Re: Let's remove mips, mipsel, s390, ... (Was: [Fwd: Re: GTK+2.0 2.6.2-3 and buildds running out of space])

[Marc Singer <elf@buici.com>]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 03:15:58AM +0000, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> But to the best of my knowledge, Marco's (blog) post from a few months 
> ago which showed download from ftp.it.debian.org by architecture stands 
> undisputed:  essentially all users are on i386 clearly dominating all other 
> arches, with a fraction of users in maybe two, three, four other arches --- 
> and comparitively nobody in the other fringe arches we keep around for no 
> good reason. And I still believe it delays our releases.  As you say, there 
> are no KDE users on mips.  So guys, we need a new framework.
> 
> Maybe we should pick up on Petter's suggestion of stricter buildd requirements. 
> Maybe we should only build base and essential packages for the minor 
> architectures [ after, apt-source is there for everybody to go further ]. We
> can still provide the debian-installer for everything with a power cord 
> provided we have the resources to code, maintain, debug, document, improve, ...
> and all those platforms.

IMHO, we are in an awkward position.  There are *some* users in the
other architectures.  Not, many but some.  If we drop those
architectures then we will have *no* users in other architectures.
This debate reminds me of the way that large corporations go for the
largest market segment and leave the small fry without anyone catering
to their needs.  Debian is not a desktop architecture for some of
these other architectures, but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable.

It is clear that there is a problem with buildd resource efficiency
and the fact that large packages delay our release undesirably because
of the high buildd latency.

I would hate to see Debian throw out the baby.  

The problem with apt-source is that, if I understand it correctly, it
only performs native builds.  This isn't necessarily possible for some
people.  Speaking as an ARM user on embedded systems, there is no
chance I'm going to build natively on the targets I support.

It does seem prudent to find a way to permit a release on x86 and ppc
before all architectures are complete.  Especially if this tactic will
give Debian the ability to release more often.  Is it so bad to allow the smaller architectures to lag as long as problems are fixed?

Cheers.