Re: GNOME and non-linux platforms (release team please stand up)

[Artem Kachitchkine <Artem Kachitchkin Sun COM>]

Hi David,

> You know, maybe if the non-Linux platforms actually participated in
> _designing_ and _developing_ the core plumbing bits, threads like this
> wouldn't have to happen. 
<snip>
> It would be a lot better if non-Linux platforms, like Solaris is in this
> respect, actually started participating much earlier. You still have
> time for the DeviceKit-disks and DeviceKit-power stuff for example.
>
> Anyway, if SUN started changing this behavior then maybe it would be a
> lot easier to not feel incredibly insulted by statements like "it
> behooves them as professional open source software engineers to respect
> the requirements". Because right now it's the pot calling the kettle
> black.

[Standard boilerplate, speaking for myself, not my employer.]

I did the initial HAL port to Solaris (but long since moved to other 
stuff), you might remember me. With respect to benefits of early 
participation, I agree with you completely - I learned the hard way and 
have been trying to convince folks here not to repeat that mistake with 
PolicyKit, ConsoleKit and DeviceKit - as you can witness, with little 
success.

There is no single reason or person to be blamed: there's organizational 
fragmentation and inertia; lack of funding; differences in engineering 
culture; etc. I am getting a positive vibe from engineers slowly warming 
up to the agile, iterative development style, so hopefully things are 
moving in the right direction.

I wouldn't get too offended with what Calum said, I think it's the right 
idea, though perhaps the proposed implementation isn't optimal in that 
the testing cost distribution is lopsided. To give a simplified example, 
what we had during HAL development sometimes, say, 0.x.y was released 
based on Linux exclusively and we had to follow that up with a 0.x.y.1 
release to fix FreeBSD/Solaris issues. With an established N-way 
commitment from all interested platforms, I believe such issues could be 
resolved upfront, leading to higher quality releases (less iterations) 
and a more even cost distribution, with little effect on schedule.

So from a bystander's point of view, maintaining GNOME's platform 
neutrality requires effort from both sides: from the ideological 
leaders, maintaining portability as a core requirement, built in not 
screwed on; and from interested platforms, continuous participation and 
timely response.

-Artem