[OpenIndiana-discuss] 32-bit support in OpenIndiana Hipster

[Bruce Lilly]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 3:00 PM, Aurélien Larcher <
aurelien.larcher at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> There's something wrong with this picture...
> >
>
> I do not think there is, considering that I was asking about the long term
> goal and not providing a transition recipe to be implemented right away.
>

The problem that I see is that there is neither an organized plan to migrate
to 64-bit-only, nor an effort to take advantage of isaexec support for both
32-bit and 64-bit systems; instead what appears to be a haphazard
piecemeal move to an odd mixture of 32-bit and 64-bit components.

> So if your goal is really to drop 32-bit support (and thereby alienate
> > those with 32-bit systems to support),
> >
>
> I think Alexander raised the concern one year ago and there was barely any
> feedback nor interest in helping.
>

I disagree; I see 6 responses to the original message within a few days,
all expressing an interest in continuation of 32-bit support (for various
reasons), and zero messages encouraging dropping 32-bit support.
The next message after those was today's "official statement"
announcing that 32-bit support is effectively dropped.


> Indeed it would be nice to have someone working on the installer if you
> have an interest in that.


Not much point given the unilateral decision to drop 32-bit support.
Not practical without a well-defined place to find source code for
components in order to be able to work on them.
Given the ready availability of systems (e.g. NetBSD) which do not
have many of the limitations of OI, but which do have thriving user
and developer communities, it's difficult to justify putting effort into
what frankly speaking appears to amount to little more than
flogging a dead horse when a similar effort expended elsewhere
will produce far greater benefit.