Re: Updating config.guess/config.sub for ppc64le

Christoph Berg <cb(at)df7cb(dot)de> writes:
> Re: Tom Lane 2014-05-10 <27476(dot)1399729986(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
>> Our normal procedure is
>> o update config.guess and config.sub at the start of beta
>> (from http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/config)

> Fwiw, shouldn't that also happen in back branches?

No, we are not in the habit of back-patching such changes, at least
not automatically. I'd be willing to consider it once the new scripts
have survived a beta-testing cycle ... however, a look at our commit
logs shows we have never actually updated config.guess/config.sub in
any back branch.

> Updating config.* there gives you portability to new architectures for
> free - and there should be no risk of breaking anything.

The policy of not back-patching dates back to circa 2000, when new
config scripts *routinely* broke things due to changes in what they
printed on some machines (again, there's lots of evidence on this point
in our commit history). Perhaps that's less of a concern nowadays.
Still, there seems to be zero field demand for doing this.

As for "new architectures for free", nope --- spinlock assembly code
is usually the gating factor for that, not the config scripts.

regards, tom lane