[openbeos] Re: MIPS32 port for GSoC
- From: Ingo Weinhold <bonefish@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:56:55 +0100
On 2007-03-21 at 18:11:55 [+0100], Simon Taylor <simontaylor1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> > From: Ingo Weinhold <bonefish@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > On 2007-03-21 at 15:17:26 [+0100], Jonas Sundström <jonas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote
> >
> > I don't want to be the party-pooper, but I think, this porting discussion
> > is moot. A port to a platform, PPC, MIPS, SPARC, whatever, will happen, if
> > and only if a developer feels like doing it and does it. And if such a
> > port
> > is done in a reasonable way, we will, of course, add it to the official
> > Haiku sources, whatever the platform.
>
> Of course everyone is free to work on whatever they want - and that will
> determine what actually happens. I'd still argue about the wisdom of "of
> course we will add it, whatever the platform".
>
> Say the kernel is ported to something like an iPod or a smartphone. OK, the
> kernel may run on the device, but will it still have StyledEdit? ShowImage?
> All the irrelevant preference apps? I'd guess not - so then will the
> HaikuSmartPhoneImageBrowser written for that particular platform also be
> included in the Haiku tree even though it is useless on x86? Do we still
> want to call the system Haiku?
You're talking about applications. My understanding of "port" is absolutely
technical: Take what is there and make it run on the new platform, i.e.
add/complete the platform/architecture specific parts of build tool chain,
boot loader, kernel, drivers, runtime loader, libroot, etc. If that's done
properly, virtually all applications (with a few exceptions, like gdb) will
run on the new platform without any changes.
What new applications to include in the Haiku source tree is a differ matter.
In the past this has been decided on a case-by-case basis and we'll likely
continue to do so.
> This is the kind of case where I would strongly argue a separate project is
> better. It can be linked with Haiku, but it really should live in its own
> independent tree IMHO.
If someone is not happy with our choices for our distro (or we don't even do
a distro for a certain platform), he's absolutely free to do his own distro.
And IMHO adding and maintaining support for a new platform (that we might not
do a distro for) in our source tree is a way better option than a complete
fork.
CU, Ingo
Other related posts:
