[oi-dev] Where should SPARC go?

[Gary Mills]

I have a series of questions to ask the members of this mailing list.
I have information to share with you as well.  I already have partial
answers to most of the questions, but I'd still like to hear from you.

First of all, how much interest do you have in OI on SPARC?  My
interest is as a developer and tester.  What is your interest?
I'd like to determine the size of the audience.

How should I contribute to OI on SPARC?  I have plans to build more
packages, and to do so with fewer changes to the OI source.  I also
have plans to update the distribution from the current 2018 to 2019 or
2020.  Does this sound reasonable to you?

How should you contribute to OI on SPARC?  I've filed bug reports
for many of the changes I've made.  They can be seen at:

    https://www.illumos.org/projects/openindiana/issues

I've attached patches to each bug report, but in order for these
patches to be integrated into the OI source, the patches need to be
turned into PRs for github.  They also need to be tested on x86 to
make sure they don't accidentally change anything there.  Can you help
with any of this?  Can you build packages for SPARC from OI source?
Can you help in any other way?

What type of repository do you prefer?  Should it be file-based, as it
is now, or should it be remote, as for OI x86?  The repository will
only get larger, as people build more packages and publish them.  Will
you download such a large file?  I don't know of any way to merge
repositories, so there must be only one.

Finally, who should coordinate OI on SPARC?  Should this be done by
the OI project, or should it be done separately?  Keep in mind that OI
SPARC uses OI source.  Most of it builds and publishes with no
changes.  When changes are necessary, my plan has been to introduce
them with no harm to x86 packages built from the same source.  Indeed,
some of the changes fix bugs in the corresponding x86 packages.  Also
keep in mind that IPS is designed to handle multiple architectures,
making it easy to integrate SPARC with x86.  In fact, this is already
done for illumos.


-- 
-Gary Mills-		-refurb-		-Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada-