On Mon, 10 Dec 2007, Karanbir Singh wrote:

Hugo van der Kooij wrote:

...

How long does one have to wait to get an answer to a simple question? So I took the time to make sure one can install MailScanner through yum without waiting any longer for a reply from rpmforge by setting up a small repository.

I saw that you had been waiting for a reply - which is why I answered. But, no I dont have commit access to rpmforge things. So I will most likely be importing MailScanner into where I do have access. And yes, I do use it on two domains.

Karanbir, I thought you had commit access ? Or at least I offered it at some point. There is no problem giving you commit access though.

...

PS: You are aware I have not seen anything on the Sparc front either?

The issue with centos/sparc is blocked on the installer not having decent sparc support - so well, it does not work. patches are welcome.

However, as you might have realised there are only a few of us doing all this work - so things can sometimes take a bit of time to get started off, and one hopes that once people do join the effort they hang around and help spread it. So far, the experience has been quite the opposite.

The problem is that the group is small because everybody who asks about it does not know where to go and make herself useful, and do not participate. As long as people cannot feel part of something and can become effective in a short time, you loose momentum.

I have been asked more than 3 times at events about s390 support and I forward people to the centos-devel mailinglist. There is no information on the wiki, or almost not satisfying information on the mailinglist. People

If there was an s390 SIG with a TODO list, planning, person to contact, people would be more interested to help out or get involved. The fact there is no such thing makes people think there is no interest, no progress, nothing. People are less likely to help if they are the first to take up responsibility. Being part of a group helps. Sharing information helps.

So where does one go for s390 development ? What can people do to help the Sparc effort (what has already been done) ? How far is the PPC effort ?

At least a well-owned SIG brings information and people together. Maybe even do status reports and drive meetings. A SIG of course does not guarantee all of that, but if people take ownership it does not come down to you, Johnny or Pasi. I think it is important to not depend on the already hard working people.

And, I completely disagree with Dag on creating SIG's for core distro arch work. Further splintering an already small group of people is both counter productive and a waste of time. Its also one way to make sure that we loose further inertia in the development process.

A chicken-egg problem to me. As long as you don't give away ownership, you don't gain people. If you don't gain people, you cannot give away ownership. How it works now, does not scale very well imo. Any solution is welcomed.