How long will 64bit Ubuntu users have to wait?

[Ahmed El-Mahmoudy]

On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 04:55:30PM -0500, Jerry Haltom wrote:
> allowing the user to execute the 32 bit version. Basically, this is what
> the multi-arch proposal is all about. And dpkg/apt has to cope with
> this.
> 
> I'm not volunteering to implement it. And nobody else has. Hence, it
> won't be done until somebody does it. ;)
I've been following this thread for a while and I got some questions:

1. This multi-arch proposal, that so far no one is volunteering to 
implement, isn't it already being worked on in Debian? or do I have 
wrong understanding?

2. I have a case in which supporting 32-bit proprietary apps under 
64-bit linux is important (at least to me), I'm an electronics engineer, 
and I use proprietary CAD software, some of them have 64-bit versions, 
and some don't, so I would like to switch to 64-bit linux to get 
performance advantage of the 64-bit versions of the CAD software I use, 
but also I still need to be able to run the other 32-bit CAD software. 
Here would come an argument mentioned earlier than with time 64-bit 
software will be available, hence no need to do much work on supporting 
32-bit software under 64-bit linux since by the time it's finished it 
won't be really needed. Well I doubt that, because some of the 32-bit 
CAD software I use are very expensive so that even if they do release a 
64-bit, I don't think that I would be able to afford it !

Thanks...