Re: Future of 32-bit platforms (including i386)

On June 3, 2023 11:29:00 AM PDT, Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
>On Sat, Jun 3, 2023, 10:44 AM Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On May 31, 2023, at 10:30, Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
>>
>> > On Sun, May 28, 2023 at 10:09 AM Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > Emmanuel Vadot <manu_at_bidouilliste.com> wrote on
>> > Date: Wed, 24 May 2023 06:35:55 UTC :
>> >
>> > > . . .
>> > >
>> > > I personnaly see armv7 in "degraded maintainance mode" since 13.0,
>> > > nothing really intersting was added, no new SoC support even if there
>> > > was some interesting one that we could support, no new drivers for
>> > > supported platforms. We even lost TI BeagleBone support because no one
>> > > really have the time to keep support up to date.
>> > > I still have some little cute boards that I want to use from time to
>> > > time but the lack of proper porting of new language (like rust and iirc
>> > > go have problems too) is making new software unusable on those boards
>> > > (you can't even make some "smart speaker" for spotify as all the
>> > > spotify clients are in rust).
>> > > IMX6 support is stalled since ian@ passed away and mmel@ isn't very
>> > > active atm and they were both the most actives developers for armv7 low
>> > > level code.
>> >
>> > One of the things for tier 2 is:
>> > (from https://docs.freebsd.org/en/articles/committers-guide/#archs
>> > 21.4. Tier 2 section)
>> >
>> > QUOTE
>> > Collectively, developers are required to provide the following
>> > to maintain the Tier 2 status of a platform:
>> >
>> >     • Tier 2 architectures must have an active ecosystem of users and
>> developers.
>> > END QUOTE
>> >
>> > Is there an implication that, even for 14, the "developers"
>> > part of that for armv7 has dropped off to the point that
>> > tier 2 would reasonably be in question?
>> >
>> > For the 14 branch, armv7 seems to be right on the edge. Some
>> > bugs do get fixed, but some of the SoCs are so poorly maintained
>> > that they don't work anymore (for whatever reason). So "degraded
>> > maintenance mode" is likely apt for 14: it will still work, mostly, but
>> > many cool new things that people want, both in terms of languages
>> > and new hardware support will be lacking in some way, shape or
>> > form. Tier 2 is likely still the best tier to keep it at, imho.
>> >
>>
>> One thing I was unsure of is how much the choice is driven
>> by things as they are at around releng/14.0 vs. what things
>> might be expected to be like around, say, releng/14.4 (a
>> number of years later). It appears that changing tier status
>> is normally avoided for the likes of 14.[1-4] .
>>
>
>A lot of it is sticking your finger in the air and projecting out 4 years.
>If nobody is going to be making any fixes and the code doesn't work at that
>point, we are better off killing it now. For armv7, I still see bug fixes
>happening, but anticipate that any bad bug that pops up may not het fixed.
>I see no new hardware support absent some unforeseen resurgence.
>
>I suspect when we branch 15, it's 4 years out prospects will be even worse.
>But I don't know that for sure.
>
>Warner
>
>===
>> Mark Millard
>> marklmi at yahoo.com
>>
>>

IMO, having to "double back" to fix format errors or integer conversion errors causes developers just that little bit of distraction, time that added up over time could be put to better use elsewhere. Compilers tend to be more fussy these days, meaning one must pay even more attention to 64-bit vs 32-bit than before. That's been my take over the years.


-- 
Cheers,
Cy Schubert <Cy.Schubert@cschubert.com>
FreeBSD UNIX:  <cy@FreeBSD.org>  Web:  https://FreeBSD.org
NTP:                     <cy@nwtime.org>    Web:  https://nwtime.org
                                                    e^(i*pi)+1=0

Pardon the typos. Small keyboard in use.