Re: Obsoleting c4x last minute for 4.0

["Joel Sherrill <joel at OARcorp dot com>" <joel dot sherrill at OARcorp dot com>]

Richard Earnshaw wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 00:30, Mark Mitchell wrote:
>
> > Joe Buck wrote:
>
>
> > > But if it won't even build, then users should be warned.
> >
> > I suppose -- but we have relatively many configurations that probably 
> > won't build, at least if you start combining various options, and 
> > including langauges beyond just C and C++.
> >
> > I'd be content with a patch that issued a warning, but declaring a port 
> > obsolete has often been contentions, and I'd hate to rush into it.
>
>
> Maybe we need a third category - 'at risk'.  Such a port will typically
> have no active maintainer, some likely serious bugs and might at some
> future date be obsoleted if no maintainer steps forward.
>
> We could put several ports into that category and it shouldn't have the
> negative stigma that obsolete seems to have.

The RTEMS community has been interested in the c4x port for a long time
but we don't have anyone who can fix things at the level this one is
broken.  We keep trying it and reporting on it.  It gets a little 
better, then it gets a little worse.

Ignoring the technically interesting bit that the c4x is not byte 
addressable, this port suffers from its original developers having 
largely moved on by the time it was merged.  Not an excuse, just a
statement that there was not a clean handoff to a new maintainer.
I recall that the original port being using binutils 2.7 so that
gives a timeframe.

> R.


--
Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research & Development
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