RFC: Primary architecture promotion requirements

[Kevin Kofler]

Brendan Conoboy wrote:
> Our current build systems can turn GCC 4.7 around in about 24 hours.
> The enterprise hardware we anticipate using will take that down to about
> 12 hours.  If speed of build hardware is a consideration, where do you
> draw the line?

IMHO, at MOST 50% longer (factor 1.5) build time, and that's already being 
nice. You're off by a factor of 4!

> No secondary arch is going to get to the speed of x86_64 in the
> foreseeable future, so it's effectively a way to keep PA an exclusive x86
> club.

That's exactly why we should stick with only x86 as primary architecture(s) 
in the foreseeable future.

> I think the real question is, for the developers of on devel-list, how
> will longer builds for one arch than another affect your workflow?  If
> builds on two architectures start at the same time, but one takes longer
> to finish than the other, how will that impact you?  Right now you'll
> still be able to see and use the results of the faster build before the
> slower build completes, so are you materially impacted?

See the other replies: chain builds, updates, platform-specific errors, 
build results. A lot of things depend on the builds to actually complete.

        Kevin Kofler