Hi gumb, Thanks for your very long email, I dont have time right now to digest it all and address all the points I want to, but I want to snip right through and clear up a few points that stick out. On 8 September 2015 at 13:13, gumb <gumb@linuxmail.org> wrote:
It's true that a small handful of dejected users on this factory mailing list may not seem significant, but to truly gauge the potential user base who will be upset by this we're going to just have to wait for the coming release, and the weeks and months that follow it. Most users of older 32-bit hardware are *less* likely (not unlikely) to be following lists regarding the state of cutting edge features. Indeed, only a small fraction of users of any distro follow mailing lists, forums, subreddits or whatever other sources of their distro's information. The majority only become aware of what's changing when they hear of a new release, go to download it or have already installed it.
While I do not dismiss, discard, or seek to diminish the feedback from any users, you also have to accept that the volume and intensity of public complaints can be disproportionate to the number of people affected. The facts are pretty simple #1 openSUSE's 32-bit user base is shrinking, fast #2 The current contributors for building the media want to support 64-bit only, because of Fact #1 #3 There are clearly passionate users who will be impacted by this decision (though they can continue to use openSUSE 13.1 and 13.2 for some years still) #4 User feedback is great, but is often unlikely to change the opinion of what someone wants to do - remember we're a community of volunteers, and the greatest motivator for any volunteer is 'working on what they want to work on' #5 No contributors have stepped up and started to work with the existing build team to keep 32-bit support. #6 No one is blocking anyone from working on 32-bit support, but the people previously involved don't want to do it, and some people like me think it's not worth the effort (but that doesn't mean I mind if other people think I'm wrong - I'm equally happy when my opinion is accepted or not as long as openSUSE benefits)
There's been repeated references to this magic unknown figure representing the current 32-bit openSUSE install base, and many of those pushing for an end to 32-bit support are loyal to Richard Brown's apparent knowledge of this information without knowing what the statistics actually are. Does this have to be a secret, because there seems to be a reluctance to just spit it out?
There's no reluctance to just spit it out. I admit to a little bit of a tiredness to repetition - I don't want to repeatedly go into great detail over a topic which has been discussed openly already. For example, the statistics in question were part of my openSUSE Conference presentation You can see the slides with the graphics here: https://speakerdeck.com/sysrich/the-future-is-unwritten You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH99TSrfvq0
It's nonetheless surprising that this architecture is being dropped so soon. Take a look at the options in /usr/src/packages/RPMS/. (open)SUSE is now chasing the 64-bit ARM market, has support for ppc, sparc and more. All of these which add up to perhaps a couple of percent of the market. Sure, 64-bit ARM is growing and in two years from now, nearing the end of the Leap 42 lifecycle, it might be considerably more relevant. But this is an odd offering overall. openSUSE is effectively saying 'you can run the world's most popular architecture, or take your pick from among a bunch of obscure ones hardly anybody uses, but you want the world's number two most used architecture? No, sorry.' Essentially, any colour you like so long as it's green.
openSUSE's architecture support reflects the interest of the openSUSE community, and is a result of those contributors working on those architectures.
As a long-time openSUSE user, I've read a good number of articles, comments and threads in previous years from users in developing nations who say they obtain the distro on disc to install on multiple machines in their communities, and that for them high speed phone or internet connections are either unavailable or unaffordable. It would be logical to assume that people in these regions are likely to have a higher-than-average proportion of older and hence 32-bit machines. Are we no longer caring about this part of the userbase? openSUSE is embarking on its second Asia summit. Were it being held in one of the continent's less developed countries, imagine starting off with a keynote where all 32-bit users were asked to raise their hands, and then asked to leave the summit, because they're no longer relevant.
I was at the openSUSE Asia summit - all the hardware I saw used was 64-bit. I think it's actually quite narrow minded to think that developing countries must use ancient obsolete hardware - I think you'll find most of these countries embrace low-cost, but modern, hardware. Such trends are one of the reasons these nations are developing at the pace they are, because they're able to have a technical agility which more developed countries do not, normally because they're expending a great deal of effort supporting old, legacy, hardware and software...kind of like 32-bit architecture support in a Linux distribution ;)
Given that one of Linux's long-standing strong selling points has been that it runs very well on older hardware and allows you to keep such machines in use, for the sake of three more years of support for up to 15% of the user base, I think openSUSE should continue to offer 32-bit
But what if openSUSE has no contributors interested in working on it? And also, I continue to struggle with the mindset that somehow openSUSE must continue to find a way of run shiny new latest versions of everything on increasingly old hardware. New versions of openSUSE are an opportunity to provide our users with new technologies, new software, new versions. There must comes a time that the desire to develop, improve, and move forward must mean that support for the past doesn't bring the benefit of the time, effort, and cost required.
and if it's a question of money and build machines, SUSE ought to donate some servers to the cause. Yes, they really should. There may be a complete separation of SUSE from openSUSE but still the former should contribute more to support the latter, if not financially then by way of hardware donations. If they want to achieve this virtuous circle of TW > SUSE > openSUSE (maybe it's a triangle then) they should be prepared to help out more in the regular user community, because that's where the interest for Tumbleweed and hence SUSE additions will come from later on. Alas, they've already abandoned 32-bit themselves with SLE12 so it seems they're bloody-minded on this issue
What would the business case be that I should present to SUSE? SUSE are more than happy to invest in openSUSE, especially when it also brings benefits to themselves, but in the case of 32-bit support I cannot think of a pitch I could possibly bring to SUSE management that wouldn't be laughable "Please give us money and/or more hardware so we can support an architecture which you already don't support in your own products, you're never going to support in your products, and we're going to have to absolutely have to stop supporting in a few years anyway at the current rate of decline? Oh and by the way, we currently have no contributors interested in building for this architecture"
And if you don't think there'll be much of a migration effect from disgruntled users, actually I'd be inclined to agree. Many people don't want to give up on a distro they've become faithful to and will only voice their disapproval when it's too late, and in places (comments on blogs of articles of press releases) where nobody's listening. But some will silently depart, perhaps imparting a final flourish of anger in some unknown corner of the Internet.
I don't want to see people leave, but if they really do only have 32-bit capable hardware right now, I'd imagine the cost and effort of upgrading to cheap, maybe even second hand, 64-bit hardware is no more difficult than moving to a different distribution Obviously, there are emotions to take into account, so such rational options will not be considered by all. Therefore, I'm sure we will loose some people over this. I don't like it, but I accept it's a cost that comes with progress and I really think it's more important we do what is right for the long term sustainability of the Project than burn ourselves out trying to make everyone happy in all cases.
Even my one 64-bit machine is a 2007 model Dell laptop which I bought secondhand (though barely used) two years ago. To me, that's 'current'!
And it should run Leap just fine. I'm fine with a pretty wide definition of 'current', but I really think 32-bit is a good place to draw the line -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org