[PATCH 0/2] Source Builder: Fix UnicodeDecodeError build hang

[Chris Johns]

On 8/5/20 4:22 pm, Anders Montonen wrote:
> On 8 May 2020, at 9:12, Chris Johns <chrisj at rtems.org 
> <mailto:chrisj at rtems.org>> wrote:
>> On 8/5/20 3:50 pm, Anders Montonen wrote:
>>
>>> On a not completely unrelated note, have there been any thoughts 
>>> about setting a timetable for deprecating Python 2 support now that 
>>> it is EOL, eg. in RTEMS6? Are there any specific host platforms you 
>>> want to support that don’t have Python 3?
>> We cannot just yet because we have users who run long life operating 
>> systems and cannot move. This is one of the roles RTEMS provides. We 
>> maintain tools and the OS longer than others and on older target 
>> hardware. Large orgs cannot retool just because it exists.
> 
> Right, which is why you set a timetable to give sufficient advance 
> warning, and coincide it with a major release. Though I would have 
> assumed that these kinds of users don’t really switch to newer releases 
> anyway.

There is a mix, those on older RTEMS versions and old host OSs, a new 
development so a newer RTEMS but the same older host OS due to a company 
or org policy, then those on new hosts but old hardware, ie PowerPC VME 
cards, and finally those on a new OS but using an old RTEMS and 
hardware. I had this a while ago where an archived project years later 
needed a minor change and the Linux host OS that was used only supported 
VL bus and would not boot on any hardware we could find or any VM. We 
took the source code archive, compiled gcc with a couple of minor fixes 
on a current Linux at the time, built RTEMS, the app and verified the 
ROM image bit for bit before making the change.

Chris