Hi Olaf, I'm sorry I didn't contribute.
First of all I didn't think I could really help, since my knowledge of HURD internals is limited to some surface stuff (that's what you learn in informatics courses). But there is something I direly miss in the HURD, and that doesn't have anything to do with its actual code, but with how it can be accessed and seen. When we had the HURD in my informatics class, one task was to find out information about the HURD, and as I searched for information on the current state of the HURD, it looked quite dead. This wasn't because it was dead, but simply because it doesn't get as much attention as it would deserve - and that has a reason. So I added a project idea to fix this: * A release creation framework One of the points which keep people from using the HURD is that it never looks like it is in a working state. To get attention from people (and the press, etc.) the HURD needs releases, and doing a release should be as simple as submitting a changelog and release notes and tagging the code, ideally done with only one simple command. A framework for creating HURD releases could give the HURD far more visibility and thus make it more interesting to developers. It should include automatic publishing of the press release to selected weblogs and newssites, as well as preparing and uploading the release to visible servers and creating images of the HURD to be used in free virtualization software and livecds ( an example livecd: http://people.debian.org/~neal/hurd-live-cd/ ), so people can test the features at once. Also it should update a status page with the current release (with date), state and features of the HURD. It could automatically update packages for different distributions, too. The press releases should also by default include pointers to all necessary information to dive into using the HURD, as well as to begin coding at once. And naturally the framework should be easily adaptable to changes inside the HURD project and, if possible, to other projects as well. -> http://www.bddebian.com/~wiki/community/gsoc/project_ideas/ I like the ideas about the HURD, and I want to be able to switch to a HURD system soon (at most a few years), so the progress and state of the HURD must be visible. One example: I see many changes in the commit list. Why don't I see livecds integrating the new changes appearing at once? Why are there no automatically updated images, I can just testdrive? One example illustrating the problem is this post in the gentoo forums: -> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-4960103.html#4960103 I feel that making a release is a vital process for any free project, since it focusses the attention on the users (that means: the target audience). Besides: Is there some other way to update the wiki besides the webinterface? That web interface is horribly slow for me. Best wishes, Arne PS: I fully understand your rant. PPS: I rust read your application, and I like it. For me it looks well written and gets to the point. PPPS: About the application form: Please remember that there's a 7500 char limit on the application, so students should maybe provide links to specifics at other places. El Thursday, 13 de March de 2008 09:03:30 [EMAIL PROTECTED] escribió: > Hi, > > A little status update: The participation deadline for organisations > passed yesterday. > > It's all over now -- those who didn't contribute to the organisation > application and student application form drafts (which includes YOU), > have managed to get away. > > Oh, and yes: Amazingly, I actually managed to hand in my^H^Hour > application before the deadline. What is to be done now is waiting to > see whether I^Hwe get accepted. Praying is an option. Bribing google > employees is another one. > > I must say that I was totally overwhelmed by the amount of help I got > from our "community" with creating the drafts. I'm rather used to > getting quite little response on such things; but this exceeded all my > expectations. The total amount of improvements, suggestions, comments > contributed by others amounts to an increadibly round number -- the most > round number of all: Zero. > > Nobody contributed as much as a single remark. Not one. > > But wait, I'm too hasty with my praise! After all, there is also the > project ideas list ( > http://www.bddebian.com/~wiki/community/gsoc/project_ideas/ ), which is > still open. Plenty of chance still for everyone to not help. > > Though it's a sad sad business, as the previous zero score is not > achievable anymore -- someone already contributed a bit to the project > list. Guess who? Last year's SoC student. (Thanks Fredrik!) > > Do you think I'm bitter? No, not much. Not after having had a tolerably > good sleep. A tolerably good sleep can make up for a considerable amount > of disappointment, believe me. > > Now enough of that. Let's move on to something more satisfying. Like, > say, staring out of the window. > > -antrik- -- Unpolitisch sein Heißt politisch sein Ohne es zu merken. - Arne Babenhauserheide ( http://draketo.de ) -- Weblog: http://blog.draketo.de -- Mein öffentlicher Schlüssel (PGP/GnuPG): http://draketo.de/inhalt/ich/pubkey.txt
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