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
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