The future of 32-bit Linux [LWN.net]

The future of 32-bit Linux

Posted Dec 5, 2020 15:14 UTC (Sat) by dezgeg (guest, #92243)
In reply to: The future of 32-bit Linux by BirAdam
Parent article: The future of 32-bit Linux

In general I agree with you, but do you think that the Linux kernel is really the bottleneck here? I would imagine for end-user facing hardware the biggest problem is the necessity of modern enough web browser and the never-ending JavaScript bloat...

to post comments

The future of 32-bit Linux

Posted Dec 6, 2020 1:23 UTC (Sun) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't imagine that it's really possible to blame this problem on any one piece of software, or even any one category of software. The simple and uncomfortable reality is that newer hardware is more lucrative to support, so that is what people and businesses choose to spend their time and effort on supporting. This is not a technical problem, and will not admit a technical solution.

Even more bluntly: If you want support for hardware X, you can support it yourself* or hire someone to support it for you. If X happens to be popular, you might receive support for free, but this is a gift and not an entitlement.

* There are complications if we're talking about closed hardware, but I'm mostly talking about general-purpose computing devices. IMHO closed hardware should have a minimum support period codified into law, but I have no idea how such a law might be written. It would need to provide a precise legal definition of "support," and I just don't see how you would go about defining such a thing. And then you have issues of "I modded it and now their new firmware update broke everything," which is a whole other can of worms... IMHO you get to keep both pieces if that happens, but others will disagree with me.

The future of 32-bit Linux

Posted Dec 6, 2020 12:07 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> It would need to provide a precise legal definition of "support," and I just don't see how you would go about defining such a thing. And then you have issues of "I modded it and now their new firmware update broke everything," which is a whole other can of worms... IMHO you get to keep both pieces if that happens, but others will disagree with me.

Similar to what they do with cars - spare parts etc MUST be freely available for ten years after manufacturing stops.

Let's define "lifetime suppport" as say 5 years. So if a phone maker releases a phone with a version of Android for which support stops in a year, the manufacturer is on the hook to take over for the remaining four.

And I don't know about other law, but we have a concept in UK law of "fit for purpose", and if you have a security breach or something, then that surely is NOT "fit for purpose".

Note also the thing about cars - it's down to the manufacturer to make sure spares are available, they don't have to do it themselves, they can off-load it. So if they can find a bunch of enthusiasts to take over with a bit of support from the manufacturer, that's good enough. Those enthusiasts might even upstream a load of proprietary fixes ... :-)

Cheers,
Wol