Re: Discussion about why GNU/Linux system upgrades cause old programs to break

> From: Richard Stallman <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
> Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2026 12:48:58 -0400
> 
>   > Please consider the plight of the person who bumps into these problems
>   > and needs to solve them so the program (which built and worked for
>   > ages) will build again.  At the very least, they need to:
> 
>   >   . realize such an option exists
>   >     - indexing of the manual is not a great help here: there are no
>   >       index entries in the Concept Index leading directly to it; a
>   >       few entries that mention some of the relevant warnings do lead
>   >       to the "Warning Options" node, but the node is very long
>   >   . read and understand the description of each of the -Wfoo warnings
>   >     it disables and decide whether it's applicable and if so, whether
>   >     it's desirable to disable it
>   >   . preferably understand the significance of C Standard versions to
>   >     which the manual alludes, and their relation to the program's code
> 
>   > This requires non-trivial knowledge of the C Standard and related
>   > subjects, and also non-trivial amount of tenacity, let alone time and
>   > effort.
> 
> We should make sure that a user who wants to build a program
> that as worked since years before on the same kind of platform
> doesn't need to do anything hard like this.

If possible, sure.

> How about if certain errors print an advisory message
> suggesting what options the user could try to make the program work again?

If that is possible in practice (I don't know, and think we should ask
the GCC developers), it would be a great help, yes.