Re: GCC 4.3 target deprecation proposals

[Andrew Haley <aph at redhat dot com>]

NightStrike wrote:
> On 1/21/08, John David Anglin <dave@hiauly1.hia.nrc.ca> wrote:
> > > The following target architectures have seen no test results posted in
> > > the past year: arc, c4x (as listed above), crx, iq2000, mt, pdp11,
> > > score, stormy16, vax.
> > Regarding vax, I don't have the time to maintain it.  HPPA has taken
> > all my free time in the past year.  I probably should remove my name
> > as a vax maintainer.
> >
> > There is still a small amount of vax related activity but I don't
> > expect the GCC port to be actively maintained.  The community is too
> > small.  So, I think it is reasonable to consider it for removal.
> > I recall in the last go around that some people thought it should
> > be maintained as an example.
>
> I work for a company that makes significant use of gcc to target vax.
> The people involved are users, not developers, of gcc.  Does any part
> of the deprecation requirements take into account user base, or just
> developer base?

While the idea of weighing the user base when deprecating a target seems
to make some emotional sense, it doesn't make any practical sense.  The
compiler has to be maintained by someone or it will rot and cease to be
buildable, then it won't be of any use to users anyway.  If there isn't an
active maintainer we can't continue to include a target, no matter how many
users it has.

Andrew.