Template Version: @(#)sac_nextcase 1.68 02/23/09 SMI
This information is Copyright 2009 Sun Microsystems
1. Introduction
1.1. Project/Component Working Name:
EOF of Tadpole SPARCLE
1.2. Name of Document Author/Supplier:
Author: Garrett D'Amore
1.3 Date of This Document:
06 October, 2009
4. Technical Description
EOF for Douglas Platform (TAD,SPARCLE)
--------------------------------------
Approximately 2.5 years ago, we integrated the basic platmod support
for the Douglas platform (PSARC 2007/152), which is the Tadpole SPARCLE
laptop. These laptops contain an UltraSPARC-IIe or IIi processor from 500 to
650 MHz.
Even at that time, the platforms were a bit on the underpowered side.
This laptop was very briefly marketed by Sun as the Sun Ultra 3, but it
would appear that very few units were sold under this brand. (Those units
shipped with a customized version of Solaris 10, provided by Tadpole.)
Note that the Sun Ultra 3 was also used to cover mobile laptops from
Naturetech, which are not affected by this case.
However, the work was never complete, and most notably the power management
code was never integrated, which is a significant feature deficiency.
Unfortunately, the project team never found time to complete this work. And
as processing speeds have increased, the platform has slowly declined into
irrelevance.
Additionally, the driver for the framebuffer used by this platform is
not integrated into OpenSolaris, and there is no plan to resolve this. Hence,
with the plan to EOF SXCE, this platform will essentially become mostly
useless with OpenSolaris and Solaris.Next. (You'd still be able to use it
in text mode, but I think most folks would agree that this is not a very
usable situation for a laptop.)
Hence, the project team would like to ask for permission to simply remove
the support for the underlying platmod. As this platform has never been
supported by production version of Solaris, we believe we can do this within
the context of a fast track, with Minor patch binding, without advance
notification.
We will also remove the /platform/TAD,SPARCLE/ platform directories and
associated links.
6. Resources and Schedule
6.4. Steering Committee requested information
6.4.1. Consolidation C-team Name:
ON
6.5. ARC review type: FastTrack
6.6. ARC Exposure: open
