What’s up with ARM

Yeah, this isn't really new to anyone who reads the LWN (which is edited by the author of the OP, BTW). The LWN is really very good, and subscribing is worth it for those hackers who care about the larger Linux/POSIX ecosystem.

Anything that increases functionality/LoC in the kernel is good. In any complex software project - and the Linux kernel is about as complex as sanity and present technology will allow - you have to do periodical codebase clean-ups. This is one case where the pain to maintain is forcing a cleanup.

And, as always, it's discussed openly, so, whoever depends on it doesn't get surprised by the next release.

What exactly is the "this" you are referring to? This article is pretty much an official acknowledgment that a problem exists and needs an investment of developer resources. The situation won't get better until/unless stakeholders make an investment of resources. Clearly someone is going to have to pay for a lot of hours of time spent by developers who are competent to work on arm arch stuff in a "global" way. I'm not too familiar with the details of the various multi-stakeholder alliances and how they get their funding and decide who to hire to do what, but it sounds like the Linux Foundation (or whoever) needs to support a few more developers with a job description more focused on the kernel itself rather than just relying on the companies contributing what they did to get specific devices ready for shipping.