ARM as a primary architecture

[Tom Lane]

Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler at chello.at> writes:
> IMHO, if even in the future only x86 will fit the speed criteria to be a 
> primary architecture for Fedora, then so be it. I do not see a need for any 
> other primary architecture(s). Why do we absolutely have to support an 
> architecture with inferior practical performance as a primary architecture? 

To put it as succinctly as possible: monocultures are bad.  Focusing on
just one arch is dangerous; you end up with non-portable code, and
non-portable code is more often than not inferior on more measures than
just the fact that it only works on one arch.  But even if that's the
only thing wrong with the code, you're still boxing yourself in if you
don't strive to make it portable.  Do you really think that x86 will
be the most desirable architecture forever?  Things change fast in this
business, and that arch is weighted down by enough bad ancient decisions
that I think it's eventually going to lose out.

I thought it was a serious error to drop PPC from primary-arch status.
But now that we've done that, putting in another one should be a high
priority wish-list item.  I'm as concerned as anyone about whether we
can (in the near future) get ARM builders that are fast enough to make
it *practical* for ARM to be a PA.  But I think denying that we need
non-Intel PAs is just fundamentally wrongheaded.

			regards, tom lane