Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:54:03 +1000 From: Peter Jeremy <peter@rulingia.com> To: Bill Sorenson <instructionset@gmail.com> Cc: "K. Macy" <kmacy@freebsd.org>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> Subject: Re: Sparc64 support Message-ID: <20150809215403.GC20238@server.rulingia.com> In-Reply-To: <CACcTwY=DcUREt5nJWo_eJfrB=3sQXBaS6nc%2B07fpZhxARD0zTQ@mail.gmail.com> References: <CACcTwYmS1c5uoO-WiJQDwgqYAevX7WZ7ZrP297hnOu7cNET3CA@mail.gmail.com> <mq3sg1$bno$1@ger.gmane.org> <CACcTwYnU=E-6sV3yLh3yKUSPZOg7967XV5ToXoSVPuNfOjF7hQ@mail.gmail.com> <CAHM0Q_NEYWxpHCwEdytfY6i9%2BRO2BebezzmenfQ_1c4u7zGrgg@mail.gmail.com> <CACcTwY=DcUREt5nJWo_eJfrB=3sQXBaS6nc%2B07fpZhxARD0zTQ@mail.gmail.com>
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--Y5rl02BVI9TCfPar Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Aug 9, 2015 2:59 PM, "K. Macy" <kmacy@freebsd.org> wrote: > Please bear in mind that the number of developer man hours of that caliber > is extremely limited. Working on SPARC only makes sense for a developer w= ho > wants to have a free hand in making changes to the MD code that he simply > can't on x86 or simply really enjoys working on it as a niche platform. T= he > return on investment of sustaining a marginal architecture represented on= ly > by outdated hardware is really vanishingly small vis a vis supporting > recent laptops, better support for newer cloud platforms, and countless > other areas where FreeBSD is struggling to keep up with the Joneses. > > I'm not saying that people who currently work on SPARC should stop doing > so. I'm simply pointing out that as avenues for facilitating wider use of > FreeBSD go, it's a bit lacklustre. On 2015-Aug-09 15:08:39 -0500, Bill Sorenson <instructionset@gmail.com> wro= te: >I don't entirely disagree. As long as sparc64 works I'm glad it stays in. I >don't personally see sun4v support being much of a priority, unless Oracle >pulls a rabbit out of their hat and makes sparc competitive again. IMHO, FreeBSD/sparc64 is currently in a very similar situation to what FreeBSD/alpha was in 2007-8: The architecture has been taken over by a vendor who has no interest in its future and, as a result, the number of FreeBSD developers who are both interested in supporting it and have the technical acumen to do so is diminishing. SPARC has the advantage that it was much more popular than AXP so there's a lot more surplus hardware floating around (though the lack of sun4v support means that not all of it can be used with FreeBSD). At this stage, it's not clear that SPARC has the critical mass of interest needed to ensure its ongoing viability. Continuing to support an architecture incurs a non-zero cost to the Project as a whole so continuing to suppport SPARC needs to demonstrate a benefit to justify that cost. The costs include: - Whilst sparc64 remains tied to gcc4.2.1, FreeBSD as a whole can't take advantage of newer C constructs. - Developer resources need to be spent ensuring that changes don't break sparc64 (and, potentially, worthwhile features won't be implemented in FreeBSD as a whole because supporting sparc64 is too hard). The benefits include: - Having a native big-endian architecture to catch endian-dependent bugs. - Advocacy - this thread demonstrates that people have built a business around FreeBSD/sparc64 and, in the absence of sparc64, they would move to a different OS. --=20 Peter Jeremy --Y5rl02BVI9TCfPar Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQJ8BAEBCgBmBQJVx8v7XxSAAAAAAC4AKGlzc3Vlci1mcHJAbm90YXRpb25zLm9w ZW5wZ3AuZmlmdGhob3JzZW1hbi5uZXRFRUIyOTg2QzMwNjcxRTc0RTY1QzIyN0Ux NkE1OTdBMEU0QTIwQjM0AAoJEBall6Dkogs0aQkP/AmBK//OcL6Zr6RE87Zv/ppv kYar2Vh04RCys1/6Kn4E5u7CYPopZCQOCm4hLvXv0OMsxdnaULI/nYlFMM8kJHZ/ a5ZJCOgMCaeL0nHN3gu9gFIO9HmhW1HJ1bh1EkYy6XW9Yk8rCZxHDuvBGlrUFZiG +edk6m4y9oz2gzDE7AFZoq/XCta5QBfbjMA0W9bCv0D3FI/hID/QLuqPBPsXhP8o nX/6vY1QoMMt/yElu9ROdv5Y6CqOseQnpW/Zw/SKkdyGest3o4glBwArUnBfly5D VDFvsSQILGA0hP4sKskdmkrg3rd/gN669pCcxf1keR0AZ+cPAjnpiP4t093Drnh3 QKemBnmxO83Al+NxyWKM5t+w+ZSDa1KIPtleKsjflfiYKUrJwsEaq1qeU+dBkwGy te9oBJsb7/UKisBh4OstBE5IOwBXG1comgcsg/Y/PmWM2koEcBUTvwjiiNWJn//Y CHdau9j81Gl7SM3dIpBeFDYQ2/6EP7LjUawcWwULBN8bf10vZW6lVGcGQ3Ozw9gf 4aS1DE1cSoIJkFYpvMbxmR94n9ZFZbzk7/bwgdOEnR2mcA8U3bVp0lT3PlIf+xCH Jbz+TEOoB8uTOx91Tnhto/M7a0as1wkYXXvTGwfJ2++fXneJyXoSrinSgE/GSaEX fKlxTIBmKKdcpHSl+HI0 =UOne -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Y5rl02BVI9TCfPar--
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