On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 7:09 AM, David Edelsohn <dje....@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 1:53 AM, Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowl...@kev009.com> > wrote: >> In the GCC 4.5 announcement: >> >> "Support for the classic POWER architecture implemented in the >> original RIOS and RIOS2 processors of the old IBM RS/6000 product line >> has been obsoleted in the rs6000 port. This does not affect the new >> generation Power and PowerPC architectures." >> >> What needs to be done to keep this code alive? It seems fairly light >> weight. I can provide remote access to AIX POWER2 hardware if needed. > > Why should this code be maintained? > > Andrew Haley's well-intentioned comments are completely off the mark. > > Linux does not run on POWER1 or POWER2 hardware. Recent versions of > AIX do not run on it. The hardware no longer is supported by IBM. > > Even if GCC can build and run on such a system, support for the > original POWER ISA complicates the rs6000 port. While the support is > fairly mechanical, it is large and bulky. Because of some other > improvements the maintainers of the rs6000 port wish to make, we plan > to remove classic POWER support to simplify the implementation of the > new features. > > If there is a user community relying on modern versions of GCC for use > on those systems, I would reconsider. One person saying he has access > to an AIX POWER2 system and retaining the support seems like a cool > idea is not a reason to devote the resources. GCC's mission is not to > support every system in a computer history museum. Older versions of > GCC created at the time of those systems still will work on those > systems. > > Thanks, David
This is an unfortunate attitude many people have in free software these days, especially big business contributors with profit-aligned motives. Linus weighs in on a similar dissent here: http://lwn.net/Articles/339455/. I'm currently working on the NetBSD port: http://www.netbsd.org/ports/rs6000/. I also have patches that boot the Linux kernel. Quite simply, this stuff is interesting to me. I am not a professional systems programmer. This project has a low bar of entry and serves a pedagogic purpose to me. I can't compete with professional arch maintainers that handle the lower level on modern hardware, nor do I have a POWER7 to call my own. Finally, the CPU is used in a variety of embedded applications. There are over 200 RSC(POWER1) RAD6000 in space [1], including a launch in Feb 2010. While compiler choice in this application is almost certainly static, GCC support provides interesting options for these folks since you can't beam up a Core i7 just because it's fashionable. Regards, Kevin Bowling [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RAD6000
