On Friday 13 August 2010 23:11:52 Ware, Ryan R wrote:
> On 8/13/10 2:53 PM, "Robin Burchell" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >Given that MeeGo is arriving a bit late to this game, I think this is
> >something that can be ill-afforded, personally: issues like this aren't
> >going to help us gain developer mindshare. At all.
> ></reasoning>
>
> There's nothing wrong with the reasoning, but the question comes (as Greg
> KH brought up) is who supports this. Adding a new build for older
> hardware is far from free. Who's infrastructure does the release build?
> Who's infrastructure does daily builds? (Building QT alone right now
> takes 4+ hours in OBS.) Who is going to put forth the validation
> resources for that build? Who is going to triage the bugs that come in
> for that build? Who is going to fix the bugs that come in for that build?
Thanks to Robin and Ryan for bringing some clear thinking to this thread.
Ryan's question is very reasonable. Fortunately, the answer is easy: Intel
and Nokia.
And the reason is exactly the one Robin has already given: Intel and Nokia
have invested an enormous amount of money in MeeGo. MeeGo is a late entrant
to this market and however wonderful it is, it will fail completely if it
does not attract developers. And attracting developers means investing
considerable resources into what developers need. And that incldues a
version of MeeGo which runs on the hardware the developers use to develop
their apps for other platforms. If developers typically used Alpha or MIPS
machines then it would be necessary to support those machines! Fortunately
they don't: they use Intel or AMD and a variety of graphics systems.
Some people in Intel and Nokia may not like the answer ("why should we spend
money to support a competitor's platform?" or "the project did not budget for
this") but that doesn't stop it being the right answer. This is nothing to
do with MeeGo target platforms -- they can remain as whatever you define (and
the MeeGo name can be limited to systems running specific hardware): it is
about supporting the developers you need as partners in order to make a
success of the investment you have committed so far.
> Those are only the questions that came to mind before I had to pause and
> think my next sentence. There are many issues with adding another build;
> the vast majority of which are currently un-scoped and only the least
> significant (changing the build configuration) has been spoken for.
>
> Getting an additional build out in the field is far from a small effort.
Yep. Everyone agrees. No one is suggesting it is easy (just like no one is
suggesting getting rid of the optimised version). It will cost a lot of
money. But it is necessary.
One advantage Intel and Nokia have here is that there are community members
willing to help. If they stop fighting this and invest in supporting the
community then they can get some help and save some money. But ultimately
the buck will stop with Intel and Nokia.
Graham
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