Re: sun2 and playstation2 ports to be moved into Attic

[jnemeth%victoria.tc.ca@localhost (John Nemeth)]

On Apr 4,  6:28pm, Antti Kantee wrote:
} On Fri Nov 13 2009 at 06:36:31 +0900, Izumi Tsutsui wrote:
} > > > > The sun2 and playstation2 ports have been neglected for a long time 
and
} > > > > neither has successfully completed an installation in recent history.
} > > > 
} > > > What's the problem on sun2? Is there any such PR?
} > > 
} > > There was no portmaster.
} > 
} > sparc has own MACHINE_ARCH and no portmaster.
} > What do you think about it?

     sparc is a fairly significant port with lots of users and
developers maintaining it.  It doesn't cause headaches like sun2.
Also, albeit slow by today's standards, the machines are still useful.
Trying to lump the sparc port in with sun2 is rather disingenous.

} sparc has users (well, at least one: me).  Honestly speaking, you are
} the only sun2 user I've heard of, and I did try asking around before
} posting the email.
} 
} > My point is buildable state can't be a reason for removal,
} > and in sun2 case I don't think it's MACHINE_ARCH specific.
} 
} No, but usable state is.  As the story goes, a certain person made an
} effort to get sun2 to build (and said he succeeded), but he ever got
} around to making it work in the emulator.  We did not have any data on
} if sun2 actually worked.

     Even if it does run, is it useful?  Is there any real hardware
left that functions?  According to Wikipedia max. RAM was 8 MB.  Is
that useful for running modern NetBSD and semi-modern apps?

} > > If you are interested in the position, please
} > > take over.
} > 
} > If you really think it's worth to assign a pseudo portmaster
} > just for a placeholder like other many ports, please do.
} 
} The point is to have someone step up and maintain the port.  If you're
} going to maintain it just on paper, we might as well give up now.
} People I've spoken to aren't very interested in editing sun2 release
} notes, requiring the occasional edits to keep up with MACHINE_ARCH
} changes etc.  If someone wants to keep it up to speed with MI changes,
} I'm sure nobody will mind having sun2 around.

     I would add that it must support PIC.  The lack of PIC support is
a major pain in the neck for many things.  Especially in light of the
extremely limited amount of memory it can take.

}-- End of excerpt from Antti Kantee