On 02.11.23 18:28, Linus Torvalds wrote:
On Thu, 2 Nov 2023 at 00:24, Frank Scheiner <frank.scheiner@xxxxxx> wrote:
so the ia64 removal happened despite the efforts - not only from us - to
keep it alive in Linux. That is a - sad - fact now.
Well, I'd have personally been willing to resurrect it, but I was told
several times that other projects were basically just waiting for the
kernel support to die.
Has the itanium situation really changed?
Well, we definitely made some progress in this regard. But as you wrote,
this was not a pressing issue as long as ia64 stayed in the kernel.
Which is why I wanted to concentrate on kernel support first and
foremost. My thinking was that a working architecture wouldn't be
dropped*. And with kernel support saved, we could have gone full steam
ahead into the other projects.
Well, we did proceed with tackling the problems in the other projects
anyhow from the start, but now the situation is a little different.
*)
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-ia64/CAHk-=wjEmZ19T4XpVb0_Hacm53xJG_w5ygcuorwC0xBoT-myUA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
So I'd be willing to come back to the "can we resurrect it"
discussion, but not immediately - more along the lines of a "look,
we've been maintaining it out of tree for a year, the other
infrastructure is still alive, there is no impact on the rest of the
kernel, can we please try again"?
That is really something.
We'll see where this goes. I always hope for the best. (-:
If you feel like checking on our status, you know where to look (see my
email to you from 2023-09-23).
Cheers,
Frank
