Re: xtensa architecture (-mm -> 2.6.13 merge status)

Chris Zankel
2005-06-21T17:22:35Z

Andrew Morton wrote:
> xtensa architecture
>
> Is xtensa now, or will it be in the future a sufficiently popular
> architecture to justify the cost of having this code in the tree?
>
> Heaven knows. Will merge.

Andrew,

I understand your concern and am glad that you give Xtensa and the other
smaller non-mainstream architectures a chance.

The Xtensa architecture is highly configurable and usually buried inside
an SOC device. So, if you buy a new printer, digital camera, or cell
phone, there is a chance that there is an Xtensa inside even though you
don't know it (sometimes as a small audio-engine or as a control CPU).
Linux hasn't been adopted widely with Xtensa yet, but with Linux growing
in the embedded space, I am sure it will become much more important --
at least this is where I bet my time (and spare time) on.

To minimize the impact on other developers, I do understand
that changes that affect all architectures will only be applied to the
mainstream architectures and that the maintainers of the non-mainstream
architectures then have to pick it up. Luckily, the architecture
dependent files have their own confined space in the arch and asm
directories.

In my opinion, as long as an architecture, driver, etc. is maintained
and not obviously obsolete, it should be allowed to remain in the
kernel.

I do have a few small patches in the queue but am struggling with some
changes I want to make to the syscalls that might break some older code.

Thanks,
~Chris