[cfarm-users] cfarm110 and cfarm111 decommissioning on February 27

[Jonathan Wakely]

Quoting from
https://blog.yossarian.net/2021/02/28/Weird-architectures-werent-supported-to-begin-with


*Give up on weird ISAs and platforms*

I put this one last because it’s flippant, but it’s maybe the most
important one: outside of hobbyists playing with weird architectures for
fun (and accepting the overwhelming likelihood that most projects won’t
immediately work for them), open source groups should not be
unconditionally supporting the ecosystem for a large corporation’s hardware
and/or platforms.

Companies should be paying for this directly: if pyca/cryptography actually
broke on HPPA or IA-64, then HP or Intel or whoever should be forking over
money to get it fixed or using their own horde of engineers to fix it
themselves. No free work for platforms that only corporations are using.
No, this doesn’t violate the open-source ethos; nothing about OSS says that
you have to bend over backwards to support a corporate platform that you
didn’t care about in the first place.




On Sun, 15 Feb 2026, 10:11 Jonathan Wakely, <jwakely.gcc at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, 15 Feb 2026, 08:36 Jeffrey Walton via cfarm-users, <
> cfarm-users at lists.tetaneutral.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 15, 2026 at 2:57 AM Bruno Haible via cfarm-users <
>> cfarm-users at lists.tetaneutral.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Eggert wrote:
>>> > I tested for the compilation problem by compiling on
>>> cfarm111.cfarm.net with
>>> > /opt/IBM/xlc/16.1.0/bin/xlc. If you're using an older version of xlc,
>>> > that would explain why you see a compilation problem but I don't.
>>>
>>> Indeed, I was using the /usr/bin/xlc (which identifies itself as being
>>> from
>>> 2012).
>>>
>>> > I suppose if IBM doesn't care enough to make that compiler
>>> > easily available then free-software maintainers shouldn't care enough
>>> to
>>> > port to it.
>>>
>>> Yes. And likewise for AIX: If IBM doesn't care enough to make an AIX box
>>> available to the Free Software community with reasonable usage terms,
>>> and if IBM doesn't care enough any more to employ the leading GCC
>>> developer
>>> for AIX, then why should GNU package maintainers continue to worry about
>>> portability to AIX?
>>
>>
>> I think this is an echo chamber using flawed arguments.  Effectively what
>> is being argued is, if <X> does not support free software, then free
>> software should not support <X>.  I think that is a flawed argument.
>>
>> Instead, I think the question to ask is, should free software support
>> <X>, where X is a compiler like XLC or a platform like AIX.  I think the
>> answer to that question is Yes, because it
>> maximizes user freedom, maximizes interoperability, ensures broad access
>> to GNU technology, and encourages collaboration
>> .
>>
>
> Maybe in an ideal world. But maintainers of free software should not be
> obliged to purchase proprietary software licenses to port their code to
> that platform, or go to extraordinary lengths to do so.
>
> The only obligation should be to accept patches for supporting such
> systems, and give them fair consideration. That means users/vendors of
> those systems can submit patches to the project, and the maintainers won't
> reject them out of hand because they don't want to support those systems.
> Expecting anything more from free software manufacturers is completely
> unreasonable IMHO.
>
>
>
>> I also don't buy into the argument that the vendor no longer supports
>> <X>, so we should not support <X>.  I think that's another flawed
>> argument.  IBM and other companies like Microsoft and Google do not rule by
>> fiat.  The market determines what needs to be supported.
>>
>
> Then the market should provide patches. If users exist, they can
> install+test on their hardware and report bugs or provide patches.
> Expecting free software maintainers to do that without knowing if any users
> even exist is unreasonable.
>
>
>
> And I am not aware of free software ever following external corporate
>> policies.  What other company policies does free software follow?
>>
>
> I think you are misunderstanding or misrepresenting what happens. If the
> vendor no longer supports it, the number of users will drop dramatically.
> That makes porting to those systems useful for a smaller and smaller group
> of users. If some users continue using the systems without support, they
> should do the work of maintaining their own systems, including contributing
> to any free software they want to use.
>
> The attitude that unpaid FOSS maintainers should do all the work to
> support obscure niche/proprietary systems is harmful to the ecosystem.
>
> (Obviously this doesn't mean maintainers can't do it if they choose to,
> for fun or education or whatever, they just shouldn't be expected to by
> default.)
>
>>
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