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Re: Porting to Minix 3
- From: "Carlos O'Donell" <carlos at systemhalted dot org>
- To: Florian Weimer <fweimer at redhat dot com>
- Cc: Patrick <patrick at spellingbeewinnars dot org>, "libc-help at sourceware dot org" <libc-help at sourceware dot org>
- Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2017 09:40:48 -0400
- Subject: Re: Porting to Minix 3
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <58CC97C9.3030208@spellingbeewinnars.org> <9b8db0a0-98f2-aa39-d3bc-b10051d70fe6@redhat.com>
On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 8:13 AM, Florian Weimer <fweimer@redhat.com> wrote:
> On 03/18/2017 03:13 AM, Patrick wrote:
>>
>> Could anyone tell me what I should do next? Is it hard to create a patch
>> for this?
>
>
> It is very hard. We no longer have a working non-Linux port of glibc. All
> non-Linux ports (Hurd, FreeBSD, NaCl, maybe there are more) are either
> out-of-tree or impossibly difficult to compile.
My theory is that this is a reflection of the interest and resources
available to the porters rather than anything inherent in the
complexity or drastic differences between the OSs.
In part it is hard because it requires a senior developer to approve
all the abstractions and additional files that touch across the entire
code base. Roland McGrath was the last person to attempt this in
whole-sale for NaCl, and I think it will never be done again with such
determination. Simply because there isn't any interest. The GNU/Linux
port is the most used and valuable port in the tree and everything
tends towards optimization for that port.
I know this is probably more information than you need, but I figure
this monologue provides fodder for google search on the topic.
Cheers,
Carlos.