I am disappointed in some of the reactions this !! proposal !! has received, with some people apparently reading it in the most uncharitable way. It was a proposal that tried to address technical problems package maintainers and release engineering is facing, not some conspiracy to break the “gaming use case”.
I think this is a sane choice for now, but this really should be a warning shot to the likes of Valve (to be clear, Valve is great for Linux overall, and I’m extremely appreciative of that), that 32-bit needs to go, and Valve cannot expect every single distro out there to maintain 32-bit support forever just for them.
Sooner or later they’re going to have to bundle a 32-to-64-bit translation layer, like they’re already doing with Proton, and also with their x86-to-ARM stuff they’re working on.
These maintainers are spending their own time and often money expecting nothing in return. If they don’t want to continue supporting 32-bit, they are fully within their right to do so.
I understand the fear of having to move distro, but some of the hate I’ve seen levied towards the Fedora maintainers over this is really vile. They don’t owe you a damn thing.
As long as the kernel keeps supporting loading and executing processes with 32-bit code, they don’t even need to go that far. There shouldn’t be much stopping Valve from just supplying libraries themselves inside a container. In fact, that’s what the Steam Linux Runtime “Sniper” does.