Paul Sokolovsky wrote: > Hello Lorn, > > Friday, December 28, 2007, 1:43:28 AM, you wrote: > >> Paul Sokolovsky wrote: > > >> As for "welcoming" feeling, > >> I'm not sure someone can easily point us to similar project to learn > >> from, I'm afraid. > >> other linux embedded build/distribution communities: >> uClibc, T2, ptxdist, and probably even gumstix. I am sure there are others. > > > >> All those issues are however likely not because embedded people are > >> bad, but because the area is complex, > >> device integrations may be complex, but just _using_ oe to build a flash >> image for some device should not be. > > Well-well-well, you seem to want to hijack thread and make it serve > your own pain-points. Last messages of this thread were dedicated to how > users and developers of Angstrom, a user-facing distro, perceive each > other. How OE is easy to use is important topic, but subject for > another thread and another list.
Not hijacking any thread, merely elaborating on certain points. > > >> and there's lack of critical > >> mass in the community - even to handle fluent communication. Many > >> projects respond to these traits by growing closedness and elitist > >> attitudes. But that's not an Angstrom way. We want to overcome them > >> by creating multi-device and device-neutral community, so we have > >> critical mass of people working on the *distro*, not on individual > >> devices going out of use tomorrow. > >> An embedded linux disto _is_ device specific. > > Join us in 21th century, Lorn, it all changes now ;-). Right, as soon as you can run something compiled for collie on openmoko, I will then believe you. This isn't i486. > > >> So, we're going to have the > >> critical mass to be reasonably friendly even to complete, > >> silly-questions asking newbies. And for this, we need different > >> members in community, not just developers, but evangelists, believers, > >> good pals, and just lounge people ;-). In the meantime, when > >> developers oftentimes respond to questions, those are sometimes too > >> terse and sharp - that's because devels are very short of time - they > >> can use it to fix bugs after all! > > >> Users are also short of time, probably even more so, as we have _real_ >> deadlines to meet. I hope you weren't saying oe developers time is more >> important than it's users. > >> We don't have time to learn the ins and outs of OE... what OE_SOMEENV >> means. Usually to get something done, you have to set OE_SOMEENV in some >> conf file somewhere, which may or may not be documented anywhere, or >> edit some .bb file somewhere. > > Again, we're talking different "users" here. Developers using OE as > a kind of downstream env for their work, not as a native environment, are > of course important target group. Did you notice some movements on > helping to decide how to make life easier for them, for example > freeing them from the need to learn all those "OE_*" variables? Please > find time to look thru > http://lists.linuxtogo.org/pipermail/openembedded-devel/2007-December/003784.html > and give feedback (hint: it's a bit long discussion, but for you, as > lover of non-terse answers, it shouldn't be a problem to read it thru). No, we are talking about OE users. If you want to classify them into differing segments, I guess that is your prerogative. Your users have even less time than you, and many devs come off as thinking that their time is more valuable than your users, which leads to problems. > >> It is often more quick to just ask than to >> spend hours scanning the documents trying to find some esoteric >> configuration or the correct files to edit by hand. > > You're welcome! > >> You do not have to answer in a terse way, ever. > > My English seems to failing me last time. Cannot parse. It all goes > well until "ever" - indeed, noone is obliged to provide only terse > answers all the time, they are welcome to use verbose answers as they > see fit. But that "ever" bothers me. Someone please translate Lorn? > Or maybe you just hacked a too terse, incomprehensible answer, where > you jump from one thought to another without giving reader a chance to > follow thru? It's ironic that surface composition of your message > contradicts a deep meaning it conveys. What I mean is there is no reason to ever reply in a rude way. I guess the way I am using the word terse is more as slang for being rude or disrespectful. > >> If you do respect new users, as as >> well developers, you would never disrespect them this way. > > Oh, see, we're again those respect/disrespect talks... And what "this > way" do you mean, please? I see there is also a problem with taking constructive criticism. > >> You want to make it easier for new users? Create a gui configuration > > Easier what? not-having-to-answer-in-a-terse-way-ever'iness? Are you > sure GUI would help with it? Anyway, opinions, opinions. You think GUI > will help, you write it, Lorn. And even make people use it. That would > take lot of verbosity btw, so should be fun. I don't have time to write your gui for you. I am not trying to make OE into the mainstream. You guys are. You are also having a problem with exchanges between devs and users. You may not be able to change devs attidudes, but you can certainly change the way oe is perceived by writing a gui and working on your documentation. I am trying to help you out by telling you oe is far behind other buildroots because of all this hand editing and having to know exactly which file to edit and what esoteric variables and commands you must know to achieve something. Which leads people to ask the high and mighty oe developers questions, because the documentation is lackadaisical or non existent. And because there is some "holier-than-thou" attitude from developers, leads to situations such as explained in this thread. > >> like all the other build systems have and make it drop dead dumb easy to >> get started. > > ... as for me, none of build system I ever used had GUI > configuration, so I'm afraid I have better plan - for myself. If that > plan will be supported by other developers, OE will become easier to > setup/use without any GUIs. But's another thread, still. _All_ of the commercial build systems have gui, because most linux embedded developers in the world come from the windows world, like it or not. uCLibc does, T2 does, ptxdist does as well. even the precursor to oe did. OE is behind the times. As you say, "welcome to the 21st century", we now have graphical interfaces to make interacting with computers easier and more visually appealing. You want to answer less questions? Have a gui config tool. -- Lorn 'ljp' Potter Software Engineer, Systems Group, MES, Trolltech _______________________________________________ Angstrom-distro-devel mailing list Angstrom-distro-devel@linuxtogo.org http://lists.linuxtogo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/angstrom-distro-devel
