Roles for distributions

[Hendricks, Kevin]

Hi Daniel,

At 11:17 -0400 9/11/00, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
>Kevin, with due respect, I don't see how you can post something like
>this and NOT expect to get flamed hard in return.  I'm going to try not
>to, though.

I will say this publicly once more.  I NEVER in *any* way implied or stated
that *people* at distributions were not working hard or don't contribute
enough.

The only things in the entire system with any financial resources at all
are the distributions and many distributions do have people working on the
toolchain and things.

I was trying to say that Franz needs help and I was trying to goad the
distributions into providing some more help (at least someone with glibc
checkin privledges would be nice).

>Because no one can afford to.  The PPC linux market, while growing, is
>small.  LinuxPPC, Inc. makes what contribution they can, in the form of
>supporting existing volunteers; I'm sure some of the other
>distributions do the same.

Yes, that is exactly what Dan Burcaw and Olaf said.  Even someone part-time
would be a big help.

>It takes a tremendous amount of experience, as I'm sure you're aware,
>to contribute usefully to the toolchain.

There has to be someone there who can at least make builds, file bug
reports, and point out when things are broken.  Even that would be a big
help.  I filed a make check report with the glibc maintainers and basicaly
got back a "we are not interested, fix it yourself if you want it fixed".
That generally doesn't happen if someone from ppc is contributing in some
way to the project.  Luckily, some of the other glibc developers chimed in
to rephrase the reply.

>> And what about the other key projects: mozilla, helix/gnome, KDE, galeon,
>> apache, etc?
>
>I wonder why you put apache here... Apache needed almost no fixes for
>powerpc; the last batch I recall were glibc 2.1 / db2 related, and
>several of us got them fixed about two years ago.

Just to make sure it stayed that way.  I have been told that apache does
have volunteers helping out there and it is no worry.  The list was not
meant to be exhaustive, just to represent some important projects we might
want to get involved in.  My main focus was and continues to be the
toolchain.

>There are volunteers working on all of the above.  No one can afford to
>pay anyone to.

That I understand now.  But if the distributions have no money to do this
than no-one does.

>> (and I do try to help out with glibc and things when I have time).
>
>And that is all we can ask of anyone.

You are right!

So why does this deserve a personal attack on me not buying distributions
and not contributing time?  Nothing I have said or done is personal and I
have just now received from someone something that could be easily be
construed as a personal threat.   How's that for fun?!

You gotta love it!

Kevin




--
Kevin B. Hendricks, Associate Professor of Operations and Information
Technology
Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario  N6A-3K7  CANADA
khendricks at ivey.uwo.ca, (519) 661-3874, fax: 519-661-3959


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