Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2023 10:19:59 -0700 From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> To: 'freebsd-arch' <freebsd-arch@freebsd.org> Subject: Future of 32-bit platforms (including i386) Message-ID: <aaa3e005-5f72-f422-56b1-932842379e15@FreeBSD.org>
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For 13.0, i386 was demoted from Tier 1 to Tier 2. In the announcement of this for 13.0, the project committed to an update on i386's future around the time of 14.0. The announcement at the time suggested that i386 would be supported less in 14.x than in 13.x. My proposal is that for 14.x we treat i386 like any other Tier 2 platform. That is, release images and packages would only be provided on a best-effort basis, and we would not guarantee providing them. I think we should also stop shipping binary updates for the base system (freebsd-update) for 14.x for i386. A larger question is what to do about 32-bit platforms moving forward. My proposal for powerpc, i386, and armv[67] is that we say publicly that we anticipate not supporting them in 15. That is, that we may remove them outright from the tree, or we may leave them in the tree, but we do not plan on building packages or release images. Another option to consider for 32-bit platforms perhaps in 15 is to remove kernel support and only retain the ability to build userland. The goal of saying this now-ish (or about the time 14.0 is going to ship) would be to give time for users and developers to respond in the window between 14.0 and 15.0 so we can evaluate those responses as an input into the final decision for 15. -- John Baldwin
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