The FreeBSD developers have announced a plan to discontinue support for 32-bit platforms. In the FreeBSD 15 branch, the armv6, i386, and powerpc platforms will not be shipped, and in the FreeBSD 16 branch, support for the armv7 platform will be discontinued. The ability to build 32-bit programs and use the COMPAT_FREEBSD32 mode to run 32-bit executables in a 64-bit kernel environment will remain available at least until the end of the FreeBSD 16 branch's life cycle.
The reasons given for discontinuing support for 32-bit architectures include the declining popularity of 32-bit installations, the shift of the hardware market towards 64-bit systems, the decommissioning of 32-bit hardware, and the project's lack of resources to maintain outdated platforms.
Source: opennet.ru
