I see the "32-bit vs. 64-bit" issue appear in many rants about MongoDB. There are two types of people that fall off the 2GB cliff.
a) People who say "what just happened... oh, I get it... 32-bits, memmapped files... I'll switch to 64-bit"
b) People who say "WTF.. #MongoHate.. going to blog about how @#$#%! a DB this is"
Some people understand the tools they work with. Some people know just barely enough to throw things together and don't tolerate it when something doesn't work out of the box. Worst of all, this second group tends to be very vocal on the interwebs.
I'd almost like to see 10gen not publish the 32-bit package at all. Source is still there. If you want 32-bit, cool, compile it. But forcing the user to compile the 32-bit version assures at least a minimum bound of technical proficiency (an "I understand what I'm doing, why it's not the default and what the limitations are").
Some people understand the tools they work with. Some people know just barely enough to throw things together and don't tolerate it when something doesn't work out of the box. Worst of all, this second group tends to be very vocal on the interwebs.
I'd almost like to see 10gen not publish the 32-bit package at all. Source is still there. If you want 32-bit, cool, compile it. But forcing the user to compile the 32-bit version assures at least a minimum bound of technical proficiency (an "I understand what I'm doing, why it's not the default and what the limitations are").