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

[Don Armstrong <don@debian.org>]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> Thanks for cutting and completely ignoring the part where I
> demonstrated the lack of usage beyond i386 and maybe four or five
> other arches.

You used package download results from one (1!) debian mirror to
demonstrate the supposed lack of usage. However, those download stats
only point to who is actually downloading packages with that
architecture from only that mirror in a single month.

The very fact that people are willing to maintain buildds and make
appropriate patches for the architectures indicates that people
actually are using them. When (and if) an arch fails to have a
critical mass of people who care about it enough to actually take care
of it, then it should be jettisoned. However, that appears not to have
happened yet.

This is almost exactly like an argument for ejecting packages that
don't appear to be very popular but are being actively maintained by a
maintainer who supposedly uses the package in question.[1]


Don Armstrong

1: Hell, I use and maintain a few packages that aren't too terribly
popular.
-- 
I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like
to run their own business.  I know men that would make my wife a
better husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to
'em.
 -- The Best of Will Rogers

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu