Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> The real problem is there need to be more people fixing bugs. If you see a
> bug on your hardware, *you* are in the best spot to fix it. That is the only
> way this is going to work, long-term. You are asking for both a greater
> focus on the project's infrastructure, *and* more bug fixing, and that is
> only going to happen if people who have not previously pitched in, start
> doing so.
> 
> It has been a rough road sometimes, but we (Intel) have tried to encourage
> community involvement as much as possible. But, I look over at the Linux USB
> list and see a much greater level of community contribution. We have some,
> but we need MORE. Without that involvement, we will get there with ACPI --
> it will just take longer.

USB is very different -- there are developers
with their own drivers that are on the list. Also
Linux-USB is older project. ACPI has just one
developer similar to usb developers -- the
person developing toshiba.c...

I do not think you being from intel is the problem...
				Pavel


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making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Grover, Andrew]

> From: Jan Rychter [mailto:jan-JAsPCFd0eodBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org] 

> 20021022 has blown off /proc/acpi/thermal and /proc/acpi/processor for
> me (and at least for one other person).
> 
> Also, the long-standing problems of:
> 
>   -- thermal management not working (errors acquiring mutex),
>   -- other EC problems,

> ... and my machine started getting slower and slower. This 
> happens every
> once in a while, I have to reboot, as sometimes the machine can become
> unbearably slow.
> 
> Did I mention a bug-tracking system would be useful in this (very
> complex) project?

OK I'll hold off a few days on sending the latest to Linus.

The real problem is there need to be more people fixing bugs. If you see a
bug on your hardware, *you* are in the best spot to fix it. That is the only
way this is going to work, long-term. You are asking for both a greater
focus on the project's infrastructure, *and* more bug fixing, and that is
only going to happen if people who have not previously pitched in, start
doing so.

It has been a rough road sometimes, but we (Intel) have tried to encourage
community involvement as much as possible. But, I look over at the Linux USB
list and see a much greater level of community contribution. We have some,
but we need MORE. Without that involvement, we will get there with ACPI --
it will just take longer.

Let's talk about ways we can increase participation in Linux development. If
people would feel freer to contribute if there was no official maintainer
(or a different, non-Intel one) then that is an option. (Volunteers?) If
there is any other roadblock to involvement, let's see if we can't eliminate
it.

Regards -- Andy


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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Alan Cox]

On Mon, 2002-10-28 at 19:20, Grover, Andrew wrote:
> OK I'll hold off a few days on sending the latest to Linus.

Don't do that - part of the problem is stuff not getting merged
continually. You find the bugs by getting lots and lots of people to use
the code. So its much better to break it and see who it breaks for and
who fixes it 8) in 2.5 than to try and release perfect code.

Its a development tree, its a good place to experiment



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RE: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Nakajima, Jun]

Good point. If you want to see a much greater level of community
contribution, let them find bugs and try to fix the bugs. If you release
perfect code, they are just a tester, rather than a developer. I know you
don't want to bother people, but that might reduce chances for sharing
development experiences.

Thanks,
Jun
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Cox [mailto:alan-qBU/x9rampVanCEyBjwyrvXRex20P6io@public.gmane.org]
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 11:57 AM
To: Grover, Andrew
Cc: acpi-devel-pyega4qmqnRoyOMFzWx49A@public.gmane.org; 'Jan Rychter'
Subject: Re: [ACPI] making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch
update (20021024)


On Mon, 2002-10-28 at 19:20, Grover, Andrew wrote:
> OK I'll hold off a few days on sending the latest to Linus.

Don't do that - part of the problem is stuff not getting merged
continually. You find the bugs by getting lots and lots of people to use
the code. So its much better to break it and see who it breaks for and
who fixes it 8) in 2.5 than to try and release perfect code.

Its a development tree, its a good place to experiment



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_______________________________________________
Acpi-devel mailing list
Acpi-devel-5NWGOfrQmneRv+LV9MX5uipxlwaOVQ5f@public.gmane.org
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/acpi-devel


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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[joerg.beyer-htSm2yLGOjU]

"Grover, Andrew" <andrew.grover-ral2JQCrhuEAvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> schrieb am 28.10.02 20:24:11:

> The real problem is there need to be more people fixing bugs. If you see a
> bug on your hardware, *you* are in the best spot to fix it. That is the only

having the right hardware means in no ways a competence in fixing
that bug. I myself had trouble getting my laptop working with ACPI,
but I got great help from this ML, especialy from Dominik.

