Re: The future of Linux32 builds and tests

On 10/08/2015 11:34 AM, Daniel Holbert wrote:
> On 10/08/2015 10:01 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> We should try to get data from some 3rd party (not our download tallies)
> about the Firefox-on-Linux 32-bit vs. 64-bit user stats, before we make
> a call about demoting Linux32 to Tier 2. (Maybe we already have such data?)

Ah -- looking at the bugs that kmoir linked to, it looks like we do have
some data on this, from telemetry (which is opt-in in release builds, so
it's not perfect but it's something):

 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1204920#c1

The numbers there show that ~40% of our Linux users are using the 32-bit
version. (on release & beta channels)  That's more than I was expecting.

Given that, I'd be uncomfortable with option (3) ("turn off Linux32
builds + tests entirely").  I'd also be uncomfortable with option (2)
(doing builds but no tests), because then 40% of our linux users would
be getting un-tested bits.  (Likely-working since they work on other
platforms, but who knows.)

Option (1) (running tests occasionally) seems doable though, and
depending on how infrequent "occasionally" is, it seems like it could
get us cost-savings that are close to those from option (2).

~Daniel