Re: [MiNT] MiNTLib / Kernel Future and also SpareMiNT.....

[Paul Wratt <paul.wratt@gmail.com>]

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 5:12 AM, Alan Hourihane <alanh@fairlite.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 14:50 -0400, Mark Duckworth wrote:
>> On 5/27/10 1:54 PM, Keith Scroggins wrote:
>> > ... (snip) ...
>> > Now, the other question is Sparemint.  Where should it head?  Are
>> > people still willing to build RPMs and support the software, and do
>> > people still want the software supported?
>> >
>> My opinion is that there is a lot of easymint users.  Easymint uses
>> sparemint as foundation.  Therefore sparemint is the primary community
>> supported distro on our platform.  Keith, I don't think that our work is
>> for nothing or else I don't think we would be bothering to make rpms at
>> all ;)
>
> Neither do I. In fact I encourage you to carry on with SpareMiNT and the
> RPMs if that's what drives you to do this.
>

(specifically) In general, can we please forget the RPM vs Gentoo (vs
any-oth-distro-) issue, it is irrelavent.

With Alan committing his patches upstream, it makes sense that any RPM
builds that are successfully patched should first and foremost be
ported to ebuild (Gentoo). This promotes the health of ALL
distributions

The only other things to be said here is ebuild<=>rpm packages already
exists, we should be using them.

With regard to developer resources, if current devs updated there
websites, made statement of declaration, or updated project progress,
it would be much easier for other dev's (both new and old) to avoid
re-inventing the wheel, as it were (which some are acutely aware of).

This would still allow individuals to develop and maintain any distro
that interested or benifited them, especially if up-to-date and active
"cross" tools were maintained (scripts, converters, etc)

There is no need to have ONE distro, but any that are available should
not be working against each other, but rather contributing to the
vibrant growth of usable (and stable) options

Marks comment of opening up his work to cvs/svn is an absolute must,
as it allow things to be completed quicker (a real issue in the
community atm)

ATM Alans work does not require the same level of outside access, and
yet he has asked for people to contribute, so it would seem that at
some time in the future it too could be opened up in a similar way.

I personally would like to see the re-opening of the Debian MiNT
project, but at the same time I would not expect that to happen with
out a direct injection from both Alans and Marks distro work. It would
be absolute suicide to to not do so..

So again it come back down to:
A) what is the process of building (RPM/ebuild)
B) where is the quick start documentation
C) a fully explained example of cross-building

or similar info. Basically we dont need to be sending 20 or 40 year
olds to kinder, in order to start being productive straight away, and
that come down to some key documentation, at least a known general
outline of direction, and a and active (current) list of "needs to be
done" and/or "must haves"

I have seen scraps of this info, but it is now totally out of date

If "the" website enabled a side by side comparison between distros (or
show of activity), this would help in package maintenance, user
choices, awareness of community activity, and the possibility of
"holes" being filled.

We have all the resources to make this happen, it is just that nothing
"modern" has been implemented yet, things we have come to expect from
modern internet assisted project development.

Paul