On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Igor Sobrado wrote:

> > On Thursday, January 2, 2003, at 03:44  pm, Igor Sobrado wrote:
> > > But when a package has serious problems and it is not fixed,
> > > stability is bad.
> >
> > I've never used g77 (and I don't know anyone who has), but
> > what are the serious problems?
>
> It is practically dropped by GNU, they are developing a new compiler,

Do you have a posting or message indicating it was dropped? Just because a
g95 is under development doesn't mean g77 has been dropped. Dropped would
mean that if I get recent gcc sources g77 isn't there.

> and g77 is frozen since mid-90.  That compiler does not support
> FORTRAN-related standards.  It has known bugs and, as I observed
> above, it is a FORTRAN 77 compiler with "some" FORTRAN 90 extensions.
> A fully standards-compliant compiler will be nice.

Do you have one we can use?

> The Physics Department of our University dropped it in 1996.  We are
> running a license of a commercial FORTRAN compiler on all the Linux
> workstations of people that develops FORTRAN code.  They bought a
> license of the HP FORTRAN compiler for HP-UX in 1996 too.  They had
> a lot of problems sharing FORTRAN program with other research groups.

Ok, so you aren't using it (well your Physics department isn't). That
doesn't mean we should drop it too.

> It is not a high-quality product, it cannot be compared with gcc or g++.
> And there are not a lot of users that need it.  A FORTRAN compiler is
> a nice compiler for a Unix system, but g77 is *not* the alternative.

So what alternative can you propose? i.e. what can we put in the base
system in its place?

> A list of bugs is in http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/g77/Trouble.html,
> but this list is a bit outdated.

And gcc doesn't have bugs?? :-)

> > Those reasons are good enough for it to be in pkgsrc, imho.
> > Sometimes it's hard to say what is "required" and what is widely
> > used, but in this case it's seems quite clear.
>
> Agreed.  There are not a lot of g77 users, and it is not required
> for NetBSD (it is not used to build the kernel or the entire system).
> It can be provided as a port.

We put it in for a reason. You have not addressed that reason. Your case
for removing g77 will go much farther if you can explain to everyone how
that reason doesn't apply.

> > > Moving it to the ports collection is not bad.

Please note, it is pkgsrc. Ports are the different things NetBSD runs on.
:-)

Take care,

Bill