Re: Regarding the ULTRIX and OSF1 compats

[Jason Thorpe <thorpej%me.com@localhost>]

> On Mar 16, 2019, at 11:29 AM, Johnny Billquist <bqt%softjar.se@localhost> wrote:
> 
> On 2019-03-16 19:25, Jason Thorpe wrote:
>>> On Mar 16, 2019, at 6:43 AM, Johnny Billquist <bqt%softjar.se@localhost> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Make it work - don't remove it.
>> That's rich.  With some of the things we're talking about, "make it work" (or "keep it working") is a very resource-intensive proposition.
>> Hey, I have an idea... since you care so much about it, why don't YOU step up and "make it work" / "keep it working".
>> Seriously, at some point, those who care about these things so much need to be putting in the effort to keep them going.  It's completely unfair to others working on the rest of there system to place the entire burden on them, especially when we're talking about things that are, by their nature, niche applications that require special resources.
> 
> Fair enough viewpoint.
> To which my response is, then state this openly and clearly. And then people can decide if they want to run NetBSD or if they should look elsewhere.
> 
> As for me personally, yes, I am certainly guilty of mostly making noise, and few contributions. I used to do a bit more, but mostly on VAX specific stuff. But since other were making changes all the time, making the VAX port less and less usable, I instead stopped trying to fix things. So maybe I should just leave/fork/whatever. That is I guess, the way I should view all of this.

The NetBSD project even publicly states on the ports page (https://www.netbsd.org/ports/) that some platforms are more equal than others, and that it's the responsibility of those who care deeply about a non-Tier 1 platform to keep it in tip-top shape.  This is not an unreasonable position.

And, we're also extremely lucky that the Tier 1 platforms have a fair bit of overlap with several Tier 2 platforms...  For example, if evbarm is working well, then it's fairly reasonable to assume that the Tier 2 ARM platforms work pretty OK as well, since a significant amount of code for 32-bit evbarm platforms is shared with Tier 2 ARM platforms.

The same can be said for evbmips and evbppc.

Fun fact: a Tier 2 platform is included in regular automated regression testing.  It's not like the Project isn't making an effort here.

But, consider your VAX example... even though there is a very good emulation environment available for VAX, the project is partially hamstrung by factors not necessarily under its control, e.g. the quality of compilers available for the VAX.  As I recently discovered while trying to do my own due diligence widely testing a set of cross-platform changes, C++ exceptions don't work on the VAX at all right now, so the ATF tests can't be run.  Perhaps someone who cares deeply about the VAX ought to fix the situation.  But if no one steps up, then it's fair to assume that no one in fact cares deeply about the VAX[*], and thus spending human productivity on it is not the best allocation of resources.

[*] Don't get me wrong, I really like the VAX, and I would like to see support for it live on.  But it's not the hill I'm willing to die on (historically, I personally have more of my own human productivity invested in things that have a 68030 or 68040 inside, and I'm not really even willing to go to the mat for m68k, either... though a usable simulator that actually emulated a real machine correctly might get me to at least consider it... no, please, offers of hardware will not be considered...)

-- thorpej