Status reports?

Status reports?

[Eric Watkins]

Hello,

Is progress being made on this port on a weekly basis?

If so can we start having whoever codes whatever start posting the progress
on a weekly/monthly basis?

I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone should
let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going on and what
progress is being made.

I mean are we close to having a working port or really far off?

Thoughts?

Status reports?

[Eric Watkins]

Hello,

Is progress being made on this port on a weekly basis?

If so can we start having whoever codes whatever start posting the progress
on a weekly/monthly basis?

I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone should
let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going on and what
progress is being made.

I mean are we close to having a working port or really far off?

Thoughts?

Re: Status reports?

[Jay Carlson]

 "Eric Watkins" <watkinse@attens.com> writes:

[...]

> I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone
should
> let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going on and what
> progress is being made.

IMO this is a serious problem for many open source development projects
today.  Much of the interaction occurs in IRC or instant message chats, and
not in email.  The people who are participating in the online chats have
much better coordination, but it ends up excluding a lot of people.  It's
not just people in the wrong timezone who lose out---projects also lose the
potential effort of people who join the mailing list, see nothing going on,
and don't get a chance to help.  I've found that even casual readers of a
mailing list can bring insight from other projects to bear on problems.

Jay

Re: Status reports?

[Jay Carlson]

 "Eric Watkins" <watkinse@attens.com> writes:

[...]

> I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone
should
> let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going on and what
> progress is being made.

IMO this is a serious problem for many open source development projects
today.  Much of the interaction occurs in IRC or instant message chats, and
not in email.  The people who are participating in the online chats have
much better coordination, but it ends up excluding a lot of people.  It's
not just people in the wrong timezone who lose out---projects also lose the
potential effort of people who join the mailing list, see nothing going on,
and don't get a chance to help.  I've found that even casual readers of a
mailing list can bring insight from other projects to bear on problems.

Jay

RE: Status reports?

[Eric Watkins]

Hello,

I agree. I have a friend who lurks on this mailing list and he swears the
port is dead.

Having the only www page the port has have look 2 years old(the SGI one)
looks really bad. People who obtain SGI boxes(like me) and want to do
something linux, have to look really hard before they find anything new.

This port needs some good docs and a good www page badly.

IMHO of course. Nice to see I'm not the only one.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-linux-mips@oss.sgi.com
> [mailto:owner-linux-mips@oss.sgi.com]On Behalf Of Jay Carlson
> Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 4:46 AM
> To: Eric Watkins; linux-mips@oss.sgi.com
> Subject: Re: Status reports?
>
>
>  "Eric Watkins" <watkinse@attens.com> writes:
>
> [...]
>
> > I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone
> should
> > let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going
> on and what
> > progress is being made.
>
> IMO this is a serious problem for many open source development projects
> today.  Much of the interaction occurs in IRC or instant message
> chats, and
> not in email.  The people who are participating in the online chats have
> much better coordination, but it ends up excluding a lot of people.  It's
> not just people in the wrong timezone who lose out---projects
> also lose the
> potential effort of people who join the mailing list, see nothing
> going on,
> and don't get a chance to help.  I've found that even casual readers of a
> mailing list can bring insight from other projects to bear on problems.
>
> Jay
>
>

RE: Status reports?

[Eric Watkins]

Hello,

I agree. I have a friend who lurks on this mailing list and he swears the
port is dead.

Having the only www page the port has have look 2 years old(the SGI one)
looks really bad. People who obtain SGI boxes(like me) and want to do
something linux, have to look really hard before they find anything new.

This port needs some good docs and a good www page badly.

IMHO of course. Nice to see I'm not the only one.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-linux-mips@oss.sgi.com
> [mailto:owner-linux-mips@oss.sgi.com]On Behalf Of Jay Carlson
> Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 4:46 AM
> To: Eric Watkins; linux-mips@oss.sgi.com
> Subject: Re: Status reports?
>
>
>  "Eric Watkins" <watkinse@attens.com> writes:
>
> [...]
>
> > I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone
> should
> > let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going
> on and what
> > progress is being made.
>
> IMO this is a serious problem for many open source development projects
> today.  Much of the interaction occurs in IRC or instant message
> chats, and
> not in email.  The people who are participating in the online chats have
> much better coordination, but it ends up excluding a lot of people.  It's
> not just people in the wrong timezone who lose out---projects
> also lose the
> potential effort of people who join the mailing list, see nothing
> going on,
> and don't get a chance to help.  I've found that even casual readers of a
> mailing list can bring insight from other projects to bear on problems.
>
> Jay
>
>

Re: Status reports?

[Richard]

>

Hi,

i've still got the linux-mips.org domain, but no time to build a website, if
someone builds the site, i'll be happy to put it up.

