Robert Fitzsimons wrote:
> So far each developer has worked on there own project with little help
> from other developers, and nobody wants to give up there project and
> work on someone else's.
Sun has a nice system for managing parts of the Java platform: expert
groups. My suggestion is that we use something like the JSR's and form
expert groups, and have their proposals voted upon by members of JOS,
and thus accept or decline proposals. Once the proposals have been
accepted, the expert group will interact closely with a general
coordinating group who will see that all components can be integrated
and follow common specification (from namespaces to coding style).
We should form a group of people who are determined to make JOS succeed,
and who have the *general* knowledge and skills to put together an OS.
Then, other groups can form their own expert groups to create the
components that will ultimately form JOS.
> The problem with this is that the whole project will die off because
> new members don't know where to start and then leave.
This is quite very true. Personally, I have kept e-mails of over five
people who had volunteered to help me with the system registry API. Two
of them actually downloaded the API (version 1.0.0 beta) but none have
ever responded since... I developed the initial API with the hopes that
people would help me with their expertise in fields not so familiar to
me (distribution, for instance) but one have come forth yet. On the
mailing lists, so many people had suggestions and showed interest...
This either means that a) we don't really have that many motivated
developers on the mailing lists, or b) nobody dares to speak of JOS in
the holistic view and try to see how components can be integrated.
Even when we had a prototype process manager, and the registry and file
system components could be very well integrated, that attempt also
failed.
> Now for this to change we need to all stop working on our own projects
> and work together on a new unified project. We should treat all the
> current project as prototypes and leave them behind, and just bring
> all the good ideas with us on the new unified project.
Again, I hope everyone can see how a JSR mechanism can help here. If all
ideas are formulated and posted within the boundaries of a common
proposal template, then it will be easy to read, understand, vote and
monitor ideas.
> For this to succeed we need to jump into the deep-end, new mailing
> lists, web site, cvs server. We can keep the old stuff around but
> only for reference.
This is a good idea. The Wiki is useful, but there is no real
organization strength behind it. The versioning must be made where and
when it is useful. A hierarchy of information must be created. We need
to separate news, discussion, reading material and implementation. The
Wiki seems a bit too chaotic to serve such a huge project as an OS.
Regarding leaving all behind, I would just like to point out that all
user-level applications should not be left out, but continue being
listed. User-level applications do not hinder the development of the
underlying OS, nor do they complicate the API's (they are not API's -
you see).
I hope this message will help JOS, if not at least incite something that
will eventually help the project.
--
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."
- William Shakespeare
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