Re: Regarding the Future of ELKS

[Mario Urban <m.urban@ranet.de>]

> Hello everyone.  This is Jody, the current maintainer of the ELKS 
> project.  I wanted to ask for everyone's opinion on what the future of 
> ELKS should be.
>
> I can see many compelling reasons to drop ELKS entirely or shift it 
> away from the 80(2)86-oriented platform, including the following:
>
> * No one works on ELKS.  Really.  I'm no C programmer, and apparently 
> all the ones that COULD work on it have moved on to "bigger better 
> things" in their lives.
>

There is no good documentation available.
A WORKING documentation-project for ELKS is needed..

> * 8086/80286 cores are being dropped in favor of other platforms, 
> including ARM, 386EX, Coldfire, etc.  While embedded Linux covers a 
> lot of that territory, there is certainly some room for discussion of 
> changing ELKS to be more portable and pushing it to those platforms. 
> The minimalist approach to the ELKS kernel would make it far smaller 
> than Linux and it could potentially compete with the likes of other 
> smaller operating systems used in embedded applications, such as VxWorks.
>
Does that make Sense?
Minix, Linux are available for 32bit systems.
Do we need another one? I dont think so.
But there is no "up-to-date" system which you can use on a 8086-80286.

> * ELKS has not developed to a very "usable" stage yet.  There are a 
> hundred different ways the project could go, but the original stated 
> goals are quickly showing that they are not it.  Lack of interest in 
> the project and limited ability to reuse the code are clear signs that 
> something must change.
>
First step should be to look for a good sponsor.
The entire project should be hosted and maintained by a greet Linux-Player.
Ubuntu comes to my mind...
Someone should ask them...
The project is little, it needs not many ressources compared to a 
Linux-Distro.
I too remember that the Elks-Website was not updated for years..
No good sign for a project looking for developers...

> To those of you who are still subscribed to this list: what do you 
> think should be done?  I look forward to hearing your answers!
>
> ~Jody
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