[oi-dev] Where should SPARC go?

[Michal Nowak]

On 11/17/19 10:39 PM, Gary Mills wrote:
> 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.
> 
> 

There were 7 contributors to the OpenIndiana/oi-userland repo (which is 
the bulk of OpenIndiana development) with more than 10 commits for the 
2019.10 release. I don't know how many OI users (be it long-term or 
accidental ones) are out there for the same period of time but I guess 
it's in low hundreds.

Although I consider Gary's OI on SPARC an interesting achievement, I 
doubt there are enough potential users and developers to sustain any 
illumos SPARC distro of the same (slow) pace of hipster development. 
E.g. looking at SPARC-related work in illumos, it's only Peter who 
contributes significantly to this area (mostly by removing entirely 
obsolete platforms and by ensuring illumos actually builds - and that's, 
I am afraid, revealing).

Given the tiny resources OI project has and can offer, I wish OI and 
"OI"-for-SPARC were independent and related to each other in the same 
way OI currently relates to OmniOS CE and pkgsrc, that is by sharing 
knowledge, patches.

Michal