>>> On 1/23/2009 at 8:18 AM, in message <[email protected]>, Ryan Bloom <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 10:07 AM, William A. Rowe, Jr. > <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Ryan Bloom wrote: >> > Why do you want to jettison "edge platforms"? The original goal was to >> > keep HTTPd as portable as 1.3 was, which meant APR had to support >> > mainframes, OS/2, etc. All of those edge platforms are what made APR >> > challenging to create and maintain, but they also provide a lot of value >> > for the people who want their code to work on mainframes, but don't want >> > to write their own portability library. >> > >> > Removing this support takes away a web server (at the very least) from >> > openBeOS, OS400, OS/2, etc. While these platforms may not be mainstream >> > these days, dropping support for them from HTTPd (the natural result of >> > dropping support from APR) seems like a decision that can only be made >> > after discussion with APR's users, not the developers of APR itself. >> >> I pulled support win 95/98/ME support from httpd because the operating >> system is abandoned. We should drop 'fringe' OS's that are no longer >> maintained by anyone. Those uses can certainly still use existing apps >> developed long ago for apr, and 0.9/1.x would still get critical security >> or bug fixes, but moving forwards nobody wants the complaints on those >> platforms which can't be resolved when platform issues occur, eh? >> > > The comparison to 95/98/ME is also a bit disingenuous. Those aren't, and > never were, intended to be server platforms, they are consumer operating > systems, and were marketed as such. The others were marketed as server > operating systems, and I believe are still in use today. > > >> >> Is BeOS gone? Is OS/2 gone yet? Netware is effectively gone, AIUI, as >> it's a maintenance-only phase out cycle. >> > > It makes sense to drop support when the OS has effectively been dropped by > its manufacturer, and the userbase is gone. BeOS is dead, but OpenBeOS > still exists as an open source effort. OS/2 is still in wide use in banks > in Europe the last I heard. Mainframes are still in wide use and support by > their manufacturers. NetWare, don't know frankly. > > The fact that I we just saw mainframe patches go into the tree (what started > this whole conversation), and I vaguely remember seeing NetWare patches in > the last 6 months or so indicates that there is still some level of support > for developing on those platforms. > > Ryan
FWIW, NetWare is still around and there are still a couple of us supporting HTTPD and APR on NetWare (although not as closely as in the past). NetWare patches for APR usually only happen if something goes wrong with HTTPD since the web server is really the only application on NetWare that uses APR. Brad
