firefox3 build fails on alpha

[Dieter]

> Thing is, ports have not been built on -alpha for 
> ages now.  There is not even a working Alpha machine anymore in the
> FreeBSD.org cluster for ports folks to test on if they were inclined to do
> so.  ports have always been tricky on alpha, given the limited # of people
> running FreeBSD  on Alpha.

I've been running NetBSD/Alpha for many years, and beaten a lot of software
into submission on it.  I don't recall a single problem that wasn't ILP32
vs LP64.  FreeBSD runs on AMD64, AMD64 is LP64, so what is the big problem
getting apps to run on Alpha once they run on AMD64?  Yes, I know that
a lot of programs still aren't LP64 clean even today and therefore don't run
properly on AMD64.  But that isn't specific to Alpha.  Turn the portability
compiler warnings on (e.g. require function prototypes), fix the compiler
warnings.  At that point programs will run as well on AMD64 and Alpha
as they do on x86.  In theory there are 64 bit problems that compilers
can't warn about, but I have never found any in code I've ported.

When I compile ports on FreeBSD/AMD64 I usually see a bunch of compiler
warnings fly by.  Just because the compiler says warning rather than error
doesn't mean you can ignore it.  Warnings can and do point to actual bugs.
Good quality code has NO compiler warnings.

The only program I recall giving up on was firefox, and only because it
was soooo big, sooo badly written, with soooo many problems, and so much
hostility from the firefox people.

Firefox in the original Greek means "segmentation fault".