[Pkg-ia32-libs-maintainers] Future of ia32-libs-* post-wheezy

[Goswin von Brederlow]

On Wed, May 08, 2013 at 11:09:20AM +0200, Thijs Kinkhorst wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Just wanted to quickly discuss the future of the ia32-libs packagers and this 
> maintainer group now that wheezy is released.
> 
> I think it makes sense to keep the packages as they are now, at least in 
> jessie. Quite some external software may still depend on them, and will need 
> some time to transition. Since they're virtually empty the cost of keeping 
> them around is nil.


I don't think that is a good idea. With multiarch in place nobody
should install amd64 packages for 32bit software anymore but instead
install the i386 packages. I seriously doubt there is any 32bit
software that has only amd64 packages but no i386 packages. 3rd party
software [1] does not need to transition, only users need to.

So the need for ia32-libs in new installs should be zero. And on
upgrade people will already have ia32-libs installed if they still
need it. And they only need it if they haven't yet reinstalled 32bit
software from the i386 packages, i.e. they were lazy.

Removing ia32-libs from jessie would I think raise the awareness of
multiarch, force the issue and reduce the number of bugreports about
ia32-libs not quite working or lacking certain libs and such. While
removing it today maybe isn't optimal I certainly think that for the
jessie release we should remove it. So somewhere between today and the
next freeze it should be removed.
 
> I will continue to keep up with security updates at point releases
> for as long as oldstable is supported.
>
> Cheers,
> Thijs

Thanks for that.

MfG
	Goswin

[1] I know google-earth needs ia32-libs due to a multiarch issue. But
that is something that is being fixed. And we need to find those
special problems rather sooner than later.