Richard

>
>
> I agree. I have a friend who lurks on this mailing list and he swears the
> port is dead.
>
> Having the only www page the port has have look 2 years old(the SGI one)
> looks really bad. People who obtain SGI boxes(like me) and want to do
> something linux, have to look really hard before they find anything new.
>
> This port needs some good docs and a good www page badly.
>
> IMHO of course. Nice to see I'm not the only one.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-linux-mips@oss.sgi.com
> > [mailto:owner-linux-mips@oss.sgi.com]On Behalf Of Jay Carlson
> > Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 4:46 AM
> > To: Eric Watkins; linux-mips@oss.sgi.com
> > Subject: Re: Status reports?
> >
> >
> >  "Eric Watkins" <watkinse@attens.com> writes:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone
> > should
> > > let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going
> > on and what
> > > progress is being made.
> >
> > IMO this is a serious problem for many open source development projects
> > today.  Much of the interaction occurs in IRC or instant message
> > chats, and
> > not in email.  The people who are participating in the online chats have
> > much better coordination, but it ends up excluding a lot of people.  It's
> > not just people in the wrong timezone who lose out---projects
> > also lose the
> > potential effort of people who join the mailing list, see nothing
> > going on,
> > and don't get a chance to help.  I've found that even casual readers of a
> > mailing list can bring insight from other projects to bear on problems.
> >
> > Jay
> >
> >

Re: Status reports?

[Ralf Baechle]

On Thu, Jun 29, 2000 at 06:29:18PM +0200, Richard wrote:

> i've still got the linux-mips.org domain, but no time to build a website, if
> someone builds the site, i'll be happy to put it up.

Somebody is just reworking the pages at SGI, we could point the domain
there.

  Ralf

RE: Status reports?

[Ian Chilton]

Hello,

> I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone
> should let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going
> on and what progress is being made.

I am one of the guys in #mipslinux.

Just a quick post to let you know that we have seen your posts, and I am
going to talk to Ralf about this.

I have had a chat to a few of the guys, and the points that came up are:

* Yes, the SGI site needs updating....the port is very much active in a big
way, but the dates on the site are from years back, which is not the case.
Also, the Linux/MIPS howto is < 1 week old, but the date shows it's months
old.

* Not everything that happens on IRC is appropriate for the mailing list,
otherwise it would be a very high volume list.

* The problem is, most of the people on the port and in #mipslinux are
developers, who are working on the ports, but have no time for
documentation.  Which is best, a port that is dead with loads of
documentation, or an active / up-to-date / working port with little
documentation.


I agree that the documentation is sparce, and see the above issues. That is
why, I am *thinking* of and suggesting to some of the guys that I, at least
for now, maintain a site with
* News from #mipslinux
* Links to current resources
* Possibly some documentation

..this will also need the co-operation of the programmers / maintainers to
keep me informed on what is happening..

I need to discuss this with some of the key members of the team like Ralf
and then if this goes ahead, i'll get something put together, but it will
probably be a few weeks away from now.


Just to finish, believe me, the port is very much alive, they are currently
working on Linux 2.4 / Glibc 2.2 / GCC 2.96

If you have any chance at all, I suggest you stop by #mipslinux at
times....all you need is an internet connection and one of the many IRC
clients...

Details are:
/server irc.openprojects.net         (port 6667)
/join #mipslinux


Any thoughts or problems with this, let me know   (ian@ichilton.co.uk)


Thanks!


Bye for Now,

Ian


                     \|||/
                     (o o)
 /----------------ooO-(_)-Ooo----------------\
 |  Ian Chilton                              |
 |  E-Mail : ian@ichilton.co.uk              |
 \-------------------------------------------/

RE: Status reports?

[Ian Chilton]

Hello,

> I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone
> should let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going
> on and what progress is being made.

I am one of the guys in #mipslinux.

Just a quick post to let you know that we have seen your posts, and I am
going to talk to Ralf about this.

I have had a chat to a few of the guys, and the points that came up are:

* Yes, the SGI site needs updating....the port is very much active in a big
way, but the dates on the site are from years back, which is not the case.
Also, the Linux/MIPS howto is < 1 week old, but the date shows it's months
old.

* Not everything that happens on IRC is appropriate for the mailing list,
otherwise it would be a very high volume list.

* The problem is, most of the people on the port and in #mipslinux are
developers, who are working on the ports, but have no time for
documentation.  Which is best, a port that is dead with loads of
documentation, or an active / up-to-date / working port with little
documentation.


I agree that the documentation is sparce, and see the above issues. That is
why, I am *thinking* of and suggesting to some of the guys that I, at least
for now, maintain a site with
* News from #mipslinux
* Links to current resources
* Possibly some documentation

..this will also need the co-operation of the programmers / maintainers to
keep me informed on what is happening..

