Platforms for release archives are not consistent across releases

[varungandhi-src]

From the Releases page:

LLVM 15.0.7

clang+llvm-15.0.7-arm64-apple-darwin22.0.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.7-powerpc64le-linux-rhel-8.4.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.7-powerpc64le-linux-ubuntu-18.04.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.7-x86_64-apple-darwin21.0.tar.xz 

LLVM 15.0.6

clang+llvm-15.0.6-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.6-arm64-apple-darwin21.0.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.6-armv7a-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.6-powerpc64-ibm-aix-7.2.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.6-powerpc64le-linux-rhel-8.4.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.6-powerpc64le-linux-ubuntu-18.04.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.6-x86_64-linux-gnu-ubuntu-18.04.tar.xz 

LLVM 15.0.5

clang+llvm-15.0.5-arm64-apple-darwin21.0.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.5-powerpc64-ibm-aix-7.2.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.5-powerpc64le-linux-rhel-8.4.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.5-powerpc64le-linux-ubuntu-18.04.5.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.5-x86_64-linux-gnu-ubuntu-18.04.tar.xz 

LLVM 15.0.0

clang+llvm-15.0.0-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-amd64-pc-solaris2.11.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-arm64-apple-darwin21.0.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-armv7a-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-powerpc64-ibm-aix-7.2.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-powerpc64le-linux-rhel-8.4.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-powerpc64le-linux-ubuntu-18.04.6.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-sparc64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-sparcv9-sun-solaris2.11.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.xz
clang+llvm-15.0.0-x86_64-linux-gnu-rhel-8.4.tar.xz 

Some weird things:

• There doesn't seem to be any consistency between which OSes have archives for a given release. Arguably more popular platforms like x86_64 Ubuntu Linux often do not have archives which seems unintentional...
• Sometimes OS versions also include a patch version (e.g. powerpc64le-linux-ubuntu-18.04.5) whereas most of the times they don't.
• There is the aarch64-linux-gnu build but it doesn't say what glibc version is being targeted.

These kinds of factors make consuming pre-built archives from other projects difficult. For example, when consuming LLVM via Bazel in https://github.com/grailbio/bazel-toolchain/blob/master/toolchain/internal/llvm_distributions.bzl, you get seemingly odd errors with certain versions due to the LLVM version x OS version matrix being so inconsistently filled.

I understand Bazel is not officially supported, but it seems any downstream consumer of the archives would run into the same problem.

[asl]

@varungandhi-src These binaries are built by volunteers on best-effort manner, therefore there is no guarantees which binaries are available for which release, etc. In general you should not rely on their presence for any particular version.

Tagging @tstellar

[royjacobson]

If you want to use up to date LLVM with bazel, maybe also take a look at https://github.com/eomii/rules_ll

[varungandhi-src]

These binaries are built by volunteers on best-effort manner

Understood. Is this due to a limitation of appropriate infrastructure not being available? Or is the problem that infrastructure is available but nobody has yet implemented the packaging code which runs on every release?

[asl]

These binaries are built by volunteers on best-effort manner

Understood. Is this due to a limitation of appropriate infrastructure not being available? Or is the problem that infrastructure is available but nobody has yet implemented the packaging code which runs on every release?

Actually, both. See e.g. https://discourse.llvm.org/t/using-github-actions-for-releasing/67666/1