From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 16 13:12:26 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 645CC16A4CE for ; Tue, 16 Mar 2004 13:12:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.omnis.com (smtp.omnis.com [216.239.128.26]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A68043D48 for ; Tue, 16 Mar 2004 13:12:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from salty.rapid.stbernard.com (unknown [198.147.128.71]) by smtp-relay.omnis.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6DBAE101C36; Tue, 16 Mar 2004 13:12:24 -0800 (PST) From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr.com To: Stephen McKay , current@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 13:12:00 -0800 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.4 References: <20040315000944.GA93356@xor.obsecurity.org> <200403150134.i2F1Y5ew004366@dungeon.home> In-Reply-To: <200403150134.i2F1Y5ew004366@dungeon.home> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200403161312.00556.wes@softweyr.com> X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 05:04:03 -0800 cc: Stephen McKay Subject: Re: HEADS UP! MAJOR change to FreeBSD/sparc64 X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 21:12:26 -0000 On Sunday 14 March 2004 05:34 pm, Stephen McKay wrote: Since Kris and DES have already beaten you severely about the head and shoulders for your mis-conceptions on how FreeBSD is created, I'll take on your second point: > Backward compatibility is very important and can be ignored in only a few > cases (eg the switch from a.out to elf, or a port to a new architecture). There is no 'backward compatility' for sparc64. FreeBSD 5.x is still an active development branch; we have promised we're going to break the ABI at least once more on every architecture. This is a little bit of pain for a very few users, and very much part of using a development branch operating system. > Also, this is the first I've heard of this since I have no interest in > sparc. If the intention is to use the sparc conversion is as the > template for architectures I care about then now the first time I can > contribute to improving the process. sparc64 is, afaik, the last 64 bit architecture to change over to 64BTT. The 32 bit architectures don't matter because the likelihood of them surviving until when 32BTT becomes a problem is nil. (That's probably true of the sparc64 architecture too, but keeping sparc64 in line with the rest of the 64-bitters is a good idea.) -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters wes@softweyr.com