> 64-bit architectures are not affected by the y2k38 problem, but they are affected by this transition.
^ surprised by this line. guess it also impacts lib32 packages on amd64
Little surprised it didn't happen sooner, but guess 64bit transition dampened urgency. Looks like it was waiting on changes in glibc etc. Unfortunately the remaining 32bit space is less likely to support upgrades
The reason for this is that in Debian, package name and ABI are coupled, as that allows you to coinstall multiple versions of libraries with different ABIs. This transition changes the ABI on 32-bit architectures, so the package name of impacted packages also has to change (they get a "t64" suffix). While it's technically possible to have different package names on different architectures, that's a PITA to deal with, so they opted to also change the package names on 64-bit architectures, where it's not strictly required.