Ian Jackson writes ("Re: [Fwd: Re: Bug#254598: Name of the Debian x86-64/AMD64
port]"):
> Pretty much all of these lead me to conclude that we should resolve
> along the following lines:
I was slightly unclear about whether that was a formal proposal, and
in any case didn't call for a vote. But people seem to like it so I
hereby propose the following resolution, and call for a vote:
The Technical Committee have considered the question of the name of
the Debian x86-64/AMD64 port. We resolve that:
* In our opinion the porting team are the right people to be deciding
on the architecture name, in general.
* In our opinion there is no significant technical reason to
interfere with the porting team's decision; on the contrary, we
largely agree with the porting team's choice of `amd64'.
* In our opinion architecture names with underscores in should not be
used because of the existing use of underscore as a separator in
package filenames, etc.; accordingly we advise that these should be
avoided.
* Since names with hyphens in are currently only used when separating
variant kernel-processor combinations, we advise that this practice
should be continued.
* Therefore, insofar as we are granted any authority by the
constitution, we uphold the porting team's choice of `amd64'.
* We request that dpkg should be changed to use `amd64'.
Should the dpkg maintainers decline, we will seek clarification of
the Constitution and consider using our powers in 6.1(1), 6.1(2) or
6.1(4) to overrule the dpkg maintainers.
Ian.
