Better than forcing it

Exposing the choice to end users was also the original UX problem with CPU features that the levels e.g. x86-64-v2 attempted to solve by creating a baseline that could be advanced.

We already have to consider library-based multilibs e.g. glibc-hwcaps delivery mechanism, and function multi-versioning e.g. __attribute__((target_clones(...))) in testing, and this adds to the qualification costs.

Something that I don't see talked about is that container image creation systems make static decisions at container build time and so you also end up with the entire combinatorial matrix as built containers if you, as an ISV or IHV, can't pin down what your customers are going to require.

In summary, I agree that raising the baseline is the simplest engineering solution to a complex problem, but the level depends on the needs of your community, your resources, and many other factors.

For example, see the recent "Architecture baseline for Forky" discussion in Debian: https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2025/10/msg00471....