Re: Document reasonable portability targets

[Simon Josefsson]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi,
>
> The same question was asked several times over the last few months: [1][2][3].
> Some people think that dropping SunOS 4 support was "aggressive",
> others think that gnulib should drop Cygwin 1.5.x support less than one year
> after Cygwin 1.7.x was released and stabilized. So, obviously, there's a
> need for documentation.
>
> [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2010-11/msg00204.html
> [2] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2011-01/msg00995.html
> [3] http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2011-01/msg00375.html
>
>
> Here's a proposed patch. Comments?

I don't have any strong concerns about the content, but I think that
generally a section like this will help a lot to clarify what gnulib is
about.

The section on intentionally non-supported platforms reads a bit harsh
to me.  I don't think it is inconceivable that we'll support DOS through
FreeDOS for example?  Maybe a sentence or two about _why_ the mentioned
platforms are not supported?  Is there any technical reason we don't
support Symbian for example?  I can understand why we don't support
Windows 95/98/ME: it is an abandoned platform with no security updates
and no commercial support available, and there is no need to develop new
programs for that platform.

Btw, there is nothing about Cray UNICOS in your text but there is Cray
platform specific stuff in the gnulib code.  Does anyone know about
status of Cray architectures?

/Simon