Re: Manifesto

Hello Michal,

Thursday, June 21, 2007, 1:22:11 AM, you wrote:

> 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?

        There's no need for such compromise - we all do what we think
in useful. And if you'll be doing that consistently and sustainably,
you're also will be just right in this question. ;-)

> 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.

        Gotcha! Nice plan! But then again, you really should try to
work closer with Familiar maintainers, to make sure that results of
your work are easily reusable 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 ?

        If speak about QA, I (from my point of view) think that thing
which needs most QA is kernel. Just because it's core part of Linux
system, and because there're many kernels - for each device, so formal
testing is highly needed. kernel-discuss consequently is a good place
to discuss it.

> 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....

        Sure, and no hurries with this...

>> 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...

        I concentrate on the kernel maintenance, that's top priority
of my efforts. I also contribute to OpenEmbedded (of which Familiar
was part, but unfortunately no longer).

>> 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.

        Again, nice approach. Worth mixing more with Familiar people
then. For example, Pawel Kolodziejski, h1910 maintainer, does own
interim releases just like you want to do. Paul Eggleton works on
adding/testing Opie 1.2.3 support in Familiar, etc. familiar-devel and
opie-devel are good lists to discuss that, I guess.

> 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.

        Familiar has other aims, like stability and security. Drawback
is that it's like Debian stable - not up with the fresh releases. If you
want more fresh, or to be exact, bleeding edge, there's OE.dev, which
changes and updates at high pace. Just to remind, this pace was one
of the reason that Familiar chose to fork own codease for stability.

> 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.

        Yes, this is really great and good confirmation of our efforts
- that new people come.

> 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.

        You really should try to push Familiar then ;-)

> Best regards
> Michal

-- 
Best regards,
 Paul                            mailto:pmiscml_at_gmail.com