Add "pthreads conversion" task

1 files changed, 28 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/community/gsoc/project_ideas.mdwn b/community/gsoc/project_ideas.mdwn
index d845f9ba..4596815c 100644
--- a/community/gsoc/project_ideas.mdwn
+++ b/community/gsoc/project_ideas.mdwn
@@ -367,6 +367,34 @@ implementing unit checks in other parts of the Hurd codebase...)
 This task requires experience with debugging locking issues in multithreaded
 applications.
 
+* convert Hurd servers to pthreads
+
+The Hurd was originally created at a time when the pthreads standard didn't
+exist yet. Thus all Hurd servers and libraries are using the old cthreads
+package that came with Mach, which is not compatible with pthreads.
+
+Not only does that mean that people hacking on Hurd internals have to deal with
+a non-standard thread package, which nobody is familiar with. Although a
+pthreads implementation for the Hurd was created in the meantime, it's not
+possible to use both cthreads and pthreads in the same program. Consequently,
+pthreads can't presently be used in any Hurd servers -- including translators.
+
+Some work already has been done once on converting the Hurd servers and
+libraries to use pthreads, but that work hasn't been finished.
+
+The goal of this project is to have all the Hurd code use pthreads. Should any
+limitations in the existing pthreads implementation turn up that hinder this
+transition, they will have to be fixed as well.
+
+One possible option is creating a wrapper that implements the cthreads
+interfaces on top of pthreads, to ease the transition -- but it might very well
+turn out that it's easier to just change all the existing code to use pthreads
+directly. This is up to the student.
+
+This project requires relatively little Hurd-specific knowledge. Experience
+with multithreaded programming in general and pthreads in particular is
+required, though.
+
 * sound support
 
 The Hurd presently has no sound support. Fixing this requires two steps: One is