The upcoming GCC 3.3+ upgrade

Hello everyone,

Since GCC 3.2.x branch is closed in FSF repository and no further
releases are planned off the 3.2 branch, it was decided that switching
to a more recent and actively maintained GCC 3.3+ is necessary. The
system compiler upgrade is in 5.2 TODO list.

GCC 3.3+ will be a system compiler throughout RELENG_5 lifetime.

Unfortunately, importing a newer GCC means that we'll have yet another
ABI breakage on our hands. GCC 3.3 is more strict in C++ area and
consequently some of the code that used to be OK with 3.2 will no
longer compile. All C++ and C programs using old varargs.h interface
will have to be changed to use stdarg.h instead. GCC 3.3 issues a lot
more warnings and that will affect programs which were previously
WARNS-free. I will commit fixes for most of the warnings in src tree
when a new compiler will be imported. Exceptions are some contributed
sources and the kernel. Warnings in contributed programs should be fixed
in upstream sources and kernel warnings will need attention of people
who know each respective kernel part better than me. I plan to disable
-Werror for kernel for now. Once offending warnings are fixed, -Werror
will be switched back on.

-- 
Alexander Kabaev