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

On 5/26/23 8:31 AM, Tomek CEDRO wrote:
> On Fri, May 26, 2023 at 11:21 AM Peter Jeremy wrote:
>> On 2023-May-24 03:49:55 +0200, Tomek CEDRO wrote:
>>> I saw that info too.. but are we going to allow Intel dictate future
>>> of computers and supported platforms to The FreeBSD Project?
>> I don't see that as the FreeBSD Project allowing Intel to dictate its
>> future direction but rather more exidence that chip vendors are also
>> deprecating 32-bit support.
>>
>>> I am
>>> convinced that everyone will move to RISC-V pretty soon anyway :-)
>> Note that FreeBSD doesn't support 32-bit RISC-V
> 
> Thanks Peter.. I know 64-bit is now easier to maintain both in
> software and hardware domain.. I just don't like "Enforced Changes
> Ideologies" so things that worked well needs to be "just deleted and
> replaced".. in most cases this is what destroys our current world..
> its like history rewrite.. maybe marking code as "obsolete" /
> "unsupported" / "abandoned" just for anyone ever wanting to play with
> the code ever again rather than removing the code and leaving nothing
> for the future.. I don't know what are the plans but I think code for
> porting to other platforms should be preserved for various reasons
> even when obsoleted it will be solid source of knowledge :-)

git rm does not remove history.  The code will always be available,
unlike issues some folks have raised with historical commerical
software that is now "dead" as the owners of that software have gone
away, etc.

But also, FreeBSD has been purging support for older things for a while
now.  There are no more drivers for ISA adapters in the tree for example
including PCCard.  We as a Project do not have infinite developer
resources and have to make wise decisions about where to invest those
limited resources.  (See also the alpha, sun4v, ia64, sparc64, pc98, and
mips architecture support)

-- 
John Baldwin