Hello Julian, On Tue, Mar 10 2026, Julian Waters via Gcc wrote: > That would be very helpful for Linux, I'd imagine! Cross compiling can > be quite troublesome to deal with, I definitely feel that pain. > > One thing I'm uncertain about though, I recall reading in the rules > somewhere that working on documentation only is not allowed for Google > Summer of Code. This likely falls under that rule. I don't only plan > on doing a documentation change and nothing else of course, but I'm > not sure if that documentation about gcc for Windows compiled on Linux > can go together with unrelated code changes in the actual compiler for > the proposal.
you are correct, rule 1.27 of [1] says that "Projects do not include projects for documentation only." So if anything, it could only be a minor part of such project and the main bits would need to be something else. Good luck! Martin [1] https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/rules > > best regards, > Julian > > On Tue, Mar 10, 2026 at 10:03 PM Richard Biener > <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On Tue, Mar 10, 2026 at 2:42 PM Julian Waters via Gcc <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > >> > Hi all, >> > >> > I intend to join the Google Summer of Code programme for 2026 under >> > gcc, to work on the compiler. I have previously authored 2 commits to >> > the compiler, commit f6c5f83 which introduced a feature test macro for >> > the active Windows threading model and a more significant commit with >> > the help of many others, commit 0aea633 which implements Windows >> > native Thread Local Storage, allowing gcc to bypass emutls for >> > Windows. >> > >> > Historically, gcc does not receive as much attention and maintenance >> > for its Windows port as it does for its main platforms, which leads to >> > it lagging behind the primary platforms, such as Linux based ones, >> > pretty significantly in terms of robustness, resulting in features and >> > other areas of the compiler simply being broken and not working >> > properly on Windows, as is reported by some users. As a primarily >> > Windows user of gcc, I wish to improve at least these pain points with >> > using gcc to compile for Windows targets, whether it may be broken or >> > missing features, to benefit my own work that uses gcc heavily and >> > also others that use the compiler for Windows targets. I will be >> > proposing work for such improvement on Windows as my Google Summer of >> > Code application. >> > >> > To do this, I'm collating a list of all the issues and missing >> > features for gcc with this target. While I do have a few already >> > written down, I'd like to know/hear about as many issues that the >> > community may know of with using gcc as a Windows compiler so I can >> > add them to my list, so I have a better picture of everything that >> > needs to be done to improve gcc for Windows. I initially thought of >> > looking at https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/WindowsGCCImprovements but it's >> > become clear that the page is, unfortunately, hopelessly outdated >> > (Listing Exception Handling as a potential idea when it's already been >> > implemented, and even mentioning the GNU Java compiler!). >> >> I can share my issue with facing *mingw* specific bugreports - I am >> developing on Linux and lack a way to setup enough of a system >> to assemble and link testcases, for example to debug LTO issues. >> >> For non-native linux I can use chroots and qemu where I can then >> even run executables. >> >> So any kind of "How to develop GCC _for_ *mingw* on a *-linux host" >> starter guide would be great! >> >> Disclaimer: I never spent much time searching for that, but a few >> google/wiki searches never turned up something I considered useful. >> >> Thanks, >> Richard. >>
