In the criteria for primary plattforms I've read that primary plattforms
have to be "popular systems". Reading this as "widely used" I think that
this will be a requirement which mainframes are unlikely to meet in the
near future, so I propose to make s390 and s390x secondary plattforms for
now. I think this can be important to show users that gcc works reliably
on S/390 and that it can be expected to do so in the future as well.
But how do you meansre "popular system" or "widely used". Number
installed? Revenue from sales? Number of applications? Number of
companies using the products?
I find that people are often likely to have VERY peculiar notions
of the mainframe business, and indeed have met many who seem to
think that mainframes have disappeared! Most extraordinary. The
S/390 is still a very important system by any reasonable criterion,
and likely to be for a while (when you call an airline, you are
not talking to an application running on a Dell PC :-))
I would think it perfectly reasonable for the S/390 to be
considered a primary platform on the popularity basis, but
of course it has to have a level of support that is
consistent with this. What *is* happening is that fewer
and fewer people are aware of this technology, so free
software support is what is likely to be available in
the near future.
For a small window into the real situation, see
http://www.forbes.com/2005/12/06/ibm-earnings-mainframes-1206markets05.html
IBM is expecting strong revenue growth from the introduction
of the new mainframe series in September.
