Policy for removing target support

[Rainer Orth]

Hi Jan, Nick,

>>>> I understand that; what I don't understand is which of the entries this
>>>> covers. We don't have anything named e.g. "solaris9" in binutils.
>>> 
>>> that's because config.guess has kept the Solaris 2.x nomenclature even
>>> after Sun changed the naming from Solaris 2.7 to Solaris 7 immediately
>>> before the release.  The Solaris name was used for the OS as a whole,
>>> while the core OS is still called SunOS 5.7.  Since the configure triple
>>> is derived from uname -s (SunOS) and -r (5.7), you still arrive at
>>> *-*-solaris2.7.  Much of this is handled by wildcards in config.bfd and
>>> configure.ld so not immediately visible in those scripts.  My overview
>>> of new cases upthread intends to make this more explicit.
>>
>> Right, just that you didn't map the versions to our numbering scheme,
>> thus leaving things unclear to anyone not familiar with the odd mapping
>> that you describe above.
>
> I see: I'd assumed this was relatively common knowledge since it has
> been this way for a decade and a half.
>
>>> I know this can be confusing, but that's the way things are.
>>> 
>>> If the obsoletion/removal would go through, everything except
>>> *-*-solaris2.1[01]* would go and *-*-solaris2.[0-9]* be rejected
>>> in config.bfd.
>>
>> That's what I was fearing. People (like me) may have got used to simply
>> saying "solaris2" in target specifiers. Sure, I (and others) can adjust
>> their scripts and habits, but would that be for any gain? IOW would any
>> actual code simplification result afterwards? Or in yet different words,
>> have I perhaps failed to properly test the Solaris ports by saying just
>> "2"?
>
> In general, solaris2* is ok in all but config.bfd and configure.tgt.  I
> doubt we have many cases where things differ, so you should be fine
> without change.
>
> The primary benefit of obsoletion/removal would be to make the supported
> versions explicit.  As I said, I haven't yet checked in detail if/which
> parts of code with anything < Solaris 10 removed from the test matrix
> could go.

how should we proceed here then?  I see three options:

* Remove support for Solaris < 10 immediately.

  Given that all affected targets are long dead, support for them in
  GCC has been removed between 10 and 12 years ago and they don't even
  build since binutils 2.41, there's little point claiming support if it
  doesn't actually work and nobody noticed.

* Alternatively, one could obsolete them instead and remove support at a
  later point (when?).  That has the disadvantage of leaving the support
  in bfd/config.bfd and ld/configure.tgt more complex than necessary and
  sort of advertising support for OS versions that don't actually work.

* Do nothing.

For comparison's sake, the GCC policy for removal is simple: the target
has still to be in active use *and* there needs to be someone who
regularly tests it, reports and fixes bugs.  That wont certainly be me:
I didn't remove the GCC support only to keep testing prehistoric OS
versions in Binutils.

	Rainer

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Rainer Orth, Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University