Second round in nlnet bootstrapping

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+Title: More work, more people, more energy — thanks NlNet
+Date: 2023-07-17
+Category:
+Tags: Bootstrapping GCC in RISC-V
+Slug: bootstrapGcc7
+Lang: en
+Summary:
+    Now it's time to focus on combining all the previous work and making it
+    production ready. NlNet for the rescue, again.
+
+I might become a little bit famous in this small world of Guix, RISC-V and
+bootstrapping after my [FOSDEM talk of this year][fosdem23] and the work I did
+during 2021 and 2022, that you can follow in this [series of posts][series] I'm
+going on with right now.
+
+All that I write here is nothing I did alone. Many people helped me to make
+this happen, but in the end it is me the one that writes here and makes the
+noise. So, before explaining anything else, I want to thank everyone that is
+involved in the process.
+
+I also want to thank [NLNet / NGI-Assure][nlnet] for funding the project.
+Without there wouldn't be anything to discuss here. They just enabled this work
+with their funds.
+
+[nlnet]: https://nlnet.nl/project/GNUMes-RISCV/
+[fosdem23]: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/guixriscv/
+[series]: https://ekaitz.elenq.tech/tag/bootstrapping-gcc-in-risc-v.html
+
+The work is done, it was funded and it was finished. I backported RISC-V
+support to GCC, and I also backported the RISC-V support to the bootstrappable
+TinyCC, but that's not enough. All that I did has to be combined with the whole
+bootstrapping toolchain, so it's time for more.
+
+
+### A new way
+
+Even with all the help, during the project I felt alone. The codebases are huge
+(GCC is millions LoC), or very badly written (tcc I'm looking at you) and there
+are tons of moving parts (Hex0, M1, M2-Planet, Mes, tcc, bootstrappable tcc,
+gcc, all the libcs...). It's really hard to know everything and none of us know
+all the ecosystem deeply so many times there's none to ask for help. You are
+alone.
+
+This might seem a good thing, a challenge, and it is, but it's also very energy
+consuming. I did all I could and I'm not sure if I can take this a lot further
+by myself.
+
+Now, the project has evolved. We have most of the dots and it's time to draw
+the line that connects them.
+
+In order to do that we need more collaboration as each of us has become an
+expert in a different part of the chain. Also, many new problems will arise
+from the interaction between the different parts.
+
+Knowing that, this time I proposed something else: I wanted to make a larger
+project where more people would collaborate and I asked NlNet for the funds to
+continue the work from that perspective.
+
+That's good because we can pay every person involved on this according to their
+implication[^surprise].
+
+[^surprise]: It might sound really surprising to some, but some of the people
+  involved on this are paid zero money for their time at the moment, and they
+  are doing great improvements. This is a topic for a huge discussion but, in
+  summary: work is work, and you should get paid for it.
+
+### NlNet / NGI Assure
+
+Of course, I wouldn't be writing this if NlNet didn't give us the funds.
+
+So, yes: NlNet decided to fund us. Big thanks to them and to NGI Assure.
+
+<style>
+.container{
+    display: flex;
+    flex-flow: row wrap;
+    justify-content: center;
+    gap: 40px;
+}
+.no-side-margin{
+    margin:  0px;
+}
+</style>
+<div class="container">
+<img class="no-side-margin" src="{attach}/bootstrapGcc/nlnet.svg"     width=200px>
+<img class="no-side-margin" src="{attach}/bootstrapGcc/NGIAssure.svg" width=200px>
+</div>
+
+
+### The work
+
+As I introduced in the [Fosdem talk][fosdem23], there's a lot of integration
+work to do.
+
+During the last year I focused on backporting the RISC-V support to GCC and the
+Bootstrappable TinyCC. I did that because I knew that would enable more work on
+the whole chain of compilers we use in the bootstrapping process. But also
+because I could just focus on a very specific part, forgetting about the whole
+chain for a moment.
+
+Now it's time to start combining all the work together.
+
+The funding includes enough tasks to make the full source bootstrapping for
+RISC-V. This is a summary of the tasks:
+
+- Finish GNU Mes' RISC-V support
+- Build the Bootstrappable TinyCC using GNU Mes' RISC-V support added in the
+  first task
+- Fix the backported GCC 4.6.4 package to include C++ support and fix missing
+  functionality
+- Build the backported GCC 4.6.4
+- Build the upstream GCC 7.5 or higher with the backported GCC 4.6.4
+- Package the whole process and include it in Guix's commencement module
+- Review the associated projects and fix the possible issues
+- Document all the process
+
+You are probably not familiar enough with the whole thing to know what they
+really mean but some of them are **really hard**.
+
+I'll go into more detail on all of them as we work on them, so don't worry at
+the moment.
+
+### The feelings
+
+I'm not very excited with this project anymore. The tasks you can see in the
+previous block are not good for a person like me. I really struggle with them:
+configuring development environments, fixing weird imports, etc. It's hard for
+me, intellectually and emotionally.
+
+I already did the parts that interested me the most and I want to move on to
+something else.
+
+Why ask for more funds then?
+
+Well, lets say it plainly: the funds are not for me. I'm using the success I
+had with the previous project and the interest NlNet has on it to fund other
+people to finish the work.
+
+Whoever that makes the task will get the budget associated to it.
+
+The plan here is to help coordinate other people to make the tasks, but not
+really do them myself. I don't discard it though. I'll probably need to work on
+some of them.
+
+The fact that I'm the one that presented the proposal doesn't mean the proposal
+is for me. The proposal is for **you**.
+
+### The people
+
+I already managed to involve two fellow hackers and I made the proposal with
+them as collaborators:
+
+- **Efraim Flashner**, who has been working on the RISC-V port of most of the
+  Guix packages is going to take part in this second stage of the project as he
+  knows better than anyone else what's the status of RISC-V in Guix.
+- **Danny Milosavljevic**, who worked in the bootstrapping process for ARM also
+  agreed to get involved in this.
+
+But there's more people involved even if they are not part of the proposal
+directly:
+
+- **Jan Nieuwenhuizen** (Janneke) is the Mes author and maintainer.
+- **Andrius Štikonas** is deeply involved in the bootstrapping process, too. Making
+  a lot of patches to live-bootstrap, Mes, Hex0, M2-Planet and so on.
+- **Juliana Sims** has also shown interest in the project because she has been
+  involved in RISC-V related projects before.
+
+You can be part of them too!
+
+If you want to join us, feel free to contact me to `riscv-effort@elenq.tech` or
+join `#bootstrappable` in `libera.chat` and ping me there.
+
+I'm sure we all will learn a lot together during the process.
+
+
+### Closing words
+
+So, in summary, I'm just introducing a new part of this adventure. Thanks to
+NlNet, we can take all the work we have been doing separately on Mes, GCC,
+TinyCC, Hex0, M2-Planet and so on and finally combine it all together.
+
+This is a huge effort, but hopefully we'll manage to do it, learn a lot in
+the process and get paid.
+
+We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you all informed.
+
+Take care.