https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=81084
--- Comment #31 from Segher Boessenkool <segher at gcc dot gnu.org> --- (In reply to John Paul Adrian Glaubitz from comment #30) > > The announcement of the intent to obsolete the port has been posted already > > more than a year ago, if you look in the comments in this PR, you'll see > > numerous pings, despite which no (significant) action has been taken. > > Well, not everyone can be on every list, so it's easy to miss such > announcements. It would have been announced in gcc-7/changes.html (linked from the announcement on gcc-announce@, I do hope you read that?), but instead of obsoleting SPE support in the rs6000 port we split off the powerpcspe port, which was promised to be maintained. Now that that does not seem to be happening, it will be obsoleted anyway. Someone needs to do the work. > We have users who are using Debian on these targets, even on m68k because > retro computing is very popular around that CPU. m68k needs some serious work, too, in the not far future (if the cc0 removal finally goes through -- that has been over ten years now). > So, I think it would be fair if important upstream projects like gcc could > send a message to downstream projects like Debian in such cases, to give at > least users of certain ports a notice if there are any concerns upstream. Read gcc-announce@. It's what it is for. Only a few posts per year :-) > > GCC backends need active maintainance, including regular testing, reporting > > regressions and fixing those, otherwise they are only significant burden to > > other maintainers and not really useful to users. > > I am aware of that. But the thing is, the backend in question works fine at > the moment. I would agree with your stance if we were seeing any serious > issues with it. But that's currently not the case, so I don't understand > this particular action. > > Is there anything specific bug that blocks things at the moment that we are > missing downstream? A port does not need maintenance only for that port, and its users, but also for GCC itself. All ports are a cost to _all_ GCC developers. If a port is not maintained it has to be removed. Segher
