Hello Robert,
On 21/06/10 16:07, dsimcha wrote:
What is the long-term plan for the current DMD backend? I've noticed
the
first steps towards 64-bit support were just checked in today
(excitement to
the extreme). However, the backend is under such a restrictive
license (which
I understand Walter is not free to change) that it has a "bus factor"
of 1.
If Walter were to stop maintaining it, noone else would be able to,
if I
understand the licensing issues correctly.
Is there a chance of these licensing issues being cleared up so that
the backend can be released under a more permissive license? If not,
while I understand Walter's decision to use a backend he was familiar
with in the beginning, it seems like we should abandon such a heavily
encumbered backend now that it needs serious work.
Perhaps the 64bit backend could be written in such a way that it
doesn't have the licensing issues? I have no idea what the specifics
are to say if this is possible, it'd be good to not have the 64 bit
backend under the current backend license though.
I'm going to guess that about half of the object file generator and nearly
100% of everything before the code generator will be the same for 32 and
64 bit. And at a wild guess I'm going to say that's much more than half the
code in the back end. Add an error factor for me guessing and you can do
the math. :(
--
... <IXOYE><
