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From:   Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date:   Thu, 2 Nov 2023 07:28:45 -1000
Message-ID: <CAHk-=whFLZ67ffzt1juryCYcYz6eL_XjQF8WucDzwUR5H65+rA@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] asm-generic updates for v6.7
To:     Frank Scheiner <frank.scheiner@web.de>
Cc:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>,
        =?UTF-8?B?VG9tw6HFoSBHbG96YXI=?= <tglozar@gmail.com>,
        linux-ia64@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        Linux-Arch <linux-arch@vger.kernel.org>,
        Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
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On Thu, 2 Nov 2023 at 00:24, Frank Scheiner <frank.scheiner@web.de> wrote:
>
> so the ia64 removal happened despite the efforts - not only from us - to
> keep it alive in Linux. That is a - sad - fact now.

Well, I'd have personally been willing to resurrect it, but I was told
several times that other projects were basically just waiting for the
kernel support to die.

Has the itanium situation really changed?

The thing is, nobody doing new kernel code wants to deal with itanium,
so relegating it to the same situation that i386 support was ("it
still works in old kernels") doesn't seem to be a huge issue for the
people who actually want to use those machines.

That said, I'd be willing to resurrect itanium support, even though I
personally despise the architecture with a passion for being
fundamentally based on faulty design premises, and an implementation
based on politics rather than good technical design.

But only if it turns out to actually have some long-term active
interest (ie I'd compare it to the situation with m68k etc - clearly
dead architectures that we still support despite them being not
relevant - because some people care and they don't cause pain).

So I'd be willing to come back to the "can we resurrect it"
discussion, but not immediately - more along the lines of a "look,
we've been maintaining it out of tree for a year, the other
infrastructure is still alive, there is no impact on the rest of the
kernel, can we please try again"?

               Linus