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CompilerPolicy Change
Summary
Fedora has historically forced packages to build with GCC unless the upstream project for the package only supported Clang/LLVM. This change proposal replaces that policy with one where compiler selection for Fedora follows the package's upstream preferences.
Owner
- Name: Jeff Law
- Email: law@redhat.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 33
- Last updated: 2020-05-17
- FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
- Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
- Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
Detailed Description
The main goal here is to make selection of the compiler to build a package flow from upstream in an effort to preserve our development resources. In cases where there is no upstream the Fedora package maintainer should be allowed to make the compiler choice for the package. For packages where upstream does not have a strong compiler preference, we should (for now) stick with the status quo to avoid unnecessary churn.
Benefit to Fedora
This change allows packages to be built with whatever compiler the upstream project recommends/supports. Thus, Fedora package owners no longer need to spend time making a package work with GCC if the upstream project is using Clang/LLVM.
An obvious example is Firefox. Upstream, the Firefox project builds primarily with Clang/LLVM. Yet we force the Fedora package owner to find and fix issues building with GCC then either carry those custom fixes forward in Fedora or negotiate with upstream to get those changes upstreamed. This is a poor use of the packager's time.
Additionally Fedora loses the benefit of the testing provided by other distributions where Firefox is compiled in the same way as the upstream project -- when issues arise the Fedora team must consider the possibility that the problem is due to using GCC instead of Clang/LLVM or the patches to make that possible. Again, this is a poor use of Fedora developer's time.
In the immediate term this change in policy only affects a few packages (Firefox, Chromium and perhaps a few others). The benefit will likely expand over time.
Scope
- Proposal owners:
Update the Fedora Packaging Guidelines to reflect the policy change.
- Other developers:
Developers working with packages where upstream builds with Clang/LLVM, but Fedora policy has forced the package to build with GCC should update their packages to build with Clang/LLVM, dropping all Fedora specific changes that were necessary to make the package build with GCC.
Firefox and Chromium are known to be impacted, there may be other packages. While there is no specific timeframe where this would need to be accomplished as the existing packages are already building with GCC, getting the conversion done earlier rather than later seems beneficial. Failure to identify all the impacted packages is not a catastrophic failure, we just fail to reap the benefits in the immediate term.
- Release engineering: #Releng issue number (a check of an impact with Release Engineering is needed)
- Policies and guidelines:
Yes, the packaging guidelines certainly need to be updated for this feature. That can happen as soon as the exact text is agreed upon. Development work on packages such as Firefox or Chrome can happen as soon FESCO agrees to the change while the final packaging guideline text is hammered out.
- Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
Upgrade/compatibility impact
This should not require any configuration changes or data migration, nor should it change existing functionality.
How To Test
For packages where the compiler should change, the package owner will need to update the spec file and build the package with the new compiler. Once done, the package's testsuite should be run (if it's not part of the standard build process).
In general, I would think the standard Fedora QE work should be sufficient here, perhaps with a bit of additional attention to the affected packages. The graphical nature of some of the affected packages like Firefox and Chrome will make testing difficult on some of Fedora's architectures.
User Experience
Users should not notice any change.
Dependencies
One the policy change is made a set of packages will need to be updated. Firefox and Chrome are known to be affected. There may be others. It seems like the Fedora package owners are in the best position to know if their package is affected by the policy change.
It is useful to remember that the packages as they exist today still work. Therefore if a package which should change is not identified now, it will continue to work. Similarly if the package owner does not have the time to implement the change right now, the existing package will continue to work.
Contingency Plan
The backup plan is trivial. We can keep the current policy in place.
If the policy change is approved, but a particular package has not switched to the upstream preferred compiler, the package can continue to build with GCC until the package maintainer has the time to make the change for their particular package.
Failure to convert any particular package should not create any downstream or distribution wide delays.
- Contingency mechanism:
It seems like we could institute the policy change anytime we choose. But it also seems like once the policy change is in place, packages that are going to convert should do so before beta freeze.
- Contingency deadline: Fedora can ship with this feature in an incomplete state.
- Blocks release? No
- Blocks product? N/A
Documentation
Several years ago Red Hat's tools team championed for Fedora policy to strongly discourage the use of LLVM/Clang for package building. Exceptions were made for packages that could only be built with Clang/LLVM:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/#compiler
At that point in history Red Hat had no Clang/LLVM engineers or expertise. In
fact, the LLVM packages were actually maintained by an engineer on the desktop
team (they had a hard requirement for llvm-pipe, so they got to own the
Clang/LLVM bits). The policy essentially was a risk management strategy for
Fedora.
Times have changed and as a result we should revisit that Fedora policy.
The tools team believes that LLVM/Clang and GCC should be considered equals from a Fedora policy standpoint. Selection of one toolchain over the should should be driven by the upstream project's preferences not by Fedora specific policy.
What that means in practice is that if the project upstream prefers Clang/LLVM, then Fedora should in turn be using Clang/LLVM to build those packages. As a concrete example, let's consider Chrome.
Chrome upstream has been building with Clang/LLVM for several years. Yet policy has forced Fedora package owners to shoulder a significant burden to make it build with GCC. Furthermore, Fedora does not get as much benefit at it could by forcing Chrome to be built with GCC since most other instances are built with Clang/LLVM.
By changing policy Fedora package maintainers no longer have to waste time trying to make Chrome build/work with GCC and Fedora gains additional "many eyes" and "many users" benefits by relying on the same tools to build Chrome as the upstream developers and other distributions.
Additionally, if an upstream project currently uses GCC, but switches to Clang/LLVM (or vice-versa), then the package in Fedora should switch in a similar manner.
In some ways this means there is no "default" compiler for Fedora. The default is whatever the upstream project supports/recommends. However, there are probably many packages with upstreams that are ambivalent about their compiler choice. For those packages I would recommend we keep the status quo at the current time. For a package with a dead upstream, the Fedora packager should be able to select the compiler they want to use for the package.
Release Notes
This change should not have any end user impacts nor does it strictly require a release note. However, a short release note could be written if FESCO or the development community thinks it would be useful.