Re: Regarding the ULTRIX and OSF1 compats

Le 09/03/2019 à 18:58, Jason Thorpe a écrit :
>> On Mar 9, 2019, at 8:22 AM, Maxime Villard <[email protected]> wrote:
>> New thread, CC'ed to port-pmax@ and port-alpha@, in the continuity of:
>>
>> 	https://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-kern/2019/03/09/msg024754.html
>>
>> Basically, there were talks about retiring COMPAT_ULTRIX and COMPAT_OSF1,
>> because they are of questionable utility, in addition to being clear dead
>> wood; as I said, limited use case, no maintenance done in these areas,
>> inability to test changes, and the list goes on.
>>
>> So, does anyone have anything to say about that?
>
> I'm completely in favor of removing COMPAT_OSF1 ... it was useful back in
> the early days of the Alpha port because the native toolchain was shaky (and
> there was the whole ECOFF -> ELF transition).  But it was never good enough
> to run many real applications because it doesn't implement any of the Mach
> traps.  To fix it for real, we'd have to implement a ton of infrastructure
> (including MiG), and I don't think anyone wants that horror show.

Alright

> COMPAT_ULTRIX is a much thinner shim on top of of COMPAT_43, similar to
> COMPAT_SUNOS, which we keep around for other reasons, and so I think the
> wood is a little less obviously-dead.  Its biggest wart is having to exec
> ECOFF binaries.  I don't know if anyone is actively using it at this point,
> though.

Well, as far as I can tell no one has been maintaining it for quite some time
now, and it has now reached the point where people make blind changes without
being able to test; and the code is deprecating all along. Typically like
this:

	https://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2017/12/03/msg090179.html

It seems that, slowly, it will reach the final stage: being completely broken,
like SVR4. When the feature in question has a questionable utility, I'm even
more in favor of cutting the wood right away...