This project is needed for more and more hardware to get 
linux running. It seems that a lot of newer laptops wont run
linux without ACPI support. Thus we need to get ACPI support in
mainstream (this is the 2.4 series).

So from my point of view the largest roadblocks are:
- a lack of introductional documentation
- a lack of tester. You get a lot more tester with ACPI in the mainstream

I dont know what prevents ACPI support from getting in the mainline,
maybe somebody else could answer that.
 
> way this is going to work, long-term. You are asking for both a greater
> focus on the project's infrastructure, *and* more bug fixing, and that is

well sourceforge gives you a bug tracker, if you want it. 
You could use sourceforge to maintain a FAQ and a HOWTO.
I dont have the know how to write one of them, but if you need someone
who collects the already answered questions into a FAQ, 
I would like to help this project.

> only going to happen if people who have not previously pitched in, start
> doing so.
> 
> It has been a rough road sometimes, but we (Intel) have tried to encourage
> community involvement as much as possible. But, I look over at the Linux USB
> list and see a much greater level of community contribution. We have some,
> but we need MORE. Without that involvement, we will get there with ACPI --
> it will just take longer.
> 
> Let's talk about ways we can increase participation in Linux development. If
> people would feel freer to contribute if there was no official maintainer
> (or a different, non-Intel one) then that is an option. (Volunteers?) If

I dont see any reason that reducing your great work might help the project.

> there is any other roadblock to involvement, let's see if we can't eliminate
> it.


    yours
    Joerg



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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Martin Waitz]

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hi :)

On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 09:31:10PM +0100, joerg.beyer-htSm2yLGOjU@public.gmane.org wrote:
> > way this is going to work, long-term. You are asking for both a greater
> > focus on the project's infrastructure, *and* more bug fixing, and that is
> 
> well sourceforge gives you a bug tracker, if you want it. 

ibm talked about sponsoring a bugzilla for kernel development.
perhaps one could use that for acpi, too.

-- 
CU,		  / Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen, Germany
Martin Waitz	//  [Tali on IRCnet]  [tali.home.pages.de] _________
______________/// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ///
dies ist eine manuell generierte mail, sie beinhaltet    //
tippfehler und ist auch ohne grossbuchstaben gueltig.   /
			    -
Wer bereit ist, grundlegende Freiheiten aufzugeben, um sich 
kurzfristige Sicherheit zu verschaffen, der hat weder Freiheit 
noch Sicherheit verdient.
			Benjamin Franklin  (1706 - 1790)

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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 10:16:04PM +0100, Martin Waitz wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 09:31:10PM +0100, joerg.beyer-htSm2yLGOjU@public.gmane.org wrote:
> > well sourceforge gives you a bug tracker, if you want it. 
> 
> ibm talked about sponsoring a bugzilla for kernel development.
> perhaps one could use that for acpi, too.

i find it fascinating that there are so many people on this list who want
to see a bug tracking system, but don't feel able to keep a list of bugs
themselves.  why is that?  expecting andy to set it up seems unreasonable.

-- 
Revolutions do not require corporate support.


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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[kneumann-4bfl1RV3iZDOEhgYWvzSCYQuADTiUCJX]

> So from my point of view the largest roadblocks are:
> - a lack of introductional documentation
> - a lack of tester. You get a lot more tester with ACPI in the mainstream

I started with writing a howto about two weeks ago, just the day someone
else posted a link to a howto - so maybe the problem is the website more
than the documentation....

I would suggest updating the website put some more information (eg howto 
get latest acpi with 2-4 and 2-5 kernels) on it and
link to the download page. Since I am not getting forward with my work on
ospmd _and_ I have a long next weekend I would volunteer doing it...

