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Re: state of the project
- From: "H. J. Lu" <hjl at lucon dot org>
- To: Ulrich Drepper <drepper at redhat dot com>
- Cc: GNU libc devel <libc-alpha at sources dot redhat dot com>
- Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:51:54 -0800
- Subject: Re: state of the project
- References: <3E16A509.7080909@redhat.com>
On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 01:10:33AM -0800, Ulrich Drepper wrote:
> As for MIPS, if one architecture has more ABIs then all the other
> architectures combined you know something is wrong. The MIPS port
> cannot even be compiled correctly for the old ABIs for quite some time
> now. Occasional patches by Andreas Jaeger and HJ couldn't help fighting
> the deterioration and they certainly cannot help going forward. And
> about the new ABIs I can only say one thing: I will not allow glibc
> development to be hindered by the many, many design failures made in the
> MIPS ABIs. If the support needed to support the ABIs makes the general
> sources less readable or maintainable the changes won't go in. Period.
> I don't allow the project to be hurt by these design mistakes.
>
I am not sure if MIPS will ever be moving forward. There are quite a
few issues. There is no sane ABI glibc can use. I have requested for
a new ABI with a thread register. I am sure if it will ever happen.
Also the mips support in binutils is a mess with multiple binary
formats, ABIs, debug formats and assembly macros. It may be easier for
glibc to use a totally new ABI for mips with everything done right. But
I won't hold my breath on that.
H.J.