[oi-dev] Support OI and illumos for GSoC 2012

[Bayard Bell]

Milan,

The basic checklist includes build from source. Students are doing
that on VBox (because it's free) and coming back very confused because
it's not fit for purpose.

We're simply providing students with known-good configs so that they
can spend their time actually looking at code and picking up
bite-sized bugs when they are still weighing whether to get involved
in our project. I see providing alternate distribution formats such as
vmWare and KVM images as legitimate general aims that complement
student recruitment. We have a sufficient diversity of interested
students (GSoC is a global program, and the stipend is worth
considerably more in terms of spending power in economies that are
less likely to have deep broadband penetration to provide access to
hosted solutions or spare affordable hardware capacity that can
support illumos development) that expecting people to source kit for
bare metal installs or deal with mismatched virtualization solutions
is a highly counter-productive barrier. More development-appropriate
installation options are will be defined by project, and accepted
students will be expected to negotiate those during the bonding period
from late April until project work officially commences in late May.

We are not going to emulate certain Zen practices by punching young
monks bordering on enlightenment in the face to help them to get them
the rest of the way there, even if the technique has been known to
work (you could argue that we're saving the punches until
enlightenment is at hand rather than when someone first shows up at
the door).

Without putting too fine a point on this, I'm happy to explain the
position I'm taking on this as the illumos org admin, but this isn't a
debate (and, incidentally, I'm not a Zen master). More important is to
match resources to problems that I can say from direct observation
inhibited the program last year and threaten to do so again this year.

Cheers,
Bayard