On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 7:29 PM, Paul Brook <p...@codesourcery.com> wrote: >> you have to bear in mind that "future porting" *used* to be very >> uncommon an occurrence (as if doing it 14 times is "uncommon") >> >> but with the massive explosion in compiler options for ARM processors >> alone, the process of "porting" now becomes a massive headache. > > Really? AFAIK
precisely. as far as you know. (and it also has to be said "as far as _any_ of us know") > the only really interesting option (soft vs. hard float ABI) has > already been done. interesting to whom? the point being: the moment you start dictating what is "interesting" then you automatically exclude a bunch of people. it doesn't _matter_ what options you choose and declare as "interesting": that _automatically_ excludes everybody else's (preferred) options. > I guess we might want a big-endian port eventually, but ok, yes. fantastic - there you go, you came up with an example. so you see, we can't guess the future, but despite that - no in fact _because_ we cannot guess the future, it is ridiculous to make people such as martin and konstantinous (and then the next "future" person, and the next, and the next, and the next) work f*****g hard each and every time: it puts up a massive barrier and limits the possibilities for debian as a whole. .... here's the thing, you see: because i've used openembedded to build three standard distros and create two of my own, for _six_ radically different architectures over the past five years, i look at debian each time and i go "absolutely no way i'm using debian for this project". absolutely every time, i have to turn back to openembedded. that's how much debian is limiting the options, here. the only reason i got debian working on an S3C6410 9in laptop was because frans did the debian-installer port, and the S3C6410 is an existing armel architecture. of all the [so-called] "embedded" architecture i've ever used, that S3C6410 project was the *only* one i ever used debian. that should tell you something, especially as i love debian. > I'd expect that any vaguely automated > system for such builds would bitrot rapidly, and require significant > maintenance. please read what i wrote last week, although it is quite long, for which i have already apologised, as it contains a process for minimising and mitigating both the bitrot and the maintenance. l. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-arm-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlkti=uxnw8e0ogznyxfk1rh6zsosu_xb3wkwqu6...@mail.gmail.com
