Re: Using Debian funds to support a gcc development task
* John Paul Adrian Glaubitz:
> But I think the list on the page archive criteria is a bit dishonest as
> well when it asks "Are machines available to buy for the general public?"
> while I don't think an IBM Z mainframe is available to buy for the general
> public.
At last for upstream, the difference is that (I assume, I have no
direct evidence) IBM uses revenue from their Z business to fund
upstream development, and they do more than the required minimum to
keep the port working. In that sense, the existence of the Z port is
probably not a burden on upstream as a whole (more likely the
opposite—but I haven't run any numbers, and those would likely be hard
to come by).
A contribution of the cc0 switchover to GCC could help upstream if it
removes the last remaining cc0 port and thus enables some generic
infrastructure cleanup. The latter would obviously benefit upstream
as a whole. But it's still a one-time thing. It does not move the
port towards a more symbiotic upstream relationship.
The downstream perspective might be quite different, but we are
talking about funding upstream work.
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