alternatives to devel/boehm-gc on ia64?

[Anton Shterenlikht]

devel/boehm-gc doesn't build on ia64.
It is not maintained, and I can't get
any help from the boehm-gc mailing list
either:

https://lists.opendylan.org/pipermail/bdwgc/2014-April/005878.html

This failure blocks about 50 ports on ia64.

I know nothing about boehm-gc, hence my question:
does this port provide some critical functionality
to the other 50 ports? Is it possible to build
the said 50 ports without boehm-gc, perhaps with
reduced functionality? Is there an alternative
to boehm-gc?

Thanks

Anton