Re: gcc: cleaning up top level config

[Stan Shebs <shebs at apple dot com>]

Zack Weinberg wrote:

> > Think about this for a second: "I don't have an x86 GNU/Linux
> > box. Therefore I propose that it should be deprecated as soon as
> > possible." Does that upset you? Good. I'm upset that here we are a
> > year after I submitted a patch to fix things and without even
> > exploring the contents of the patch you're once again proposing to
> > remove the code.
> Supporting MPW, unlike x86 Linux or any other relatively modern
> Unix-like operating system, places substantial burdens on all the
> maintainers of GCC, whether or not they have ever seen it.  This is
> because its structure is so very different.  We have to weigh this
> burden against the perceived utility of keeping MPW support around.
> When you are the only person who has asked for it to be preserved,
> the utility is pretty low indeed.
That's a real slippery slope though.  It wasn't so long ago that
one could easily have made a similar argument for dropping VxWorks
support, since its structure is so very different from Unix (more
so than MPW in fact), and there didn't seem to be anybody asking
for it to be preserved, and if Wind River wanted to keep it working,
why not just make them do it in their own tree separate from FSF
sources?

One of the founding principles of egcs was to be more inclusive
rather than less so, and even though MPW is pretty unimportant,
deliberately turning away volunteers isn't a good precedent to
set either.  The MPW support is by no stretch of the imagination
a "substantial burden" - I bet most people don't even know it's
there!

Stan