Re: Emacs 22.2 release plans

[Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com>]

Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> writes:

>> The following paragraph in etc/NEWS seems to be both badly worded,
>> in the wrong place, and perhaps only intended for the pretest.
>> In any case, please check it:
>>
>> * Systems that will not be supported in the future
>> configure will print a warning and exit for a set of systems that are
>> believed to not be in use anymore.  The support has not been removed
>> yet, but configure will need to be edited in order to allow
>> compilation to proceed on such a system.  If you are using such a
>> system, please send a message to emacs-devel@gnu.org in order to take
>> off the list of systems.
>
> Something like this? It should be up near the top (in "Installation
> Changes" or a separate section):
>
> "We plan to discontinue support for some older systems in Emacs 23.1.
> These systems are still supported in Emacs 22.2, but configure will
> not complete without manual intervention.  If you encounter one of
> these systems, and believe it should continue to be supported, please
> make your voice known at emacs-devel@gnu.org."

I've checked in a change that moves the entry into the Installation
Changes section and makes it (IMO) slightly clearer:

  ** Deprecated machine types and operating systems
  
  Certain machine types and operating systems have been deprecated.  On
  these systems, configure will print a warning and exit, and you must
  edit the configure script for compilation to proceed.  The deprecated
  systems will not be supported at all in Emacs 23.  We are not aware of
  anyone running Emacs on these systems; if you are, please email
  emacs-devel@gnu.org to take it off the list of deprecated systems.
  
  *** Deprecated machine types
  pmax, hp9000s300, ibm370aix, ncr386, ews4800, mips-siemens, powerpcle,
  and tandem-s2
  
  *** Deprecated operating systems
  bsd386, bsdos2-1, bsdos2, bsdos3, bsdos4, bsd4-1, bsd4-2, bsd4-3,
  usg5-0, usg5-2-2, usg5-2, usg5-3, ultrix4-3, 386bsd, hpux, hpux8,
  hpux9, hpux9shr, hpux10, hpux10-20, aix3-1, aix3-2-5, aix3-2, aix4-1,
  nextstep, ux4800, uxpds, and uxpv

As for changing the configure script to add an option to enable
deprecated builds, it would be fine if someone wants to do it, but I
don't think it's necesary.  I *seriously* doubt anyone's using Emacs
22 on these systems, and anyone who is surely has the expertise to
make the required simple change to the configure script.