[gentoo-dev] Changing policy about -Werror

[Andrew Savchenko]

Hi!

Our current -Werror policy demands unconditional removal:
https://devmanual.gentoo.org/ebuild-writing/common-mistakes/index.html#-werror-compiler-flag-not-removed

I think this is wrong, see bugs 665464, 665538 for a recent
discussion why.

My point is that in *most* cases -Werror indeed should be removed,
because upstream rarely can keep up with all possible configure,
*FLAGS, compiler versions and arch combinations. But! In some cases
— especially for security oriented software — this flag may be
pertain and may be kept at maintainer's discretion.

The rationale is that -Werror usually points to dangerous
situations like uninitialized variables, pointer type mismatch or
implicit function declaration (and much more) which may lead to
serious security implications.

So, if maintainer has enough manpower to support this flag, we
should allow to keep it. Of course if it will cause long-standing
troubles (e.g. bugs opened for a long time) QA should have power to
remove it or demand its removal.

So my proposal is:

1) Deprecate QA policy with unconditional demand of -Werror removal.
2) Add to devmanual's chapter on -Werror an exception clause about
security-oriented software and maintainer's right to make final
decision.

Best regards,
Andrew Savchenko