Validity of i686 as a release blocker

[Paul W. Frields]

On Tue, Aug 04, 2015 at 09:47:27AM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
[...snip...]
> Perhaps it is time that we evaluate where i686 stands in Fedora more
> closely.  For a starting suggestion, I would recommend that we do not
> treat it as a release blocking architecture.  This is not the same as
> demotion to secondary architecture status.  That has broader
> implications in both buildsys and ecosystem.  My suggestion is
> narrowly focused so that builds still proceed as today, but if there
> is something broken for i686 it does not block the release of whatever
> milestone we are pursuing.
> 
> (To be clear, I would support a move to secondary arch status for
> i686, but I am not suggesting it at this time.)

So to put a finer point on this, our shipping i686 images depends on a
broader community effort beyond the kernel maintainers in the Fedora
Engineering team.  That needs to precisely not mean more heroics on
the part of e.g. QE, rel-eng, etc.  I have no idea what the pushback
on this issue is, but I'm sure this thread will tell us.  But given
that Fedora is supposed to encourage such community effort, it would
be good to see what people are willing to do to build it.

> Making i686 non-release blocking would actually match reality.  None
> of the Fedora Editions appear at all concerned with i686.  Cloud is
> demoting[3] i686 from its offering.  Workstation has been fairly
> ambivalent about it and recommends x86_64.  Server does the same.
> Given the lack of focus on it, and the fact that the broader community
> is not testing the development releases for i686, I believe this would
> be a good first step.

"Ambivalent" is probably understated here.  It's hard to imagine
people securing i686 hardware these days to run a Workstation
experience, after all.

> [1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1247382
> [2] https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2015-February/208368.html
> [3] https://fedorahosted.org/cloud/ticket/106

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Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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