Don't package osx-gcc-installer

[mistydemeo]

I noticed that when a Homebrew user was having some trouble installing things (in Homebrew/legacy-homebrew#20087), they mentioned that Rails Installer distributes osx-gcc-installer on Mac. I wanted to suggest that it'd be better to look at alternatives.

There are a few problems with osx-gcc-installer, especially when using it on modern Mac versions:

• osx-gcc-installer is essentially a stripped-down version of Xcode 4.1, with all of the headers and compilers from that Xcode. That means that some of the tools it includes are more than two years old at this point. For example, the clang it includes, 2.1 build 163, is very very old and can't compile some C++ software correctly.
• Since osx-gcc-installer is a stripped down copy of an old Xcode, installing it for users who already have Xcode and/or the Command Line Tools for Xcode overwrites their new tools with older ones. That can cause some really nasty problems that are hard to track down later.
• The newest version of osx-gcc-installer is built for OS X 10.7; Xcode 4.1 was never released for Mountain Lion. As a result, some of the system headers it installs are outdated and will break some builds, like anything that uses the availability macros. You can see examples of build failures caused by this in mactoolboxglue.c preventing Python installation Homebrew/legacy-homebrew#20062 and Glib failed to build on 10.8.3 Homebrew/legacy-homebrew#20026.

There are some good alternatives to osx-gcc-installer at this point - Apple's official CLT is free and a small download, for example. If what you're specifically looking for is a package that provides Apple's gcc-4.2, one of AT&T's gfortran packages includes the full gcc-4.2 compiler and installs cleanly alongside Xcode/CLT.

[mpapis]

CLT is the plan, the problem is that Apple has nasty licenses and we need approval from them to embed CLT in installer - without embedding or automating the download the whole idea of all in one installer is busted.

I have tried to get some kind of approval from two angles, but still waiting on it, as soon as we get it we will build new version of installer with CLT.

[mistydemeo]

Aha, makes sense. I didn't know you were asking Apple about it.

Keep in mind that, since osx-gcc-installer is an unauthorized derivative of Xcode, it's not actually any more legal for you to include it without permission from Apple than it is to include the CLT.

(And given the problems osx-gcc-installer causes, you really might be better off telling people to download the CLT on their own - even if that means one extra installer package.)

[mpapis]

actually it is legal to use osx-gcc-installer all sources of the programs included in it are published because Apple is bound by the licenses of this programs - so yes we can use it as it's all legal - but it is not supported by Apple, that's another problem, as long as they do not give a license to use freely CLT (without registration) we will be forced to use other software that can provide compilation toolchain for OSX, at this time most complete is osx-gcc-installer and it is what we can provide. We are working on getting the license - I call it get a license that allows free use of free software, that's all on Apple. As soon they let us use the software freely we will do it.

[mistydemeo]

osx-gcc-installer also includes many Apple system headers, not just external open source tools.

[mpapis]

do you mean that there is anything more over http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/developer-tools-41/ ? do you have any pointers to what it is?

[mistydemeo]

Yes - if you take a look at the file list, you'll find that it contains contents from many of the core frameworks in OS X, like CoreServices, etc.

osx-gcc-installer wasn't built from the source from Apple's developer site. It's just .pkg files ripped out of the Xcode 4.1 installer and tossed into a new one.

Here's the full list of files installed by osx-gcc-installer: https://gist.github.com/mistydemeo/5667947 As you can see, it contains a ton of proprietary Apple framework headers along with the open-source commandline tools. (They're the frameworks found in /System/Library/Frameworks, /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/, /Library/Developer/4.0/Instruments/Frameworks/, /Library/Developer/4.0/Instruments/PrivateFrameworks/)

[mpapis]

what I understood from this article http://kennethreitz.com/xcode-gcc-and-homebrew.html from @kennethreitz is that all what's included in https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer is available as opensource / free ... if it's not the case we can repackage excluding what's not should be in there for free distribution.

[samueljohn]

Very interesting discussion.
All I can add is that the osx-gcc-installer really breaks a lot of builds these days :-(
Keep us updated @mpapis if you get approval from Apple. But I am not very hopeful due to their developer license you have to accept to download.

[mistydemeo]

@kennethreitz is incorrect about that; regardless of not including the SDKs, he still has hundreds of the headers from those same frameworks, along with some associated proprietary Apple binaries, etc. For example, the comment at the top of AppleEvents.h from CoreServices as packaged in osx-gcc-installer:

/*
     File:       AppleEvents.r

     Contains:   AppleEvent Package Interfaces.

     Version:    AppleEvents-527.7~1

     Copyright:  � 1989-2008 by Apple Computer, Inc., all rights reserved

     Bugs?:      For bug reports, consult the following page on
                 the World Wide Web:

                     http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/

*/

All of these files are proprietary, Apple doesn't license them for any kind of redistribution.

If you do decide to strip these out and distribute just the open-source contents, why not do that from a current version of Xcode instead of Xcode 4.1?

[MikeMcQuaid]

Even then you can't just go stripping random binaries even if you know they are open-source; you really need to build them from sources yourselves and redistribute and repackage them. Even if/when you do that there's a bunch of stuff that will break as it expects the proprietary headers.

[mistydemeo]

Also, keep in mind that while osx-gcc-installer specifically omits the SDKs, those don't come with the CLT to begin with. They're essentially the same package. Here's the list of what comes with osx-gcc-installer, according to pkgutil --bom:

gcc4.2.pkg/Bom
clang.pkg/Bom
llvm-gcc4.2.pkg/Bom
DeveloperToolsCLI.pkg/Bom
DeveloperToolsSystemSupport.pkg/Bom
VersionedDeveloperToolsSystemSupport.pkg/Bom
XcodeUserSystemSupport.pkg/Bom
DevSDK.pkg/Bom
X11SDK.pkg/Bom

Whereas the CLT comes with only these two packages:

DevSDK.pkg
DeveloperToolsCLI.pkg

The compilers are now directly a part of DeveloperToolsCLI; otherwise, DeveloperToolsCLI and DevSDK include essentially the same things, aside from the CLT being newer. For comparison, here are the files from the two .pkg files in the CLT: https://gist.github.com/mistydemeo/5670162 You can see that they're the same contents, barring Xcode and OS version differences.

[mistydemeo]

Even if/when you do that there's a bunch of stuff that will break as it expects the proprietary headers.

Those headers are one of the two things causing problems with osx-gcc-installer, also - installing the Lion versions of the headers on Mountain Lion leads to mismatches with what's on the system, along with some of the headers the CLT does install.

[mpapis]

all I can say it's thanks to Apple, I will investigate legality of the osx-gcc-installer and will wait a bit for approval to use CLT, if Apple will not be able to cooperate then the only option for railsinstaller will be to build it's own toolchain as suggested by @MikeMcQuaid

[MikeMcQuaid]

I think the ideal outcome for all parties would be Apple allowing redistribution of the CLT. We've tried there before and been unsuccessful but you're able to resolve that: great. Otherwise I'd suggest railsinstaller put it's own toolchain somewhere that only it finds (and not things like e.g. Homebrew).

[samueljohn]

"I think the ideal outcome for all parties would be Apple allowing
redistribution of the CLT"

-> That would be wonderful.