From owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 1 06:08:16 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E885C1065688 for ; Fri, 1 Aug 2008 06:08:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@sopwith.solgatos.com) Received: from parsely.rain.com (parsely.rain.com [199.26.172.196]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C0828FC0A for ; Fri, 1 Aug 2008 06:08:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@sopwith.solgatos.com) Received: from sopwith.solgatos.com (uucp@localhost) by parsely.rain.com (8.11.4/8.11.4) with UUCP id m715VmS98809 for freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:31:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from freebsd@sopwith.solgatos.com) Received: from localhost by sopwith.solgatos.com (8.8.8/6.24) id FAA22725; Fri, 1 Aug 2008 05:30:01 GMT Message-Id: <200808010530.FAA22725@sopwith.solgatos.com> To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:10:15 BST." <20080731221015.GA35293@mech-cluster238.men.bris.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:30:01 +0100 From: Dieter Subject: Re: future for FBSD on alpha X-BeenThere: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the Alpha List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:08:17 -0000 > I wonder how many people run FBSD on alpha. > According to bsdstats.org very few - less than 5 boxes. > There must be more. There are lots of BSD machines that bsdstats.org doesn't know about. > Is there a way to find out how many people are on this list? > Is it a good indicator? Probably the best indicator I can think of. Some people on the list will be running multiple machines, others will be just reading the list but not running any machines. For example, I'm running NetBSD on my Alphas. > I'm trying to find out if there are people on this list, who, > like myself, are keen to see FBSD supported on alpha > for say 1-3 more years. If yes, we might be able to lobby > ports maintainers not to drop support for alpha ports. I might be interested in switching from Net to Free, but if support is going away that would be a bad idea. 1-3 years isn't very long. This is part of a larger problem. NetBSD is also dropping support for arches. People don't want to support things like uucp or usenet any more. Anything more than 5 nanoseconds old just isn't considered cool. Even if the replacements are far worse, which is often the case. What are we supposed to do with older boxes? Some applications that don't require the latest fast hardware, like firewalls, still require support and security fixes. Throwing machines into the landfill isn't very green. Sometimes a developer will complain that maintaining support for something takes too much time, but will then spend large amounts of time removing support. Hmmmmm...