Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2015 18:26:28 -0500 From: Bill Sorenson <instructionset@gmail.com> To: Jordan Hubbard <jordanhubbard@me.com> Cc: Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com>, Peter Jeremy <peter@rulingia.com>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, "K. Macy" <kmacy@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Sparc64 support Message-ID: <CACcTwYktQRTqVSr7PRr5huwbVXVu6oCy26TKiAxzf2NiGAcocA@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <6C12EBFE-EAA9-4C12-9F03-1CB2C28C4A6E@me.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> <20150809215403.GC20238@server.rulingia.com> <6C12EBFE-EAA9-4C12-9F03-1CB2C28C4A6E@me.com>
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For what it's worth I'm not opposed to relegating tier 2 platforms to an external toolchain. I'm not building a product out of FreeBSD on sparc, and I already use GCC from ports where clang is unavailable. If it means killing GPL code in base and using libdispatch I think that is probably worth it. I am on the side of rolling in OS X technology into FreeBSD. It's one of the advantages the license brings. We get ZFS, dtrace, OS X stuff. Forgive my ignorance though but I am curious as to the benefit of having libdispatch in base vs being a ports dependency. Is there much in the base system where it would be used? And if libdispatch were a port dependency on by default, in tier 2 land where we must build ports ourselves anyway, we could build without it or live with that port being broken. -Bill Sorenson On Aug 9, 2015 5:29 PM, "Jordan Hubbard" <jordanhubbard@me.com> wrote: > > > On Aug 9, 2015, at 2:54 PM, Peter Jeremy <peter@rulingia.com> wrote: > > > > 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 tak= e > > advantage of newer C constructs. > > I can speak to that a bit=E2=80=A6 I went through a bit of a kerfuffle w= ith the > project when I was agitating to get libdispatch incorporated into base so > that the project could have a decent multi-threading programming paradigm > (with none of the perils of pthreads) at its core on which to build futur= e > async, multicore-aware applications. That was=E2=80=99t just a pipe drea= m, either, > as I watched that exact evolution occur (and continue) in OS X and iOS. > It=E2=80=99s tried and tested and it Just Works across a wider applicatio= n base > than any Unix-derived system to date has ever even contemplated, much les= s > achieved. > > However, the need to support non-blocks aware compilers basically killed > the notion of pursuing that in the project. Yes, you can use libdispatch > without blocks, but it=E2=80=99s far less useful that way, and since my p= ersonal > needs are more than met by the amd64 architecture, one that by any metric > has become dominant in the industry, it was simply far more logical to > pursue that work in a fork (again!) and I stopped agitating for it. > > Now, should FreeBSD start insisting that clang support is mandatory to be > a tier 1 architecture and that tier 2 architectures should build with > external toolchains (on which they can also build with NO_FOO where FOO i= s > any feature that requires clang) then perhaps that might be a good time t= o > start thinking about bringing some of the OS X technologies back into the > fold. Until then, FreeBSD will of necessity be occupying a niche somewhe= re > in-between the original FreeBSD, where we made a deliberate choice to foc= us > on Intel and only Intel, and NetBSD. > > - Jordan > >
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