F20 System Wide Change: ARM as primary Architecture

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 12:14:24PM +0100, Peter Robinson wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 6:15 AM, Matthew Garrett <mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 12:43:36AM -0400, DJ Delorie wrote:
> >>
> >> > Stack protector is not a new requirement in Fedora. It's been part of
> >> > the distribution for years.
> >>
> >> xterm has been part of the distribution for years also, but it's not a
> >> release requirement.
> >
> > The assumption has always been that all primary architectures embody the
> > same level of functionality, with the exception of fundamental
> > differences between the architectures. If things that are currently
> > supported by the primary architectures cease to be supported by the
> > primary architectures, that's a strong argument that they're not
> > fundamental to Fedora. For example, in the absence of hardware nx
> > support, I wouldn't argue that ARM should be forced to implement
> > execshield - both because it's fundamentally tied to 32-bit x86, and
> > because we've given up on supporting it. But yes, if ARM wanted to ship
> > without xterm while the other primary architectures supported it, I'd
> > say that that would be a blocker for shipping ARM as a primary
> > architecture.
> 
> I think assumption is part of the problem here, you're assuming
> something that is different to the assumption of others but as it's
> not documented anywhere it means that neither opinion is neither right
> nor wrong.
> 
There is supporting documentation for DJ Delorie's stance:
  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Architecture_Support

"""
All Fedora packages must successfully compile and build into binary rpms on
at least one supported primary architecture, except where the package is
useful only on a secondary architecture (such as an architecture-specific
boot utility, microcode loader, or hardware configuration tool). Fedora
packagers should make every effort to support all primary architectures.
[...]

If a Fedora package does not successfully compile, build or work on an
architecture, then those architectures should be listed in the spec in
ExcludeArch. Each architecture listed in ExcludeArch needs to have a bug
filed in bugzilla, describing the reason that the package does not
compile/build/work on that architecture[...]
"""

We wrote these guidelines to allow for non-symmetric packagesets on
different primary architectures due to bugs and lack of features.  Those
things should be fixed but are not required.  So, as I mentioned before,
there is probably a set of packages and features that should be considered
essential (or fundamental, to use mjg's wording) but that doesn't include
the whole packageset or all the things that another architecture does.  If
a missing xterm package was the only thing that was being debated as holding
up arm as primary, I would say that the guidelines point at that *not* being
a blocker.

-Toshio
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