I'm sorry if you took my post personally...
I find it amusing that every time this subject (status of non-i586 ports) comes up, mdk employees become very defensive. Why?
I also find it amusing that the view I have on the subject seems to be totally screwed up. I guess I don't understand how products are developped and how businesses are run. Maybe it's time to visit my shrink again?
Thought so.You don't need to post to PPC and X86_64. Mandrake builds for and supportesNote: "some" is the key word in the sentence above.
the following archs: x86, ia64, x86_64, and PPC.
I think you guys are missing the point that some of these archs are being
developed and supported.
Of course it is. That's why I used it.
Interesting. The alpha distro is on the mirrors. It is consuming bandwidth. And there is no future for it, at least, that is what Gwennole and other mdk employees tell me. Management is quiet about it.IA64: Last package uploaded:
-rw-r--r-- 1 mandrake rpm 171556 Feb 28 09:54 ispell-3.1.20-16mdk.ia64.rpm
'nough said.
Internal building? There is a Corporate Server for ia64 in the works.
Just because "cooker" itself isn't being built, publically available, for cooker does not mean no work for it is being done. Since I'm not directly involved in the ports, I don't know if they are building/testing cooker internally, but I believe they are.
The reason ia64 and x86_64 may not be on public mirrors is the same reason Stew mentions below. It's not worth the bandwidth to put cooker/ia64 or cooker/x86_64 on mirrors when a handful of people will test. What's the point of taking up mirror space when 5 people have the capability/desire to test it?
You forget that ia64 and x86_64 are far from "mainstream" yet.yep... 'nuff said. If it ain't mainstream, why develop it? Should be a lot easier to develop it when it gets mainstream. In the meantime, put out a press release telling that you're developing it...
'nuff said.
wait... hmmm... what did I just say?
PPC: Stews comments reflect a different picture:
"I've let Olivier take over cooker PPC build because our official release
schedule for PPC (*subject to change/review of the business needs*) is every
other release. My experience in 3 PPC releases is that very few people
actually use PPC cooker, unless there are ISOs. So aside from personal
curiosity that things build or not, it hardly seems worth the
bandwidth/machine time to build cooker for PPC now, when the next release
is 9 months out, if the business decides it's worth pursuing at all. While
interest in all these ports is very nice, if MandrakeSoft doesn't bless
them and negotiate space on the mirrors for them, then you're going to
have to end up hosting them from some other server. Rebuilding packages
for other arches is fairly straightforward, but in my opinion what makes
the distribution "Mandrake" is the integration of the installer and drak
tools to behave appropriately for the architecture."
Seems like Stew isn't developping ppc at the moment. From what I read above, by the time release date for ppc is near (and management _wants_ the product) he'll start a development sprint...
No, they don't paint a different picture. It paints a very accurate and sensivle picture. If there is no one on cooker-ppc, or few people, who are interested in developing/testing cooker/PPC, why use the bandwidth? It's the same issue as x86_64 and ia64. This doesn't mean there isn't internal interest in it at all... but why use/waste bandwidth for a dozen people who may be half-heartedly using it? Compiling just for the sake of compiling is silly... Stew has other responsibilities beyond just the PPC port.
And, as he indicated, and has happened with previous versions, once 9.2/x86 is done and cooker is re-opened, work on PPC will begin again. That is what has happened in the past. It also has, I might add, worked well.
That being said, we are attempting to rectify the questions around PPC once and for all, but this is a mangement call and takes time.
I'm not a manager... but what I've learnt in my 29yrs of walking the planet: better a wrong descision than no descision at all...
Ah... that's clear then. For now, it's dead. It may be reanimated post 9.2.*
*comments like:*
"subject to change/review of the business needs"
*and
* "**if the business decides it's worth pursuing at all*"
don't sound like there is a whole lot of commitment behind the PPC product from management, or am I wrong? I hope I am.
No. It just means that Stew doesn't have concrete answers regarding the future of PPC. I don't have these answers either. I *am* trying to get them, once and for all. As soon as this is known, rest assured, the list will know.
x86_64 is (is it?) being developed somewhere out of sight...
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/press/pr?n=/pr/products/2418
This shows that Corporate Server, a more accurate target for this platform, has been released. Making a 9.1 for x86_64 at this time just doesn't make sense because Mandrake Linux is a desktop distro. So the resources were put into the corporate product for a corporate (currently) architecture. Once x86_64 and/or ia64 become more mainstream (read: consumer availability and pricing), there will likely be regular Mandrake Linux distribs for that architecture.
In fact, read this:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/community/mandrakesoftnews/news?n=/mandrakesoft/news/2414 "Mandrake Linux 9.0 for AMD 64-bit technology is available. 2003-03-13"
"and is also available on several public FTP mirrors" where? or: can't do that --> too much bandwidth, nobody wants it?
"a product dedicated to server deployment in medium to large accounts"
I regularly work for enterprise customers here in the Netherlands. Mandrake is not on the picture there, by far. Mdk currently doesn't have the capability to execute.
Anybody can make a press release... Following up, that's a different story.Reading the cooker list is not sufficient for getting all the info. Press releases are often helpful as well.
Stefan
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