A compilation farm for GCC

April 5th, 2009, for immediate release

Under Laurent Guerby's initiative, the FSF France [1] is making available to Free Software developers a compilation farm [2]. This unique compilation farm offers over ten different architectures supported by two dozens computers.

For software to work, it needs to be understood by the computer on which it is running. The compiler is in charge of reinterpret the program and make it understandable and functional on the machine. GCC is the most used Free Software compiler in the community, and as it evolves, it is vital to check that it continues to work over all architectures. That is why the FSF France collects and makes available a wide range of computers with numerous architectures. These machines were kindly donated by individuals, companies, government agencies and manufacturers (LRI, INRIA, AMD, Marvell, Loria, HP...) and are hosted for free all over France by companies, associations and individuals (Skyrock, Mekensleep, Macaq, INRIA, Jexiste, LRI, ESIEE...).

Students, researchers and companies exploring new compilation techniques can test the validity of their techniques on these computers. Over the last quarter, several computers were added to the compilation farm, now reaching two dozens computers and a dozen different architectures.

The modus operandi to gain access to this farm is very simple: you just need to contact Laurent Guerby. In addition, in order to help and support the development of the compilation farm, we welcome all new ideas and all new proposals to participate to projects already referenced on the website.

References

[1] - http://www.fsffrance.org/

[2] - GCC Compile Farm Project

About Free Software Foundation France

The FSF France (http://www.fsffrance.org/) is a non-profit organization dedicated to all aspects of Free Software. Access to software determines who may participate in a digital society. Therefore the freedoms to use, copy, modify and redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition - allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSF France.

Press contacts

Loïc Dachary. E-mail : loic@gnu.org Phone : +33 6 64 03 29 07

Frédéric Couchet. E-mail : fcouchet@fsffrance.org Phone : +33 6 60 68 89 31