I need to discuss this with some of the key members of the team like Ralf
and then if this goes ahead, i'll get something put together, but it will
probably be a few weeks away from now.


Just to finish, believe me, the port is very much alive, they are currently
working on Linux 2.4 / Glibc 2.2 / GCC 2.96

If you have any chance at all, I suggest you stop by #mipslinux at
times....all you need is an internet connection and one of the many IRC
clients...

Details are:
/server irc.openprojects.net         (port 6667)
/join #mipslinux


Any thoughts or problems with this, let me know   (ian@ichilton.co.uk)


Thanks!


Bye for Now,

Ian


                     \|||/
                     (o o)
 /----------------ooO-(_)-Ooo----------------\
 |  Ian Chilton                              |
 |  E-Mail : ian@ichilton.co.uk              |
 \-------------------------------------------/

Re: Status reports?

[rob]

Hi,

	I've just been mostly lurking here on this list, but I thought I would
throw out an offer to help out (seeing as this might be one of the only
things I can do, not a big coder or anything).

	I own current.nu, CurrenTEK.com, and LinuXTC.com, and host several
GNU/GPL projects.  I'm about to bring the servers back up by the end of
the week (on a very slow line), and shopping around for a decent place
to colocate a box on some decent bandwidth (hopefully cheaper than the
$800/month I was getting raped for last year).

	Anyhow, Justin Stressman (aka Largo of WindowMaker theme and FAQ fame)
is pretty slick at html/php3/postgresql type web sites, and looking for
a few things to showcase his talents with.  I've worked with Justin for
a couple years, and he is very good.  He will be doing a remake for the
official WindowMaker site, re-launching his own Window Maker Unofficial
FAQ and theme site, and possibly working on the sourceforge.net soon.

	Justin want's to start his own web design studio, and has been taking
on some of these GNU pages just to showcase his talents so that he might
find some good paying work.  I can show you some very nice samples of
his work if you need to see them.  He can probably do something that
will allow you the ability to use a web interface to update "News" via a
php/sql online form secure with passwords, link to current versions for
downloads, etc...  

	He will probably be willing to do it for a "Designed by.." line on the
bottom of the page, unless it's extremely time consuming.  Plus, the up
side is, he lives on IRC ;-) so working with him should be easy
considering that's where your talking about most of the news.

	And, once I get a server settled somewhere, I'd be happy to host the
site also if necessary.

	Just thought I would mention it.

	Rob C.

-- 
"Robert W. Current, Ph.D." <current@hel-inc.com> - email

Ian Chilton wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> > I know lots of this information gets distributed via IRC but someone
> > should let everyone, who's not on IRC all the time, know what's going
> > on and what progress is being made.
> 
> I am one of the guys in #mipslinux.
> 
> Just a quick post to let you know that we have seen your posts, and I am
> going to talk to Ralf about this.
> 
> I have had a chat to a few of the guys, and the points that came up are:
> 
> * Yes, the SGI site needs updating....the port is very much active in a big
> way, but the dates on the site are from years back, which is not the case.
> Also, the Linux/MIPS howto is < 1 week old, but the date shows it's months
> old.
> 
> * Not everything that happens on IRC is appropriate for the mailing list,
> otherwise it would be a very high volume list.
> 
> * The problem is, most of the people on the port and in #mipslinux are
> developers, who are working on the ports, but have no time for
> documentation.  Which is best, a port that is dead with loads of
> documentation, or an active / up-to-date / working port with little
> documentation.
> 
> I agree that the documentation is sparce, and see the above issues. That is
> why, I am *thinking* of and suggesting to some of the guys that I, at least
> for now, maintain a site with
> * News from #mipslinux
> * Links to current resources
> * Possibly some documentation
> 
> ..this will also need the co-operation of the programmers / maintainers to
> keep me informed on what is happening..
> 
> I need to discuss this with some of the key members of the team like Ralf
> and then if this goes ahead, i'll get something put together, but it will
> probably be a few weeks away from now.
> 
> Just to finish, believe me, the port is very much alive, they are currently
> working on Linux 2.4 / Glibc 2.2 / GCC 2.96
> 
> If you have any chance at all, I suggest you stop by #mipslinux at
> times....all you need is an internet connection and one of the many IRC
> clients...
> 
> Details are:
> /server irc.openprojects.net         (port 6667)
> /join #mipslinux
> 
> Any thoughts or problems with this, let me know   (ian@ichilton.co.uk)
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Bye for Now,
> 
> Ian
> 
>                      \|||/
>                      (o o)
>  /----------------ooO-(_)-Ooo----------------\
>  |  Ian Chilton                              |
>  |  E-Mail : ian@ichilton.co.uk              |
>  \-------------------------------------------/

-- 
"Robert W. Current, Ph.D." <current@hel-inc.com> - email

Re: Status reports?

