Replacing select() in the non-threaded RTS?

[Bryan O'Sullivan]

I notice that select is a bit of a bottleneck in the non-threaded RTS 
once lots of sockets are in play.  Between kernel and userspace, many a 
cycle are wasted once we go past a few hundred clients.  On some 
operating systems, the fixed nature of fd_set imposes a surprisingly low 
ceiling on the maximum number of concurrently open file descriptors.

I gather there's some kind of longish-term plan to build a more 
pluggable RTS, but it seems like a nearer-term solution could be 
implemented relatively cheaply, and wouldn't conflict with the ultimate 
goal.

Would the GHC team be interested in receiving a patch that replaced 
select, where possible, with an operating system's native, and hopefully 
faster, event wait mechanism?

	<b