[CentOS-devel] possibility of an extra-hardware-support SIG

[gjgowey at tmo.blackberry.net]

Just a couple thoughts from the sidelines.

If there needs to be a forum for development of a particular item of interest then why not have the founder of the idea start a sourceforge project to get the ball rolling?  This way the idea can go from conception to being worked on using the ideas of its founder without tying up or waiting for resources reserved for more mainline projects.   To keep the ball rolling give the core members of centos full access privileges so that the project never risks becoming orphaned.  Starting a wiki on the centos main site to post and discuss these splinter projects might also be a good idea as it could serve as a master link list of sorts for these projects instead of relying on word of mouth or searching through mailing list archives.  

The advantage of the above system is that it would allow the splinter projects to do as they please without worrying about the affects on mainline resources during their alpha and beta stages (which would be a problem if the code of such projects were housed under the plus repository).  Once the project has matured sufficiently then it can be evaluated for inclusion in the plus repo.  It also has the advantage of allowing such splinter projects to be as active or as idle as they want without them being forgotten (courtesy of the wiki) or orphaned (courtesy of sharing full control with the core centos members).

With regards to your unsupported drivers problem, it might be worth making a small program that generates a web page to just display open issues (one row per issue).  This way people can see what's out there to be fixed (and maybe a splinter project can form to work on it).

Just my 2 cents.

Kindest regards,

Geoff


Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.

-----Original Message-----
From: Karanbir Singh <mail-lists at karan.org>

Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 00:33:12 
To:"The CentOS developers mailing list." <centos-devel at centos.org>
Subject: Re: [CentOS-devel] possibility of an extra-hardware-support SIG


Hi Phil,

Phil Schaffner wrote:
> Seems that kernels/drivers/modules diverging from the upstream would
> need to be in [a] separate repo[s], something like Johnny's 100Hz
> kernels.

I dont visualise us building complete kernels ( unless we must - and that again
is something to be taken up when we come to it ). for drivers and modules, we
should be mostly ok to stick things into extras/ however if we need to the plus/
repo is always around. Pesonally, I dont think we would need to do that though.

btw, the 100Hz kernels are called kernel-vm for this reason, so as to not
pollute and cause issues in the kernel-* namespace.

> Could get sticky, depending on license issues.  Why not just maintain a
> set of links to the latest sources from the vendors?

for drivers and software ( userland stuff, or even firmware ) we should try and
make things as easy as possible, for things that we cant - yes, a best case
would be docs that make life easier, a worstcase would be a one line saying
'this vendor sux, dont use them'.

> Overall, your objectives sound great.  The dark-gray territory would be
> a challenge, but seems like good CentOS value-added if done carefully,

I am sure you are around to keep us on track :)

> with appropriate caveats, and (obviously) kept outside the core repos.
> Just not sure what the advantage of a SIG is over keeping it on
> centos-devel.  Please elaborate.

The idea of a SIG is to expose a target that people can hit ( vendors, users and
even other developers ). One thing we seem to lack on the centos project at this
time is focus and the idea of a target. If things need to get done, few people
are really able to isolate specific people / places / resources that they might
be able to ping.

Nothing stops us from using this list and using whatever is in place at the moment.

Also, there is a buildsystem of sorts that I use, to build driver images and
also to build kmod's for each release kernel at release + update time. And  I
really would like to allow other people access to that as well. Doing so within
a smaller group might be easier than mass public access :)

Finally, it would be good to have a role that can handle all issues related to
unsupported hardware that are reported on bugs.centos.org - right now they all
get assigned to me, and inspite of the fact that I try and look at each and
every one, its not humanely possible to do and do justice to them all. Would be
nice if there was a group of people who could own and drive these issues.

Anyway, I have run it up the flagpost.
--
Karanbir Singh : http://www.karan.org/ : 2522219 at icq
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