Hi Matthew, Kaiwai Gardiner pÃÅ¡e v út 07. 08. 2007 v 15:36 +1200: > On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 20:09 +0200, Milan Jurik wrote: > > Hi Matthew, > > > > I know I'm not right man who should answer you, as I'm from Sun... But > > look at it from another perspective: > > > > V po, 06. 08. 2007 v 19:18, Kaiwai Gardiner pÃÅ¡e: > > > Agreed, but at the same driver - are drivers *truely* that secret? I > > > mean, wpi for 3945 was developed in 'secret' - why? what possible loss > > > of competitive advantage would it yield? looking at it from my angle, > > > all I see are positives by way of consumers actually seeing and knowing > > > that Sun are making/porting drivers to Solaris. > > > > > > > Are you sure that Sun employees had access to 3945 development except > > the developer of it? The most of them didn't know about it. And it is > > way how distributed development happens - somebody (or some team) is > > working on something till point it is "compilable" or "usable" or just > > "publicable". The level of this point is on the developer decision, as > > usual in open source world. Some developers are publishing all their > > steps, some are publishing something usefull for users. You had the > > access to source code of wpi at the same time as the most of Sun > > employees. Today you can find on bugs.opensolaris.org the responsible > > engineer for all accepted RFEs, why not to contact him if you want to > > help with development and/or testing of some particular RFE? > > BUt at the same time - if the 'community' knew that wpi was being worked > on - Sun might have actually found people helping port it to Solaris :-) > > A small hear-ye hear-ye would have been on order. >
But this happend, the responsible engineer took related RFE and you could see that on bugs.opensolaris.org. I agree with one thing - bugster is very good tool, but its public interface is not very useful in case that you want to monitor some CR. > > > I mean, if they're going to worry about 'competitive advantage' then why > > > announce to the world support for a product that doesn't yet exist in > > > the marketplace/still in development? > > > > > > > I don't think that in wpi case it was about competitive advantage. It > > was just way how the most of drivers in open source are developed - by > > some small team (typically with just one member), which is publishing > > their results when they are ready for public, per their decision. You > > can go and ask for source codes earlier if you want. And maybe the team > > will do it for you. > > But the driver is opensource and ported by Sun - I know about the > existance of wpi, what I didn't know about was Sun porting it to > Solaris. > Because you didn't monitor the RFE probably. Otherwise you would see that something happend and one man started to work on it. I know, not very simple these days. But still possible. > > And I don't know why File Events Notification API - PSARC/2007/027 is > > not public. You can see who made the putback - ask him, maybe he is not > > reading this list. > > Its very hard to know when there is no name attached to the put back as > far as I see. > http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/onnv-notify/2007-April/007227.html -> 6381975 solaris need centrino ipw3945 wifi support http://bugs.opensolaris.org/view_bug.do?bug_id=6381975 -> now you know ;-) And I think that Brian is very active even in community to help people with this driver :-) He just worked hard to release something and even at that time he was ready to communicate with those who wrote e-mail to him (I know it :-) ). > > > Things should be merged into the public tree, just like they're merged > > > inside the company. Everything that occurs inside Sun should occur at > > > the same time on the other side - if a case log as been updated, then it > > > should be accessible to the public. > > > > > > > But wpi wasn't merged to Sun tree significantly sooner (it tooks few > > minutes, that sync between ON gate inside and outside). The developer > > worked on his source code in his own workspace. As usual. > > Would it be better to put documentation out there before the code? > That's typically PSARC and sometimes updates in Bugster. E.g. manpage is written after driver completition. Which docu? > > > Its all about transparency in the development process; and if it means > > > that developers think out aloud on ideas - I'd sooner see Sun > > > programmers conduct regular brain farts on a blog and know there is some > > > cranium activity about future Solaris development than just sitting on > > > the side lines praying something is occurring in the deep crypt of Sun. > > > > > > > Did you look at RFEs? Did you look at PSARCs? Did you look at projects > > on opensolaris.org? And can you show me some really big project where > > all developers are informing community about their actual work and > > future plans? > > > > Please, leave the decision about their openness on developers. Some > > prefer public development (lots of Sun employee), some are working in > > their own workspaces (lots of Sun employee). > > > > You want just big amount of paperwork from us ;-) I hope the community > > is not my second manager asking for weekly reports... > > Its about communication - I'm generally not a person who likes to > communicate anything with anyone - I generally speaking keep people on a > 'need to know' basis - but at the same time, there is a need to inform > the community on what is happening. > > Tell the community what they're working on - and shock horror, they > might actually find that a few of the great unwashed might actually be > interested in contributing. > Look at opensolaris.org, do you think that Sun employees are not doing it in many cases? :-) I know some projects on opensolaris, which are done on public base fully. And I know that some are very active in communication, some not and not only from Sun, frequently they look like to be just pushed on public space and public space ignores them. But it is improving. You cannot build "community" just waiting on some orders or giving them. And it is really not only about one way communication, try to contact people from community and ask them about their work status or if you can help him. Monitor all sources of informations (yes, some are very hard to monitor now, but people are trying to improve some ways and/or start many things from scratch). Be pro-active and not only on opensolaris-discuss list, which is so "huge" today. This will help all :-) Best regards, Milan
_______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
