Re: xtensa architecture (-mm -> 2.6.13 merge status)

[Chris Zankel <zankel@tensilica.com>]

Andrew Morton wrote:
> xtensa architecture
>
>     Is xtensa now, or will it be in the future a sufficiently popular
>     architecture to justify the cost of having this code in the tree?
>
>     Heaven knows.  Will merge.

Andrew,

I understand your concern and am glad that you give Xtensa and the other 
smaller non-mainstream architectures a chance.

The Xtensa architecture is highly configurable and usually buried inside 
an SOC device. So, if you buy a new printer, digital camera, or cell 
phone, there is a chance that there is an Xtensa inside even though you 
don't know it (sometimes as a small audio-engine or as a control CPU). 
Linux hasn't been adopted widely with Xtensa yet, but with Linux growing 
in the embedded space, I am sure it will become much more important -- 
at least this is where I bet my time (and spare time) on.

         To minimize the impact on other developers, I do understand 
that changes that affect all architectures will only be applied to the 
mainstream architectures and that the maintainers of the non-mainstream 
architectures then have to pick it up. Luckily, the architecture 
dependent files have their own confined space in the arch and asm 
directories.

In my opinion, as long as an architecture, driver, etc. is maintained 
and not obviously obsolete, it should be allowed to remain in the 
kernel.

I do have a few small patches in the queue but am struggling with some 
changes I want to make to the syscalls that might break some older code. 


                    Thanks, 
                             ~Chris 










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