On Sat, 2022-04-02 at 13:14 +0000, Peter Stuge wrote:
Michael Niewöhner wrote:
It feels this is the usual "but what if *someone* out there *needs/wants* it?".
Not quite, it's "why delete it if it might work?". This is still ideological of course, so the question becomes what we find valuable.
I e.g. do not consider it at all valuable to only keep code for the last n Intel platform generations, in spite of knowing that only those have any value whatsoever for the vast majority of coreboot users.
Keeping platforms where there is no active interest is burden for those doing tree / architecture / platform family wide changes. soc/intel is the best example for that.
Also, often changes to common code (like soc/intel, again) have unforseeable impact on untested platforms. Thus, it doesn't make *any* sense, keeping them "just because".
Getting such changes merged without anyone being able to test a specific platform that is being kept "just because" is nearly impossible. Take a look at soc/intel/common changes, where xeon-sp and denverton regularly sled in.
But coreboot is not a company and thus not restricted to only value market demand or otherwise proven utility. We can have other values and I do.
Does anyone know if the platform still works, at all?
Does anyone know that the platform *doesn't* work?
See above. I bet it's broken already. (Last publicly known test 2017, as I alreay mentioned.)
Are there any practical concerns whatsoever?
For me, at a very minimum both those questions must have a yes answer to qualify deletion.
No, IMO it's exactly the other way round. Prove that it still works.
Reducing scope is always satisfying but that's not a good reason to delete platforms.
It is of course very easy to manufacture practical concerns, but maybe that's a fair enough hurdle for arbitrary deletion...
Nothing in this discussion is "arbitrary". Reasons are quite clear, but they seem to be ignored.
//Peter
Michael