> What’s a single reason to keep 32 bit packages?

They don't take up much space and mostly just require compile time.

That'd be the main reason to keep them around.

As far as the drag on linux, AFAIK there's really no drag caused by having 32bit binaries floating around. There's more drag in supporting really old architectures like the Pentium 2.

Yeah I don't understand this argument of "it's holding back the platform". Keeping around 32 bit makes the platform better since it keeps more software usable and relevant. Even if it hasn't been touched in ages.

I wish Fedora was in it's own bubble where its decisions didn't affect anything else but as we've seen numerous times what happens in Fedora eventually cascades through the other major distro's as well.

There must be some compromise that would still allow 32-bit programs to run if needed. Windows has WoW64 for example. Even 64-bit Intel can be seen as technical debt at this point, but both the Apple Silicon macOS and the ARM Windows provide translation layers for it.

> What’s a single reason to keep 32 bit packages?

Perhaps not every package is needed, but you need some 32-bit support for games.

>> Linux distro developers may not like it, but Steam is huge and requires 32-bit to work properly for the client and for Proton / Wine.

Steam ships its own runtime that has all the required 32bit libs for proton and linux games, valve only really has to update steam client to target 64bit

No, the graphics stack needs to be native and in sync for obvious reasons, and that includes the mesa libraries. What can be in the runtime is already in the runtime.