[Jay Carlson]

"Ian Chilton" <mailinglist@ichilton.co.uk> writes:

> * Not everything that happens on IRC is appropriate for the mailing list,
> otherwise it would be a very high volume list.

Yeah.

> * The problem is, most of the people on the port and in #mipslinux are
> developers, who are working on the ports, but have no time for
> documentation.  Which is best, a port that is dead with loads of
> documentation, or an active / up-to-date / working port with little
> documentation.

There's a need for high quality documentation, but I think there's a greater
need for just little status reports.  Writing good documents is *hard*, but
just little one-paragraph summaries, like a project diary, would be a
wonderful service to the community.

OTOH, although the current situation annoys me a little, it would annoy me a
lot more if upstream work on mipslinux stopped.  :-)  So please don't take
anything this list says about this as a demand.

> I agree that the documentation is sparce, and see the above issues. That
is
> why, I am *thinking* of and suggesting to some of the guys that I, at
least
> for now, maintain a site with
> * News from #mipslinux
> * Links to current resources
> * Possibly some documentation

Doesn't have to be very heavyweight to be successful.

> If you have any chance at all, I suggest you stop by #mipslinux at
> times....all you need is an internet connection and one of the many IRC
> clients...
>
> Details are:
> /server irc.openprojects.net         (port 6667)
> /join #mipslinux

I'll drop by soon.

Jay

Re: Status reports?

[Jay Carlson]

"Ian Chilton" <mailinglist@ichilton.co.uk> writes:

> * Not everything that happens on IRC is appropriate for the mailing list,
> otherwise it would be a very high volume list.

Yeah.

> * The problem is, most of the people on the port and in #mipslinux are
> developers, who are working on the ports, but have no time for
> documentation.  Which is best, a port that is dead with loads of
> documentation, or an active / up-to-date / working port with little
> documentation.

There's a need for high quality documentation, but I think there's a greater
need for just little status reports.  Writing good documents is *hard*, but
just little one-paragraph summaries, like a project diary, would be a
wonderful service to the community.

OTOH, although the current situation annoys me a little, it would annoy me a
lot more if upstream work on mipslinux stopped.  :-)  So please don't take
anything this list says about this as a demand.

> I agree that the documentation is sparce, and see the above issues. That
is
> why, I am *thinking* of and suggesting to some of the guys that I, at
least
> for now, maintain a site with
> * News from #mipslinux
> * Links to current resources
> * Possibly some documentation

Doesn't have to be very heavyweight to be successful.

> If you have any chance at all, I suggest you stop by #mipslinux at
> times....all you need is an internet connection and one of the many IRC
> clients...
>
> Details are:
> /server irc.openprojects.net         (port 6667)
> /join #mipslinux

I'll drop by soon.

Jay

Re: Status reports?

[Robert Current]

http://www.acheron-design.com/windowmaker.org-new/  <--that's the kind
of thing I was thinking largo could do for ya, just set it up, and let
you guys update it via web/php admin...

So you have a good idea what he can do...
http://www.acheron-design.com/leninmaker/  <--joke windowmaker one.

http://wm.current.nu/
his site.

If you want him to do a layout for the linux-mips page, just let me or
him (largo@current.nu) know, and we can get it set up (layout and
graphics), and all you will have to do is provide some content and
update the news and such through web interface.


Jay Carlson wrote:
> 
> "Ian Chilton" <mailinglist@ichilton.co.uk> writes:
> 
> > * Not everything that happens on IRC is appropriate for the mailing list,
> > otherwise it would be a very high volume list.
> 
> Yeah.
> 
> > * The problem is, most of the people on the port and in #mipslinux are
> > developers, who are working on the ports, but have no time for
> > documentation.  Which is best, a port that is dead with loads of
> > documentation, or an active / up-to-date / working port with little
> > documentation.
> 
> There's a need for high quality documentation, but I think there's a greater
> need for just little status reports.  Writing good documents is *hard*, but
> just little one-paragraph summaries, like a project diary, would be a
> wonderful service to the community.
> 
> OTOH, although the current situation annoys me a little, it would annoy me a
> lot more if upstream work on mipslinux stopped.  :-)  So please don't take
> anything this list says about this as a demand.
> 
> > I agree that the documentation is sparce, and see the above issues. That
> is
> > why, I am *thinking* of and suggesting to some of the guys that I, at
> least
> > for now, maintain a site with
> > * News from #mipslinux
> > * Links to current resources
> > * Possibly some documentation
> 
> Doesn't have to be very heavyweight to be successful.
> 
> > If you have any chance at all, I suggest you stop by #mipslinux at
> > times....all you need is an internet connection and one of the many IRC
> > clients...
> >
> > Details are:
> > /server irc.openprojects.net         (port 6667)
> > /join #mipslinux
> 
> I'll drop by soon.
> 
> Jay