make gains over g95 code in performance. Jeff may have other reasons, but one reason is that there is no gfortran package for intel yet. Gfortran on intel has to be built from the gcc-4.2 sources, and while this seems to give a working gfortran, a large part of the rest of gcc-4.2 does not build and other parts are very buggy. So it is not quite clear what kind of gfortran package should be provided in the 10.4 tree. I have a gcc4 package in my exp directory that gives me a working gfortran on intel. I haven't run any test suites, though; I just tested it by compiling some of the finite element packages that I maintain. What the long term prospects of g95 and gfortran are, nobody knows. But right now, g95 just works better than gfortran. -- Martin |
From: Peter O'G. <pe...@po...> - 2006-05-09 00:52:22
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On Sat, 2006-05-06 at 08:31 +0200, Martin Costabel wrote: > What the long term prospects of g95 and gfortran are, nobody knows. But=20 > right now, g95 just works better than gfortran. There are issues with g95 that may affect the binary distribution. The runtime libraries are licensed under the GPL - in contrast the gfortran libraries are GPL + this exception: In addition to the permissions in the GNU General Public License, the Free Software Foundation gives you unlimited permission to link the compiled version of this file into combinations with other programs, and to distribute those combinations without any restriction coming from the use of this file. (The General Public License restrictions do apply in other respects; for example, they cover modification of the file, and distribution when not linked into a combine executable.) The g95 situation means that, due to the nature of the GPL, anything built with g95 becomes GPL licensed. While this situation is, in my opinion, acceptable for build from source, it is questionable for binary distributions. Peter |
From: Martin C. <cos...@wa...> - 2006-05-08 17:17:21
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Peter O'Gorman wrote: [] > The g95 situation means that, due to the nature of the GPL, anything > built with g95 becomes GPL licensed. Do you have an official word from the g95 authors on this or is this just speculation? Normally, the output of a GPL compiler does not automatically have to be GPL; this is actually mentioned in the GPL itself. There are no dylibs in g95 that are needed for running g95-compiled binaries. -- Martin |
From: Peter O'G. <pe...@po...> - 2006-05-09 01:03:32
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On Sun, 2006-05-07 at 12:47 +0200, Martin Costabel wrote: > Peter O'Gorman wrote: > [] > > The g95 situation means that, due to the nature of the GPL, anything > > built with g95 becomes GPL licensed.=20 >=20 > Do you have an official word from the g95 authors on this or is this=20 > just speculation? Normally, the output of a GPL compiler does not=20 > automatically have to be GPL; this is actually mentioned in the GPL=20 > itself. There are no dylibs in g95 that are needed for running=20 > g95-compiled binaries. When I looked at the files for the runtime libraries on the web, I saw no GPL exception. When I look at the downloaded version of these files, I see an exception. It is entirely possible that I'm just spreading FUD. Peter |
From: Peter O'G. <pe...@po...> - 2006-05-09 01:05:31
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On Sun, 2006-05-07 at 12:47 +0200, Martin Costabel wrote: > Peter O'Gorman wrote: > [] > > The g95 situation means that, due to the nature of the GPL, anything > > built with g95 becomes GPL licensed.=20 >=20 > Do you have an official word from the g95 authors on this or is this=20 > just speculation? Normally, the output of a GPL compiler does not=20 > automatically have to be GPL; this is actually mentioned in the GPL=20 > itself. There are no dylibs in g95 that are needed for running=20 > g95-compiled binaries. By the way - http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/fortran/2005-11/msg00064.html discusses this issue in passing, but it does not seem to be the case any longer. Peter |