-Knut




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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[J]

On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 03:20, Grover, Andrew wrote:
> The real problem is there need to be more people fixing bugs. If you see a
> bug on your hardware, *you* are in the best spot to fix it. That is the
> only way this is going to work, long-term. You are asking for both a
> greater focus on the project's infrastructure, *and* more bug fixing, and
> that is only going to happen if people who have not previously pitched in,
> start doing so.
>
>
> It has been a rough road sometimes, but we (Intel) have tried to encourage
> community involvement as much as possible. But, I look over at the Linux
> USB list and see a much greater level of community contribution. We have
> some, but we need MORE. Without that involvement, we will get there with
> ACPI -- it will just take longer.
>
>
> Let's talk about ways we can increase participation in Linux development.
> If people would feel freer to contribute if there was no official
> maintainer (or a different, non-Intel one) then that is an option.
> (Volunteers?) If there is any other roadblock to involvement, let's see if
> we can't eliminate it.


I don't think I've posted to this list yet.

I'll say right now it would be easier to hold a discussion if the list was set 
for replies to go to the list - I'm sure lots of mail gets misdirected with 
the current settings.

Don't reply to my address, mail to it will bounce. It's an antispam measure, 
I'm sure you will all understand.

I don't have the skills to _fix_ bugs, but I like to think I'm quite good at 
_spotting_ them. It seems to me that spotting bugs and reporting them is a 
useful skill too often overlooked by developers.

I think part of the problem you have with not enough developers is the low 
profile you keep. A lot of people, especially before USB was integrated, had 
to fight to get their USB devices working. I am one of those who was running 
2.3 kernels just for that reason.

Most people, I think, don't know what ACPI can do for them. I don't, and I 
have installed acpid, built kernels supporting it, and configured systems so 
I can shut them down by pressing the power button.

That's a cool feature, and ideal for those why want their servers to run a few 
hours a day and don't want keyboards or monitors on them.

If some people here actually promote ACPI in other fora (such as Red Hat's 
Psyche list) and seek people to help with development, documentation 
(documentation? No problems with the documentation, there is none!), then I'm 
sure you will get some volunteers.

If you people at Intel think that Intel's ownership of the project is a 
problem, get non-Intel email addresses. I could host a couple of those at 
Computer Datasafe. I'm sure others better-known to you could do so too.

See if you can get someone from AMD to take part - and USE an AMD email 
address.

I personally think it's good to see Intel folk here, it shows Intel comittment 
to the effort.

Ask Steve Best at IBM whether he found his management of the JFS project a 
problem.

Shameem Akhter, Forrest Taylor, and Michael Blandford are all Intel people on 
various lists at Red Hat. I presume they'd be happy to tell others about your 
need.

Maybe a bit of talking with RH will get acpid included and ACPI enabled in RH 
kernels.




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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Jens Haug]

> > > well sourceforge gives you a bug tracker, if you want it. 
> > 
> > ibm talked about sponsoring a bugzilla for kernel development.
> > perhaps one could use that for acpi, too.
> 
> i find it fascinating that there are so many people on this list who want
> to see a bug tracking system, but don't feel able to keep a list of bugs
> themselves.  why is that?  expecting andy to set it up seems unreasonable.

I only speak for myself here:
I don't understand even half of the postings on this list since I
don't know how to code in C (only wrote some scripts so far). I'm
an admin, not a developer. But in order to get ACPI running on my
laptop, I have to work through all the stuff on this list. It's
pretty hard to hang on with all these patches to patches to back
ports, all these bug reports.
So people like me, who can and want to be testers for the project 
(not bug fixers though), would really apreciate some more docs.
- short background info about ACPI in this project (how it works)
- HOWTO for the current installation (including patching DSDT)
- project progress overview (which version is suppost to do what)
- FAQ
- Bug tracking system
At the moment, everything is mixed in this mailing list. It's
pretty hard for those not really envolved with development to
find the information they need. 


Jens

-- 
Jens Haug
IKFF Universität Stuttgart              Tel. 0711/685-6422
Pfaffenwaldring 9                       Fax  0711/685-6356
70550 Stuttgart	                haug-X6ztD3ggwzuBAmxm6OvjtTjhTm2NLCe8@public.gmane.org



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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Mark Pritchard]

> At the moment, everything is mixed in this mailing list. It's
> pretty hard for those not really envolved with development to
> find the information they need.

I echo this...I'd be happy to more formally document the process I used to 
patch acpi, but while it worked, I have been subsequently told it was wrong 
:) I must admit that I stopped with ACPI once my battery status worked.

