Deprecating Architectures and BSPs after 6 Branches

[Joel Sherrill]

Hi

As the branching of 6 approaches, there have been discussions of
deprecating some architectures entirely and some specific BSPs. This means
they would be present in the 6.x series but not present in the 7.x series.

Various factors play into the decision but include loss of compiler support
and aging out of the hardware platform. Being old isn't enough -- we want
to have confidence that no one is using RTEMS on that platform. For
example, we have been told that m68040 MVME boards are still around in some
labs. We will keep them. But the mrm332 board within the same m68k family
is on the deprecation list after contacting the hardware vendor.

A recent factor is lack of a maintainer to the point of not being able to
get permission to relicense. We have a few architectures that do not appear
to be in active use and the port authors have not responded to relicense
requests.

Architectures on the deprecation list are:

+ bfin, lm32, mips, sh, sparc64, and v850

The BSP list isn't settled yet but looks likely to include old ARM boards
like the gumstix and the original BeagleBoard. We think the m68k and
powerpc families likely have BSPs which are no longer in use.

As we continue the transition to GitLab, we want to leverage CI as much as
practical. Reducing architectures and BSPs significantly impacts turn
around time. I

If you know of architectures or BSPs that you have stopped using or think
have aged out, please let us know.  We really need user input.

Conversely, if you are silently using something, let us know. It will keep
it off the deprecation list for at least one more round. :)

Thanks.

--joel
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