On 27 February 2018 at 13:51, Mason wrote: > On 17/02/2018 01:58, Tim wrote: > >> potential GCC 5.5.0 bug? FTR the bug was filed as https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=84451 and closed as a dup. > I'm confused: I thought the GCC 5.x branch stopped being supported > when the GCC 7.x branch was released, i.e. in May 2017. > > Yet, GCC 5.5 was released in October 2017. > > https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2017-10/msg00064.html > https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2017-10/msg00065.html > > Apparently, the branch was closed right after the 5.5 release. > > Is this done for the benefit of long-term distributions, such as RHEL? We don't close the oldest supported branch as soon as a new major release is out, we usually do one final release from the old branch: https://gcc.gnu.org/develop.html#timeline Otherwise any fixes that have accumulated on the old branch never get released. Waiting until after the new major release also means people are not trying to fix problems on trunk and also backport things to the outgoing branch at the same time, racing to get things into the final release from the branch.
