MySQL Bugs: #53358: Please remove icc builds from being offered

Bug #53358	Please remove icc builds from being offered
Submitted:	2 May 2010 23:10	Modified:	29 Jun 2011 16:50
Reporter:	Roel Van de Paar	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: Packaging	Severity:	S4 (Feature request)
Version:	Any	OS:	Linux
Assigned to:	Jonathan Perkin	CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
Reasons:
1. The icc packages are limited:
   http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=52911
   They do not contain the InnoDB Plugin, nor SSL
2. gcc performs faster in testing then icc

There is no need anymore to keep generating/providing icc builds.

How to repeat:
N/A

Suggested fix:
Please remove icc builds from being offered.

Closed out bug #52911 and bug #52912 based on this request to remove icc builds altogether.

We stopped producing icc builds a month or so ago across all releases.  Well, we still build them but do not release them, just in case someone pipes up and demands we keep producing them.

So, bug closed.

Changed from closed to documenting, since some documentation updates are needed to say that we no longer routinely distribute these, from when, and why. Otherwise we'll continue to get questions about them from people who think that they are missing something good.

"
Changed from closed to documenting, since some documentation updates are needed to say
that we no longer routinely distribute these, from when, and why.
"

So, I need this information for docs:
* What were the last versions in 5.0.x, 5.1.x, 5.5.x for which icc builds were offered?
* Why did we stop? No performance benefit?
* For 5.1.x, we've been including a notice like this for InnoDB Plugin:
"
In this release, the InnoDB Plugin is included in source and binary
distributions, except RHEL3, RHEL4, SuSE 9 (x86, x86_64, ia64),
generic Linux RPM packages, and any builds produced with the icc
compiler. It also does not work for FreeBSD 6 and HP-UX or for Linux
on generic ia64.
"
I assume that we no longer need to mention icc?

Final releases to include icc were

  5.0.91
  5.1.50
  5.5.5

It was decided there was no reason to continue to provide alternative builds when there were little to no advantages in providing them (and extra work to do so).  We don't do the same for e.g. Solaris by building versions both with Sun Studio and GCC.

Recent 5.5 versions have serious problems when built with icc, to the point where mysqld doesn't even start.  This prompted us to find discussions from a while ago where Product Management decided to just drop icc.  There were additional problems discussed at the time, iirc due to linking, kent may have more information.

I think they made sense some time ago when there were clear performance benefits from doing so, but I don't think that they still hold.

It should be noted that we haven't dropped icc builds completely, we still build our Linux ia64 packages using icc, as it is the recommended compiler for that architecture - it's just the 'duplicate' x86 and x86_64 packages we no longer provide.

Noted in 5.0.91, 5.1.50, 5.5.5 changelogs.

This is the final release of MySQL {5.0,5.1,5.5} for which
MySQL binary distributions built with the icc compiler will be
offered (with the exception of specific IA64 RPM packages for RHEL
and SLES, because icc is the recommended compiler for that platform).
Previously er obtained performance benefits compared to other
available compilers have diminished, and recent versions have begun
to present build and runtime problems.

Re-opening after noticing that the following downloads is available on http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html#download (development releases): mysql-5.5.7-rc-linux2.6-i686-icc.tar.gz

I can't tell why icc builds showed up again in 5.5.7, but that should be an item of the past.

I checked the current releases (for the 5.0, 5.1, and 5.5 series), and in none of them we do offer icc builds AFAICS.

This can be closed, there is no need to document the wrong handling in 5.5.7.