[oi-dev] basis for better collaboration on illumos and OpenIndiana: small circle, Big circle‏

[Jim Klimov]

Hello Alasdair et al,

   With all due respect, since a bit of your comment seems like
a reaction to my inquiries as well, I'd like to respond to this:

On 2014-02-17 21:44, Alasdair Lumsden wrote:
> Nobody is obligated to work on any of this. You have no right to tell people what to do. Nobody does.
> ... If it doesn't align with their goals, then most likely they'll decline.

   Certainly so, especially in the unpaid project done on spare time.

> People cannot show up out of the blue and shout "...I really need my AMD graphics card working, ... any chance of USB3 support? Thanks guys, let me know when it's done!"
> All it does is /piss people off/.

   Sorry about that impression. I did post suggestions like that,
hopefully conveying the manner "if one is looking for something
to do, here is something useful to a large number of people and
possibly not too huge of an undertaking". I really regret if this
*only* irritates. However, on one hand - I am not a developer,
at least not of a kind that can complete such a project. Also I
am not backed by an entity that would sponsor such development.
On another - without somebody contributing features like this
couple, there is less and less modern (desktop/notebook) hardware
that can actually run OpenIndiana, especially as a developer's
bare metal workstation. This shrinks both the options for the
active community members (to upgrade hardware), as well as the
pool of newcomers who would try to install, fail due to severe
problems (video or storage unrecognized), and never come back
because in another OS such things just work.

While USB3 might be sooner or later implemented by anyone in the
illumos community, because many platforms need it, "desktop"
things like updated video or wifi, or support for quiesce/standby,
might well only be of interest of contributors and consumers of
OpenIndiana, since most other distros are aimed at headless
servers with wired networking and years-long uptimes.

This still does not give (me) any right to dictate "drop anything
you're doing and go hack USB/Video/whatever", of course, but IMHO
one can make suggestions as to what might benefit the project,
and that often starts with "what do I miss" or "what irritates me"
and probably not only "me", but a number of quieter users too.
Especially if a new or seasoned developer reading the list is
browsing the ideas and thinking of a best way to spend his time
and effort (with most benefit to the general community) among
the projects that otherwise equally appeal to him.

Again, I hope - no hard feelings. You guys are doing as good a
job as you can given the man/time/money resources. I hope I am
useful too in the ways I happen to be best at - helping others,
finding bugs and suggesting ideas/RFEs :)

//Jim