This is a request for freeze exception for including a set of new packages in maverick: armel-cross-toolchain-base, armel-cross-toolchain, and gcc-defaults-armel-cross. These packages build-depend on the eglibc, GCC, and binutils source and provide a set of Ubuntu-style packages containing cross-compilers for the armel architecture.
These packages are currently staged in a ppa at https://launchpad.net/~hrw/+archive/arm-cross-compiler/, and a git repository is available at <git://github.com/hrw/linaro-armel-cross-toolchain.git>. These packages are widely useful to anyone doing development work targeting ARM systems, few of which have resources today for native builds.
As entirely new packages, the risks from late inclusion to the archive are minimal; nevertheless it was our intention to get these in before feature freeze, but delivery has slipped because of a dependency on the various fixes needed in the base toolchain packages to support this, so a FFe is now needed. If the FFe is not granted, the packages will continue to be distributed via PPA.
Looking at the changes involved and the fact that the packages are separate and do not adversely effect the archive, I'm happy to grant FFe approval.