Re: Manifesto

Hello Paul, Gerhard and all h2200 port subscribers..

> Yes. "Hard" as in there're not enough people and not enough
> their time to do that on the global scale. And building bright future
> in one single feud is just loss of time, IMHO.

I agree with that - I am thinking of something more adequate, practical.

> Consider just counted number of ports in CVS now - 34. Just
> updating such number of pages is the great chore, especially if they
> contain duplicate, not really related to hardware information.

I know that - I just wanted to explain the same issue to Gerhard...

> > Right now I am thinking of:
> > - in very short perspective - creating a page of TODO things
>
> For tracking individual items, like bugs and TODOs, we have a
> bugtracker: http://bugzilla.handhelds.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=__open__&product=linux-2.6
> That's the place to store and track individual issues, allowing to
> easy individual handling (commenting, etc.), and at the same time
> powerful aggregation and querying capabilities. Right tool for right
> task.

I agree with You, but just partly. Of course - if there is dedicated
infrastructure - it should be used. It is the right place for placing
the bugs.... Still I feel a need for keeping the status in one place.
Can we go on compromise? I will create a page regarding the
development status of h2200, with links to detailed technical stuff
reported in bugzilla. The bugzilla is going to be the place to report
problems, discuss and find solutions. The page is just going to be a
summary keeping infos like:

|component | status| comment|
|sound | works, not out of the box | module xxx needs to be loaded
manually, for details see bugzilla_link|

I think that would help to avoid duplicate tests, reports - like I had
Gerhard had.
Gerhard - what do You think about it?

> > - in longer perspective - doing these things:
> > a) converting kernel status form "my personal" page (which I don't
> > treat in this way - it is a place to convert ideas to some more
> > realistic form) to actual kernel status of h2200 (which I feel the
> > most involved in).
>
> h2200 is just a random machine you randomly happen to have in
> your hands now. There're dozens of other machines around - what about
> them?

I want to work on that status page to help assuring that the port is
well prepared for next familiar release. With this more people could
get involved in finding bugs and solutions - it would just help -
pointing to the right direction.
I am not sure that in current state of work the bugzilla would be the
best solution - we have the kernel so frequently that some things
work, some are corrected and some stop working (i.e. suspend problem
with 2.6.21).

What about other devices ... Good question - I can help with this one
- I can test the status of h2200, but others... I do get You point
here.

> > That would include solutions for common problems -
> > like we have just experienced with the sound module.
>
> Well, idea here is that users simply should not face such
> problems at all. Instead of writing stories for them how to deal with
> them or to solve them in the first place? In our case (great lack of
> developers), I believe most developers choose the second choice, even
> at the expense of not maintaining nice list of known problems in wiki.

I agree. But for users the problem is still going to be unresolved
(i.e. buttons support at h2200 port) until the next distro release -
in case of familiar more than a year.
My general idea of this post was to help both sides - developers and
users. I do treat the developers' time seriously - I know that
familiar has not many of them, and that's why I want to help.

> And in either way, this (and most other) problems are not
> h2200 specific at all. All machines have sound modules, and all need
> them loaded.
>
> > b) creating a page, with test procedures of kernel/system components
> > (ie. who to test if sound works)
>
> Ah, nice, glad to know you have this in queue ;-). Because I
> really wanted to summarize this mail with "and as you remember, we
> talked about QA formalization, that would be *much* better investment
> of effort" ;-)

Ok - let's get something realistic out this nice chat - I will start
that - but will need some help. Which list is more adequate to call
for some help with that - familiar , kernel-discuss or maybe some
other ?
I just would like it be be in the wiki -- so that everybody willing to
help could do that. I will try to sketch something tonight....

> This assumes there're 2 groups which deal with Linux-on-PDA -
> developers and users. That's not really the case. It's 3-layer
> structure, where at the top there're users, they use products and
> oftentimes five feedback to distro maintainers, and distro maintainers
> work with individual downstream software project, be it the kernel or a
> game.
>
> So, working on improving user experience if distro side of
> things. Of course, distro maintenance is pretty big effort, takes
> involvement of many people, and it's pretty hard to work both on
> specific project (like kernel), and on distro as the whole.

Ok I get it. But can You specify Your role in this 3 layer structure
?:) Because it seems that You work on last two layers - distro
maintainer and the kernel project developer...

> Too bad, that you still treat that as h2200 belongings ;-(. We
> just have this prolonged feudalistic stage which doesn't want to give
> up on peoples' minds ;-).

I agree - it is still on my mind- but I don't feel like developer but
as "more experienced" user, especially of h2200. But of course I do
see all the unification processes and understand the reasons why do
they take place (ie. defconfigman).

> So, you want after all to make your try on distro
> maintenance... But why don't you want to join with one of existing
> distros instead, so your effort will be not local randomly-directed
> efforts, but instead part of bigger idea, and thus have more chances
> to not be lost (or wasted effort in the first place) and to contribute
> to Linux-on-PDA in general?
>

Everybody has to start with something:) I feel the need of correcting
the familiar for h2200 - because I experienced the bugs by myself. But
without this feeling I would probably not do much at hh.org projects.

As it goes for Linux-on-PDA:
I guess that we all (users and developers) have a big problem here.
Familiar has a limited number of developers and the releases take
place every >12 months. This 12 months is a lot of time in PDA
business. Let's look at the h2200 example - I remember the first notes
on Koens page about h2200 being supported by Linux in 2004 (or 2005 -
I don't remember exactly). It was already some time after it was
released by HP. Now we have A.D. 2007 - and the current status - for
users - has not changed much since last 12 months. We have almost the
same number of bugs in the port like we had in rc1 (please don't kill
me for that - I do remember that the number of them was reduced until
0.8.4 ) and the port (as seen by users) is still not ready for
everyday use. If there's anybody willing to argue about that with me -
install the latest official release of famliar (0.8.4) and give it to
a any girl to test it. Girls are very practical for judging
functionality....
In general - the market/hardware is growing rapidly and the project is
moving with it's own speed.... We have pda's being (slowly) pushed out
of the market by phone+pda combos while not every (I don't want to
judge the state of other ports) (old) pda's running familiar linux are
not everyday user ready.

I would like to express that there is a need for more elastic release
schedule - even the unofficial one. I can imagine who hard it is to
maintain official and unofficial distros, but I believe that it is a
way of cooperation between users and developers.
But this bring some positive effects too. As an example I will write
about my how I met Gerhard. He found (I don't know how:D ) my page
with unofficial kernel release fixing the buttons problems. He had
problem with the feed so he mailed me, we had a long chat about the
h2200 port status, the kernel-discuss mailing list and now he is
taking active part in h2200 kernel development.
I guess more similar forms of communication are needed and would have
many more positive effects.

> I just hope that you're long enough around to watch and judge
> the trends yourself. I also hope that you'll find interesting to
> listen to experiences of folks who already tried the stuff you suggest
> ;-).

Paul - of course I will - especially from such an active/experienced
person as You:)
But I worry about the hh.org , h2200 port status, being handled by
developers and for developers, while the real users and their needs
are moved to the second place.

Best regards
Michal
Received on Wed Jun 20 2007 - 18:22:13 EDT