Re: [COMMITTED] Remove obsolete Solaris 11.3 support

[Rainer Orth <ro@CeBiTec.Uni-Bielefeld.DE>]

Hi John,

>> Support for Solaris 11.3 had already been obsoleted in GCC 13.  However,
>> since the only Solaris system in the cfarm was running 11.3, I've kept
>> it in tree until now when both Solaris 11.4/SPARC and x86 systems have
>> been added.
>> 
>> This patch actually removes the Solaris 11.3 support.
>
> I'm not sure I like this change since Solaris 11.3 is the last version of
> Solaris supported by a large number of SPARC systems.
>
> Oracle unfortunately raised the hardware baseline with Solaris 11.4 such
> that every system older than the SPARC T4 is no longer supported by 11.4
> while 11.3 still runs perfectly fine on these machines.

I wonder why you didn't raise your concerns 1 1/2 years ago when I
announced the obsoletion of Solaris 11.3 support?

> While Oracle does no longer provide feature updates to Solaris 11.3, there
> is still LTSS security support so that users still receive security updates
> so that their systems are continued to be protected against vulnerabilities.

The Solaris 11.3 ESUs (Extended Support Updates) are available at a
premium only, and just contain the bare minimum of security updates,
often 6 to 9 month in between.

> I think Solaris 11.3 support should be kept since the resulting code removal
> is not that large that it would justify dropping support for such a large
> userbase.

Do you have any indication on the size of the userbase?  I seriously
doubt it's large beyond some hobbyists that keep the old hardware
running.

You also seem to forget that my GCC (and LLVM) Solaris support work is
purely voluntary, done in my spare time.

Keeping Solaris 11.3 support working would be much more than restoring
the removal patch:

* For each and every of my Solaris patches, I'd have to investigate if
  it works on 11.3 or needs adjustments and workarounds.

* I'd also need to regularly test the result to keep things working.

I honestly don't have the time or the energy to do this, nor the
hardware required for testing  Besides, I have too much on my plate
already, and rather spend it on more beneficial work.

Above all, I always wonder why people insist on running ancient hardware
with an almost-unsupported OS, but require a bleeding edge version of
GCC.  What's wrong with continuing to use GCC 13 (or even 14, although I
haven't tested that on Solaris 11.3) instead?

> Removing Solaris 11.3 support might make sense in the future when SPARC
> support in Illumos has matured enough that people can switch over their
> machines.

As has been noted, SPARC is on its way out for Illumos.

	Rainer

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Rainer Orth, Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University