Re: [chat] Re: [SLUG] Benefits of source distro(Gentoo)somewhatelusive :-)

[invisible ink <jdub@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Stuart Guthrie:

> Without significant numbers of the OS community dedicated to squeezing
> performance, via whatever obscure optimisations are available, we would
> all be a lot worse off. Much of this work filters back into the general
> releases and therefore benefits us all. It is the people with this focus
> that enable this to happen.

While this is very true, it has nothing to do with compiler optimisations.

The people doing *good* work (notably Ulrich Drepper on the userland side)
aren't futzing with gcc parameters - they're actually making very difficult
and very real changes that increase performance across the board (kernel,
glibc, etc).

Most of the 'compiler kiddies' playing with compiler optimisations - which
benefit only themselves, and not very greatly at that - are not contributing
much at all, beyond inscrutable backtraces and hard to reproduce bugs. This
adversely affects FOSS development, and is a frustration to developers all
over the place. It ends up being time wasting noise.

Glory to the people making real contributions, and importantly, credit where
credit is due.

- ii

-- 
  Penguinillas Pack GNUzis