platforms problems

[Andrew Whitworth]

I've got two large branches up in the air (threads and
whiteknight/io_cleanup1) which I cannot merge because of failures on
various platforms, but I cannot continue development on because I do
not have access to those platforms. And I refuse to start working on a
new branch until I start getting some of these other issues taken care
of. We're in something of a bind. Without core developer resources to
work on those platforms, there's not really anything we can do about a
failing test report. darwin/ppc, various solaris setups and various
BSD varieties are on this list. I've tried to set up BSD virtual
machines locally with no success. I've tried to set up some of the
recent post-Oracle OpenSolaris distros also, with no success. Whether
it's a problem with my particular setup or a larger problem with these
distros is not really a distinction worth making from my point of
view.

I've also tried looking for an old PPC mac to purchase for myself, but
I've been unable to find one in workable condition for a price I can
pay.

Getting test reports from these platforms is fine and good, but it's
useless information if we don't have developers on those platforms who
can take action on failures. Right now, our ability to take action on
these kinds of failures is very very very small. We don't have
developers working on these platforms, and it's increasingly seeming
untenable for us to pretend we support them. At some point, we have to
admit that this emporer has no clothes.

Until I can get at least one of these two branches sorted out and
mergable, I'm basically done hacking on Parrot. And that's not a
situation I want to be in.

We can declare Darwin/PPC to be a platform we no longer support. That
is my preferred solution for that platform at this point, considering
it's age and relatively small (and shrinking) user base. I'm not sure
what we can do about *BSD or *Solaris. If anybody has suggestions for
either, I would very much like to hear it.

Thanks,

--Andrew Whitworth