Discontinue PPC64 as Alternative Architecture

Summary

After a number of projects dropped support for the big endian ppc64 architecture and our move of ppc64 to "maintenance-only" mode few releases back, now a vital dependency, the Eclipse project, stops supporting ppc64. As a consequence we need to discontinue producing any ppc64 content. This is a long time anticipated step as the upstream focus on the little endian variant (ppc64le) on Linux is well known. My email sent to the Fedora PPC mailing list has few more details.

Owner

Name: Dan Horák
Email: <sharkcz at fedoraproject dot org>
Release notes owner:

Current status

Targeted release: Fedora 29
Last updated: 2018-07-09
Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

Fedora will stop producing ppc64 content - binary rpms or composes.

Benefit to Fedora

Without this step Fedora build system would be blocked at some point as some build dependencies couldn't be resolved.

Scope

Proposal owners: synchronize with rel-engs

Other developers: none

Release engineering: #7602 (a check of an impact with Release Engineering is needed) changes in koji, bodhi and pungi configurations are expected
- List of deliverables: N/A

Policies and guidelines: none

Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

There won't be composes or updates available for Fedora 29, users are advised to move to the little endian ppc64le variant.

How To Test

check if no ppc64 rpms or composes are produced

User Experience

Dependencies

none

Contingency Plan

Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) hire Eclipse developer and convince upstream now, repeat for other projects later
Contingency deadline: N/A
Blocks release? Yes
Blocks product? all, because the build system will stop

Documentation

Fedora 28 was the last that was released with ppc64 content.

Release Notes