Re: [Qemu-devel] Missing ARMv6 instructions?

[Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>]

Paul Brook wrote:
> Better would be to lobby ARM to allow open source emulators. 
> "I'd like to use ARM hardware for <big project>, but qemu doesn't support 
> ARMv7 so I'm thinking of using PowerPC instead" is a particularly good 
> argument ;-)

I suspect ARM's business model - dependent wholly on licensing the ARM
architecture in various forms - would make it very difficult for them
to agree to that argument even if it would gain them one customer.

It'll be interesting when someone develops a compiler that uses very
detailed machine descriptions - with enough detail to describe an
architecture well enough that the description can also be used (by a
different program) to emulate it to a significant degree.

They need good compilers to support the architrecture.  But a very
detailed machine description is also their business nightmare: the
basis for software, and later hardware, implementations of their
architecture.  I wonder if people such as yourself will be able to
contribute to the development of the machine description for such a
compiler.

-- Jamie