RE: [Axiom-developer] RE: cross-compiling Axiom

[C Y]

Gaby, just for my own information:

Is this issue similar to (say) compiling CMUCL or SBCL for a new
platform, working from a current one?

I always understood cross-compiliation to be the production of a binary
for a platform that does not currently have any existing binary, using
a running binary on a second system.  This means, in general, that the
software on the second system must understand how to write a valid
binary for the first, and also that the software itself not depend
explicitly on behavior not exhibited by the second system.  

More specificly, does distribution cross-compilation imply that for
some machine types/targets, the target machine type is never actually
used to build any software - instead, an existing machine of a
different type is used to create the binaries for the targeted arch? 
And unless a distribution can compile binaries for machines completely
different from the one the software is actually being built on, then
they can't distribute a particular package (the logic being it is too
much work to have N machines for N archs, some of which might be
substantually less powerful than the build machines?)

I would have thought if GCL was able to do this then Axiom probably
would be able to too, give or take the non-lisp parts of the system -
am I missing something?  Or is GCL in fact not able to be distributed
for similar reasons?  I would be interested to know how Maxima fairs in
this situation.

Cheers, and thanks again for all your hard work.

CY

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com