I'd like to see a site which covered:

* background info
* machine specific howtos (or even just success reports)
* centralised downloads
* faq
* bug tracking
* better mailing list s/ware, perhaps a proper news server so we could search 
it with google groups?

Is there an Intel based project manager who would like to be over this i.e. 
allocation and tracking of tasks, ensuring documents were reviewed etc? Or is 
this a person from the general member list?

I'm sure other members of this list are just as happy to stand up and help, we 
probably just need a little direction / reassurance that Intel is happy to 
let this grow into a proper little open-source community :)

Cheers

Mark


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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Derek Broughton]

From: "Matthew Wilcox" <willy-8fiUuRrzOP0dnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org>

> On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 10:16:04PM +0100, Martin Waitz wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 09:31:10PM +0100, joerg.beyer-htSm2yLGOjU@public.gmane.org wrote:
> > > well sourceforge gives you a bug tracker, if you want it.
> >
> > ibm talked about sponsoring a bugzilla for kernel development.
> > perhaps one could use that for acpi, too.
>
> i find it fascinating that there are so many people on this list who want
> to see a bug tracking system, but don't feel able to keep a list of bugs
> themselves.  why is that?  expecting andy to set it up seems unreasonable.

What could possibly be gained by everybody keeping independent bug lists?
Nobody expects Andrew to do it, but Andrew seems opposed to the idea of _having_
a bug tracker - even if somebody else does it.  Consider that if I was keeping
my own "bug list" it would have exactly one bug - and it wouldn't be an ACPI
problem, it would be the lousy DSDT on this Dell Inspiron.  Everything that my
DSDT properly defines, ACPI handles well.



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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Aaron Gaudio]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1815 bytes --]

Behold, Matthew Wilcox <willy-8fiUuRrzOP0dnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org> hath decreed:

> i find it fascinating that there are so many people on this list who want
> to see a bug tracking system, but don't feel able to keep a list of bugs
> themselves.  why is that?  expecting andy to set it up seems unreasonable.
> 

By no means does the development maintainer have to also maintain
the bugtracking system or the webpage. In many projects these are
handled by different people. This might be an opportunity for those
with less coding skills to contribute more to the project.

An official bug-tracking system can be very beneficial to all involved.
It lets the developers keep track of what they need to work on, what
others are working on, what's already been fixed, etc. to avoid 
duplication of work, and to allow for prioritization of bugs. It lets
non-developer testers and part-time bugfixers see the status of bugs,
see if a bug they found is already known or new, etc. so that they
don't have to search through the mail archives and/or burden the
list with a known problem.

I think the web page does need someone to update and maintain it
regularly. If you go to http://acpi.sourceforge.net/ there are not
even any links to http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi/ where the
source code is served. Anyone not familiar with sourceforge won't
understand where to get the kernel patches. There's not a lot of
other information at the home page, which could be useful towards
attracting more people to test and develop alike.

I also second the notion of having the list set up to automatically
fill in the Reply-To header with the list's address.

-- 

Aaron Gaudio
prothonotar at tarnation.dyndns.org
"From fullness, aspect. From aspect, being. From being, emptiness."
  

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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2002 at 08:20:37AM -0400, Derek Broughton wrote:
> From: "Matthew Wilcox" <willy-8fiUuRrzOP0dnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org>
> > i find it fascinating that there are so many people on this list who want
> > to see a bug tracking system, but don't feel able to keep a list of bugs
> > themselves.  why is that?  expecting andy to set it up seems unreasonable.
> 
> What could possibly be gained by everybody keeping independent bug lists?

that wasn't what i meant.  look at the work Guillaume has been doing
keeping the 2.5 status list (http://kernelnewbies.org/status/latest.html).
nobody told him he could do it, he wasn't elected to the post.  he felt it
was needed and just got on with it.  i suggest someone who's interested
in having a bug tracking system exist just get on with it.  bug tracking
systems don't have to be a mountain of php code connected to an oracle
database.  a simple list can be enough.

-- 
Revolutions do not require corporate support.


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Re: making progress with ACPI was: ACPI small patch update (20021024)

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2002 at 07:43:29AM -0500, Aaron Gaudio wrote:
> I think the web page does need someone to update and maintain it
> regularly. If you go to http://acpi.sourceforge.net/ there are not
> even any links to http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi/ where the

i agree, i've complained about this before.

-- 
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