On Thu, Aug 08, 2002 at 10:20:25AM -0700, Brian Buhrow wrote:

> It makes me wonder how long NetBSD should try to continue supporting
> the Sun4c line.  Many of those machines are well over 10 years old
> now, and I wonder, realistically, how many are still in use by
> developers and testers.  I know of some in production use, but they're
> definitely on the retirement track.

NetBSD will support machines as long as there is someone willing to do
the support.  it still supports the pc532, of which there exist probably
less than 100 machines in the whole world.  there were orders of
magnitude more sun4cs produced.  ;)

support for this old hardware and obsolete architectures is the acid
test for NetBSD's claimed portability.  difficult architectures like the
4c are the proof that NetBSD is portable.

apparently the sparc port has been having trouble lately keeping up its
portability claims.  however, that fact that someone noticed the
problem, that there are people genuinely concerned about it, and that
work is being made on fixing the problem indicates to me that
portability really is an important one for the NetBSD project, and not
just an empty claim.

> How hard is it for developers to maintain backward compatibility
> effectively when there's no testing base to prove that it still works?

I can't tell if you're being rhetorical here or not.  obviously it _IS_
difficult to test on hardware you don't have access too, and apparently
the sparc maintainers either don't have that hardware, or don't
regularly perform checks on 4c machines.  that's exactly where
non-experts like you and I come in.  the project needs everybody to do
what work they can -- that's what keeps it going.

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier@poofygoof.com
    "i'm convinced that the cray cabinet has an outlet for plugging in
    welding attachments."  --  Skeezics Boondoggle, on the cray CS6400