NGPT - Next Generation POSIX Threading

  TODO - last update 2001-08-01
  ====

  PRIORITY ITEMS LEFT FOR POST Version 1.0.1
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  1.	Additional platform support.  Right now, the x86 platform has the most extensive platform
	support.  S/390 is probably next in line.  Other architectures, specifically PowerPC and
	Itanium need to be supported as well.  Itanium support is very close to complete and can
	be completed very quickly.  PowerPC needs a lot of work.  The base package has run under
	AIX on PowerPC but not under Linux on either an RS6000 or PowerMAC.  S/390 is near complete
	but needs a bit more work.
	UPDATE: S/390 work on the NGPT was completed thanks to the efforts of Neale Ferguson, R&D
	Fellow at Software-AG who contributed his changes back to integration.  These changes
	have been integrated for the 0.9.2 release.
	UPDATE: IA-64 work on the NGPT was completed thanks to the efforts of Nick Pollit, SGI. It's
	been integrated into the 0.9.4-2 release.
	UPDATE: PowerPC work is in progress and we hope to have it complete by the 1.0 release.
	UPDATE: PowerPC didn't make it into release 1.0.  We now anticipate its' inclusion in
	a point release around 15-July-2001.  At this time, we also plan to include support for
	S/390 64 bit (again contributed by Neale).
	UPDATE: Still no PowerPC (any takers?).  Attempting to gain access to S/390 64 bit box
	for testing prior to release of code.


  ITEMS UNDER CONSIDERATION FOR 2.0
  ---------------------------------

  1.	When in M:N mode, it may be better to use an "idler" instead of a scheduler on the native
	threads and run only a single copy of the scheduler.  This should be investigated.

  2.	Support for pshared flag = PTHREAD_PROCESS_SHARED attribute of mutexes.
	UPDATE: We have some ideas for a design for this but we're still refining it.
  
  3.	POSIX Semaphore support.  There's a prototype but it needs a lot more work before
	it can be integrated in the main stream.

  4.	Full debugging support.  There is none currently.  We need to build and test a version of
	gdb that will support this threading model.

  5.	Integration with glibc.  While not immediately pressing, the code base needs to be
	prepped for future integration with glibc.  This may involve some architectural changes
	but at present it doesn't seem as though this will be necessary.  Needs serious
	investigation.
	
  6.	POSIX Realtime support.  There's no support currently for the POSIX Realtime APIs. With
	the advent of kernel 2.4, these APIs may need to be supported before glibc integration
	can take place.

  7.	Documentation needs to be updated to reflect the use of environment variables to trigger
	various behavior and overrides.  Additionally, there needs to be a few more enviroment
	variables exposed to enable further runtime control of the library.

  8.	Configuration file may be needed. Currently all the configuration parameters of the library
	are passed via environment variables.  An ngpt.conf file in /etc needs to be created and
	be used to access configuration parameters of the library.