Policy about the meaning of dropping a release architecture [LWN.net]

Policy about the meaning of dropping a release architecture

Posted Nov 25, 2025 19:52 UTC (Tue) by hsivonen (subscriber, #91034)
Parent article: APT Rust requirement raises questions

> The sh4 port has never been officially supported, and none of the other ports have been supported since Debian 6.0.

Is there a stated policy that explains the implications of Debian dropping an architecture as an official release architecture?

It appears that dropping an architecture as a release architecture does not stop these architectures from factoring into debates about what’s OK to do on official release architectures.

What does dropping an architecture from the set of official release architectures mean policy-wise?

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Policy about the meaning of dropping a release architecture

Posted Nov 26, 2025 12:36 UTC (Wed) by smcv (subscriber, #53363) [Link]

> What does dropping an architecture from the set of official release architectures mean policy-wise?

It means that the dropped architecture no longer prevents packages in unstable from migrating to testing (and therefore being included in the next stable release) without manual intervention from the release team, even if that results in previously-working packages becoming uninstallable or otherwise broken.