Rethinking Fedora's compiler policy

“ I would say it is backwards - allowing packages to use any compiler would make it more likely the code bases would be portable across compilers (like the Linux kernel that has gained mainstream support for Clang compilation relatively recently).”

This is addressed in the article. In practice, projects below a certain size will often gravitate towards a single compiler. Upstream will only work with that one, and if downstreams don’t do anything, they’ll move towards that. It’s just easier.

The kernel is more than large enough to generate its own gravity and suck people towards it - Clang is changing so it can build the kernel. And, yes, the kernel is being adjusted to clang support, but that’s because communities of clang users want to build the kernel with it - the kernel is pulling *them* in.

This doesn’t happen with smaller projects. If the project isn’t big enough to drive interest from communities that want specific compilers, it will take the path of least resistance. So if it gets hard to build it with a second compiler, they’ll probably just shrug.