Subject: pthreads proposal
To: None <tech-userlevel@netbsd.org>
From: Michael Graff <explorer@flame.org>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 03/24/1999 13:09:10
Right now, the mit-pthreads package is more or less useless.  It
works, sorta, on a few platforms, but doesn't really work or "fit in"
well on any.

Most of this seems to be caused by the header files included with
pthreads, which are an ancient version of NetBSD-0.9 header files in
some cases.

What I'd like to do is this:

	(1) make our standard header files more pthreads-friendly in
            ways that won't require a lot of work when/if we get a
            real threads system in place later,
	(2) remove all the header file mangling going on in the
            pthreads package, and use the system-included ones in
            stead,
	(3) make the pthreads package install just the two compiler
            front-ends, the pthreads.h header file, and the
            libraries.

This seems to be the cleanest way to get threads working reasonably
well again, without seeing tons of warnings fly by when compiling and
linking application code.

Problems with this:

	(1) It won't let this package work on solaris anymore, or at
            least that isn't my intent to maintain that
            compatibility.  This is the NetBSD package source, right?

	(2) The mit-threads release is probably the wrong one to start
            with.  There has been more work in other places that was
            based on the latest release of mit-pthreads, so perhaps
            using one of those would be better.

--Michael