Policy for removing target support

[Jan Beulich]

On 11.09.2025 10:19, Rainer Orth wrote:
>>> let me address this from a different angle first:
>>>
>>> I've just now tried to build current trunk on Solaris 8 (both sparc and
>>> x86): compilation immediately fails
>>>
>>> bfd/doc/chew.c: In function 'collapse_whitespace':
>>> bfd/doc/chew.c:943:7: error: array subscript has type 'char' [-Werror=char-subscripts]
>>> bfd/doc/chew.c: In function 'print':
>>> bfd/doc/chew.c:1473:60: error: expected ')' before 'PRIdPTR'
>>> bfd/doc/chew.c:1473:60: error: spurious trailing '%' in format [-Werror=format]
>>>
>>> While <sys/int_fmtio.h> has several other PRId* macros, that one is
>>> missing.  That file has used this since 2.41, but apparently no one
>>> noticed.
>>
>> So there are really two aspects here: One is whether we can still build
>> _on_ those old versions, and another is whether we should still support
>> building _for_ those old versions. The "can build on" aspect can, in
>> principle, be solved by using a newer compiler on those systems. Hence
>> at the very least I think both aspects want dealing with separately.
> 
> true, but I still wonder what's the point between 10 and 14 years after
> the fact?  I can fully understand conservatism in this respect, as is
> evident by me supporting old OS versions in GCC for quite some time, but
> at some point you have to make a cut.  I still maintain that untested
> code is useless if not harmful by suggesting support that doesn't
> actually work.

First, despite the growing testsuite, lots and lots of code are untested.

Then I'm still feeling like you're mixing the "building on" and "building
for" aspects. IOW I still don't understand what parts of untested code
you'd like to remove as a result on "building on" no longer being possible.
Or else why you brought up the "building on" aspect in the first place.

As to the "building for", my earlier question still didn't get a clear
answer (or maybe what seemed clear to you didn't end up clear for me): As
indicated, I'm having trouble matching the version numbers (e.g. 10) with
what we have in the two configure scripts in question. Which in turn
makes it impossible for me to understand what parts you think can be
dropped there.

Jan