From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
cc: Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@gmail.com>,
        Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@enterprisedb.com>,
        Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie>, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>,
        Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>,
        PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: AIX support - alignment issues
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Comments: In-reply-to Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
	message dated "Mon, 11 Jul 2022 12:34:39 -0400"
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Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2022 12:58:51 -0400
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Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Mon, Jul 11, 2022 at 2:49 AM Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> I think it'd be pretty reasonable to disclaim support for
>> any architecture that doesn't have a representative in our
>> buildfarm, which would lead to dropping all four of these.
>> If you don't like it, step up and run a buildfarm animal.

> I strongly suspect that anyone who tried to use a modern PostgreSQL on
> any of these platforms would find it quite an adventure, which is
> fine, because if you're trying to use any of those platforms in 2022,
> you are probably the sort of person who enjoys an adventure. But it
> can't really be useful to list them in the documentation, and it's
> unlikely that any of them "just work".

It's possible that they "just work", but we have no way of knowing that,
or knowing if we break them in future.  Thus the importance of having
a buildfarm animal to tell us that.

More generally, I think the value of carrying support for niche
architectures is that it helps keep us from falling into the
software-monoculture trap, from which we'd be unable to escape when
the hardware landscape inevitably changes.  However, it only helps
if somebody is testing such arches on a regular basis.  The fact that
there's some #ifdef'd code somewhere for M88K proves diddly-squat
about whether we could actually run on M88K today.  The situation
for niche operating systems is precisely analogous.

			regards, tom lane