Steven - Thanks for the input - it's certainly valuable to understand external perception around what we're doing. Some specific responses are below.
On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 10:17:47PM -0400, Steven Destika wrote: > I am not sure if I can "advise" nor do I have a concrete plan > but all I can sayis that you guys need to penetrate more into the > community - via conferences,online tutorials, driver writing fest - > ideas are not scarce. Over the last several years, we've sent Solaris engineers to several of the major conferences, including USENIX, LISA, and OSCON. Within the last year we've expanded this presence (including LinuxWorld and FISL), and we're looking to expand even further. See: http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=1805&tstart=15 Part of this expansion is to not have just Sun employed engineers, but also external members of the community present (for example, Ben was at the Sun booth at LinuxWorld). Are there particular conferences that you think we're missing? If so, you should add to that thread. On top of that, there are user groups popping up all over the place: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/os_user_groups/ The idea of online tutorials or classes is being worked on as well: http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=1749&tstart=45 A collection of HOWTOs has also been fronted by the community (can't find the jive reference). The driver writing fest is an interesting idea. I think the first step would be to create a driver community (which I believe has been proposed before - not sure where it stands). > We need more detailsin the blogs - not just dtrace scripts - how > about Solaris scheduler function, howabout DTrace implementation > details etc.? No offense, but did you read the opening day blogs? If not, check out Bryan's earlier response. Just a quick search for DTrace implementation details: http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bmc?entry=dtrace_safety http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bmc?entry=solaris_10_revealed http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/ahl?entry=dtrace_user_land1 http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/ahl?entry=pid_provider_exposed http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/ahl?entry=dtrace_is_open http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/mws?entry=dtrace_inlines_translators_and_file Plus, if you're interested in a certain area, it would be entirely reasonable to post a message to opensolaris-code requesting someone to do a blog entry covering a particular subsystem. Or come to IRC and harass any of the engineers who hang out there for more info. There's tons of code in OpenSolaris and we don't always know what people are interested in. > There is very less known about Solariskernel code by even lesser > number of people which needs to be fixed - I am not saying it is an > overnight job - but none the less there has to be significant effort > around developer evangelism and spreading of the technical knowledge. > Key is to enable mere mortals to contribute good quality code. We're all here. We answer questions on the OpenSolaris forums, comp.unix.solaris, Yahoo! groups, IRC, and direct email. We're blogging, we're going to conferences, we're holding user groups. We're continually forming communities and collecting information. What more should we be doing? What makes other open source projects more appealing? > Since you asked - Right now to me, the perception is that there is > less technical and more <<insert that damn BUR??... word here>> talk. Well, opensolaris-discuss is just that: a discussion. If you want a more technical details, you should look on opensolaris-bugs, -code, -rfe, or one of the many communities. Not to mention one of alternative outlets described above. > Of course several have denied that and at the same time assured that > we will get there soon - so I have, for now granted folks the benefit > of insufficient time if you will.. And I would like to apologize if I > did hurt anybody's feelings - I know you guys are hard at workand I > have seen some true zeal here to make OpenSolaris a success. I am > sure things will besorted out soon and hacking OpenSolaris will be > both easy and fun. I guess Mike's point (and mine) is that we seem to be doing all the things you suggest. We are trying really hard to create a successful community, but we can't improve our approach unless we know what we're doing wrong. Besides "do it faster" and "do it more" (both of which are limited by resources) are there any specific things we aren't currently working on that would improve the experience? - Eric -- Eric Schrock, Solaris Kernel Development http://blogs.sun.com/eschrock _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
