Re: End of life dates vs regression test matrix

Dan Kegel wrote:
> Does automake have a policy on when to stop supporting a CPU, operating
> system, or compiler?
>
> I am pondering the size of the matrix of supported operating systems, cpus,
> and compilers, and wonder where a policy like
> "Automake drops support 20 years after the release of a CPU, operating
> system, or compiler version" would fall on the heresy/utility plane.

The way I understand that the GNU build system is supposed to work is 
that there are no "supported" CPUs, operating systems, etc.  The GNU 
build system adapts packages to features found on the current machine by 
testing for those features just before building the package, using an 
often very lengthy shell script named "configure" that is itself 
generated by the relevant maintainer tools.

This system has worked surprisingly well---releases made years ago can 
often be adapted to processor architectures that literally did not exist 
when the source tarball was built by simply replacing config.{guess,sub} 
with current versions that recognize the newer architecture.  As far as 
those scripts embodying lists of known architectures go, entries appear 
to /never/ expire, and config.guess still today can identify (or so we 
think) systems that predate POSIX.


-- Jacob