Rick Moen <rick@???> wrote:

>> Guess in that case we should point that out also to the people who
>> still own and use historic cars from the last century for example.
>
> The people who still own and use historic cars do so in the knowledge
> that, over time, it tends to be an expensive hobby. Also (obviously),
> old cars bear their age a great deal better than do old computers.

Not only that, but those of us who run older cars also don't expect them to have all the modern bells & whistles. One of my "cars" is a 1989 Land Rover - the ONLY electronics in it are an ignition amplifier (instead of points), the regulator in the alternator, and when I find time to finish the install, a controller for the LPG (propane) fuel system.
It doesn't have Airbags, ABS, Traction control, cruise control, radio, intermittent wipers*, electronically controlled automatic gearbox with different modes, .... or much in the way of noise reduction (padding). The youngest car in the household (10 year old Toyota Avensis) has all of these (and more) and gets used all the time.

So the analogy is, I wouldn't expect "support" for all this "new" stuff on an old vehicle. Similarly, as other have suggested, if I was running very old hardware, I'd probably not be too worried about being able to run all the latest and greatest software on it. So there's an argument for dropping support for an old and little used architecture for NEW VERSIONS - leave the older versions in the repos so that people can still install a system, but make it clear that this won't be the latest and greatest version. There then comes the issue of ongoing bugfixes - and my assumption would be that only serious and/or security related bugs would get fixed in it.

There is a parallel here with Netatalk - the package for talking Apple networking protocols. In (IIRC) version 3 they dropped support for AppleTalk and only support Apple filing protocols etc over IP - on the basis that not much these days still talks AppleTalk, Apple dropped it some years ago. If you still have a need to use AppleTalk, then you can still use version 2 and IIRC there was an announcement on the mailing list of an update for version 2 recently (bug fixes).

If there were a lot of developer resource available, AND some of that resource was happy to/enjoys working on the "old" architecture then there would be no problem. But AIUI in Devuan that is not the case - so for practical reasons I;d suggest following the 90/10 or 80/20 principle (whatever the numbers work out at) and work the 90% or 80% that you've got resources for, and don't let that remaining 10% or 20% consume 90% or 80% of the dev resources.


* Well, except when "Lucas, the prince of darkness" electrics are playing up :-( A reference to the legendary unreliability of 60s, 70, 80s UK automotive electrics, much of which came from Lucas (most of it did for Land Rovers). Having all your lights go out just as you arrive at a corner in the road, in the country in total darkness, while "driving enthusiastically" is "interesting" to say the least 8-O