On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Dan Kegel dank@kegel.com wrote:
But now that you ask, we do have a lot of platforms to consider. We simply can't provide the same level of support for them all. The gcc project defines three tiers of support. If we did that, it might look like this: We would define tiers for Windows conformance test validation, CPUs, and host operating systems, and maybe graphics cards. 1st tier: we run tests regularly, and all tests must pass for release. 2nd tier: we might run tests occasionally or regularly, but we will tolerate some failures. 3rd tier: we won't test ourselves, and will tolerate failures, but will accept bugfixes from advocates.
+1
Here's one possible set of definitions:
For Windows conformance test validation: 1st tier: Win XP 32 bit, Win 2003 32 bit, Win Vista 32 and 64 bit, Win 2008 32 bit 2nd tier: Win XP 16 bit, Win 95, Win 98, Win ME, Win 7 32 and 64 bit 3rd tier: Win 3.1, DOS
Not sure exactly what you mean by Win XP 16-bit? The Win16 test suite on XP?
For CPUs: 1st tier: whatever our developers use, but mostly < 2 year old Intel and AMD chips, running apps in all three modes, 16, 32, and 64 bit (as supported by hw) 2nd tier: none 3rd tier: power pc, sparc, other less-common pentium-compatible chips
No argument there. Perhaps move 64-bit to 2nd tier, and move it up to 1st once we've got better support for it.
For host OS: 1st tier: Linux 2nd tier: Mac OS X 3rd tier: Solaris, FreeBSD
Having tested these often, I'd say OS X is more broken than FreeBSD. I'd swap those two around to be honest. Solaris/OpenBSD/NetBSD are tier 3 though.