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Re: Removal of VAX/VMS support



If a platform is dead, it should go.


I disagree here.  We don't know it's dead until someone complains that
it doesn't work.

Catch 22. If you don't try to break/delete target's, you'll never delete any dead ones.


The maintainers don't have the resources to spring clean all those
obscure targets every time a core change is made.  Trying to this
only results in much wasted effort and a bunch of buildable yet
still broken targets.


I agree.  But that doesn't give us an excuse to dump a port that *is*
working.

Unless someone is using the target, how do you know it's working? Because it builds? Because it passes the testsuite? Both are weak criteria and GDB's experience demonstrates this. Ex: h8500 which was broken for 4 years yet no one noticed. Ex: i960 which `worked' yet no one was willing to work on it.


If a target isn't living, it should be deleted. If a target needs to be live, someone will find the resources to revive it. Ex: m32r which was recently revived. (Note that this includes the FSF which may dedicate volunteer resources.)

I think the problem here is that people seriously underestimate the overhead of maintaining multiple targets. They, being typical optomistic software engineers, think the cost is linear when in reality it is somewhere between quadratic and expotential.

BINUTILS being able to boast support for N dead targets helps no one, least of all the BINUTILS developer community.

Andrew



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