[fpc-devel] How about split core compiler and RTL/Packages?

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Wed, 15 Apr 2026, Marco van de Voort via fpc-devel wrote:

>
> Op 15-4-2026 om 21:14 schreef baldzhang via fpc-devel:
>> My pain points and an idea
>>
>> with 3.2.2 the openssl unit is for version 1.1.x, for now, lots of distro 
> removed openssl 1.1, even in slackware-current
>> I can not upgrade to 3.2.4-rc1 just because it's come with openssl 3, I was 
> stucked then...
>
> Delete the openssl directory in 
> $PREFIX/fpc/$FPCVERSION/units/$FPCTARGET/  and simply add a copy of the 
> units that you want to some dir that you include with -Fu.
>
>> my thinking:
>> is it possible to split to compiler and rtl/packages?
>> after certain period of a release, 6 months or 1 year or by devel team 
> thought, release a updated rtl/packages only version
> This is hard to impossible. And to even attempt it to for the benefit of 
> a package (openssl) that is relatively standalone is counterproductive. 
> It is doing something really hard to fix something really simple.

I would put some nuance to this answer:

Compiler and RTL are intimately bound. Splitting those is indeed next to
impossible.

But packages and most utils are quite independent, with exception of 
the text-mode IDE, as it needs the compiler, and possibly the RTTI unit.

It's not worth it for a single package, but given that there are many
packages, it could be worth it to split them from the compiler/rtl in order
to speed up releases of packages: take the latest released compiler and
bundle it with the packages.

Small exceptions aside, I build all package code to be usable with 3.2.2 as
well, for the simple reason that I want it available in the lazarus IDE.

Michael.