I have had offline conversations with a number of the members here, over the last few weeks about the future of the ppc-dev project and our involvement going forward. Both Brian and I are no longer working directly for SunLabs, but here's a quick overview and an update on our status.
Brian, Guy, Noah and I have been the main developers on this source base over the last year and a half. We also greatly acknowledge the initial work that Cyril Plisko did on the toolchain, it was a great starter. The goal has always been to get a reference port of opensolaris up on a ppc based target and right now we are pretty close to having a real shell up on an ODW. We have successfully executed code from userland. It's not complete yet, but alot of effort has been expended by this team. We also are greatly indebted to SunLabs, Roger Meike and Bob Sproull for supporting us in this effort. They not only saw the wisdom of adding a new architecture but know the importance of this community effort. They continue to be supporters. We also appreciate all that Genesi has done to assist us. We have successfully transitioned most of this development from one inside Sun to one that is completely open in this community. All of our code is out on the repo and most importantly development is continuing as follows: Guy Shaw and Bill Kucharski are working the source full time. Brian will continue to be available in some capacity as his time permits as a member of the ppc-dev project team. As for me... I am personally committed to moving the ppc-dev project forward and will continue to serve as the leader of it. The project is a subset of the community as a whole, it is hosted on and will continue to be hosted on opensolaris as it exists today. I continue to have a close relationship with SunLabs. They are providing the hardware and other logistical support. I am creating community development servers that will be hosted in other locations such that anyone if so motivated can develop and contribute to the project. But in no means is this the end of the progress here. Like it or not I still plan on being very involved :) We have a number of technical issues to deal with going forward, of course an available, cost effective target platform being one. We also have a number of port issues that we face. But from the project's point of view getting the kernel up to a point where it is functional continues to be our first and foremost goal. I think the most important focus is that we together should make the project successful and this community grow. Tom This message posted from opensolaris.org
