Cygwin x86 end-of-life

[Brian Inglis]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 13:45:09 +0100, Corinna Vinschen wrote:> On Nov 18 12:30, 
Brian Inglis wrote:
>> On Fri, 18 Nov 2022 15:51:34 +0000, Jon Turney wrote:
>>> On 14/11/2022 21:29, Jason Pyeron wrote:
>>>> Can I throw resources at a solution? If so what?

>>> Sure, if that's what you want to do.
>>> According surveys, 32-bit Windows has a fraction of 1% market share, and 
>>> declining. Our own (limited) metrics are in accord with that, so I 
>>> basically see any time I spend on this as wasted.
>>> So, the first resource you'll need provide is manpower.

>> The decision makes sense with those numbers.
>> Do we have numbers to say what the situation is with Windows mingw64-i686 crosses?
>> Should we also be dropping those at the same time, if there is only 1% use
>> of that platform?
>> In which case, we should announce that, and add that to the EoL notices.

> A cygwin -> i686-w64-mingw32 cross is an entirely different beast.
> It's kind of like a cygwin -> sparc-sun-sunos4 cross, or a cygwin ->
> riscv-*-* cross.  Either of them is a perfectly valid toolchain, hosted
> on Cygwin, targeting some foreign CPU/machine combination.
> As long as the cross toolchain has a maintainer, it's ok, isn't it?

As mingw64-i686 target is cross for native Windows 32, and we are dropping 
Cygwin support for Windows 32, should we not also be dropping cross support for 
native Windows 32, as so few people are using it, and software developers, 
packagers, and distros, including us, are dropping it as platform and target?

As Jon says "I basically see any time I spend on this as wasted."

Also there are 309 unmaintained mingw64 packages, so perhaps reducing the double 
(over the base package) extra work of maintaining mingw64 packages to a single 
extra cross might enable us to persuade some maintainers to pick up unmaintained 
native Windows 64 cross mingw64-x86_64 packages corresponding to the base 
packages they maintain?

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis			Calgary, Alberta, Canada

La perfection est atteinte			Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter	not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer	but when there is no more to cut
			-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry