Re: Deprecate/remove riscv64sf

On 1 Apr 2023, at 5:11, Ruslan Bukin wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 11:17:21AM -0700, John Baldwin wrote:
>> Is anyone using riscv64sf?  All of the existing RISC-V boards include hard-float
>> support as well as QEMU.  The FPGA cores we use at Cambridge also all support
>> hard-float.  My understanding is that glibc doesn't bother supporting soft-float
>> on RV64.  If no one is using it (and has no plans to use it), then I propose
>> we drop it in 14.0 and save one more buildworld from make tinderbox.
>>
>
> The idea behind this was to support extensibility of architecture (which is one of the key features of RISC-V). So if F,D,Q extension is not implemented, then riscv64sf could be used. It could be that those times some simulators/emulators did not support these extensions, so riscv64sf created (I could not remember).
> It could be some of new (synthesized) hardware or new emulators won't have support for this straight away. So in research&development perspective it could be useful, in real life probably not for 64 bit.
>
That’s pretty much exactly how I used it a few years ago.
Given that that was a few years ago and that both hardware and software have moved on a bit since then I’d be inclined to just drop it though.

Kristof