On 2016-06-14 03:06, Philipp Kern wrote:
On Mon, Jun 13, 2016 at 07:33:56PM +, Niels Thykier wrote:
Philipp Kern:
> On 2016-06-05 12:01, Niels Thykier wrote:
>> * amd64, i386, armel, armhf, arm64, mips, mipsel, powerpc, ppc64el,
>>s390x
>>- *No* blockers at this time from RT, DSA nor security.
>>- s390, ppc64el and all arm ports have DSA concerns.
> What is the current DSA concern about s390x?
The concern listed as: "rely on sponsors for hardware (mild concern)"
As I recall the argument went something along the lines of:
"Debian cannot replace the hardware; if any of the machines dies, we
need a sponsor to replace it. If all of them dies and we cannot get
sponsored replacements, we cannot support the architecture any longer"
(My wording)
Yeah, but that's unfortunately one of the universal truths of this
port.
I mean in theory sometimes they turn up on eBay and people try to make
them work[1].
It also seems true for other ports where we commonly relied on sponsors
to hand us replacements. But maybe it's only ppc64el these days, maybe
there are useful builds available for the others (including arm64 and
mips) on the market now.
Kind regards and thanks
Philipp Kern
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
(Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe)
Fun story, i had a client who was considering getting their hands on a
Z9, they asked me a few others to go with them to see IBM present a demo
of it. Long story short the IBM guys started a job and literally started
pulling CPU and Mem boards out of the machine mid job. The error log on
the OS/2 maintenance laptop was going crazy, but the OS kept running the
job.
In other words, i don't think a s390x box will ever just die. Really
interesting machines to say the least, hopefully one day i will get to
play with one. The other issues with s390x is that in most cases you
don't buy them. You essentially lease the CPU usage and IBM charges you
based on how much CPU usage you've consumed over a given time. It makes
me wonder how they ever get on eBay. IBM typically takes them back after
you stop paying for it.
