Re: YotH 2010 -- a Year of the Hurd 2010

[Thomas Schwinge]

Hallo!

On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:09:46 +0100, Manuel Menal <mmenal@hurdfr.org> wrote:
> On 24/01/2011 16:54, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > Here’s a first stab at integrating the changes. 
> > Feel free to comment on it :) 
> 
> > +@item The Debian Installer success from J@'er@'emie now allows creating 
> > native installation CDs which no longer rely on installing Hurd using a 
> > temporary Linux system. This replaces the releases which Philip
> > +Charles, our 72-year-old provider of Debian GNU/Hurd installation CDs,
> > +has been creating manually for nearly ten years. Right in time, Phil is
> > +getting more and more paid commitments, so he
>                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> That's not what Phil said, as far as I can see. The way I understand his
> mail is quite the contrary: he's getting more and more commitments since
> people consider he can work for free, as he's got a pension.
> 
> You might just want to skip that part and state the fact that Phil
> decided to resign.

Ack; matches my understanding, so I'll do this change tomorrow.


On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:54:32 +0100, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> 
wrote:
> Here’s a first stab at integrating the changes. 

Thanks!  Most of that appears usable ;-P to me -- I plan to do some
further changes to also address Olaf's comments (which have been helpful,
of course!), and then submit the changes tomorrow morning (Wednesday
morning, our time).

>  From Thomas Schwinge: Yeah, that's right!  The GNU Hurd is the GNU
>  project's replacement for the Unix kernel, implemented as a collection
> -of servers that run on the Mach microkernel.  Contrary to popular
> -belief, this project is not yet dead.  Of course, it's not the world's
> -most active project either, but a handful of volunteers (a small
> -handful, mostly) are still plowing their way through the terrain of a
> -steadily changing (and improving) Free Software world, striving to
> -keep this advanced research prototype system going.  They are
> -accompanied by another handful of Debian GNU/Hurd, and (new@!) Arch
> -Hurd packagers.  So, what happened in the last year?
> +of servers that run on the Mach microkernel. It has often been called
> +the Duke Nukem Forever of kernels, and if we are to believe the press
> +release, Duke Nukem Forever will be released in 2011. Does that mean
> +that we promise you a Hurd release this year? We don’t want you to wait
> +for us or trust us for a someday, and you’ve seen enough promises, so we
> +won’t make that promise. Instead we urge you to just check

That sounds a bit convoluted, but I do get your idea, and I'll try to
un-tangle the wording a bit.

> +@uref{http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd, the code} and
> +@uref{http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/running.html, run a GNU/Hurd
> +system}. Then, if you see promising stuff yourself, please help us make
> +it better for you. 2010 was a year of much progress, and here and now,
> +we can celebrate it!
> +
> +A small team of core developers, accompanied by folks from Debian
> +GNU/Hurd, and (new@!) Arch Hurd packagers brought you a nice collection
> +of improvements: 

Ack.


On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:10:19 +0100, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> 
wrote:
> On Monday 24 January 2011 09:02:40 Thomas Schwinge wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 04:04:29PM +0100, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > > But though I like the idea, I think Olaf is right with the point, that
> > > the Yoth is not positive enough.
> > 
> > But we have to be careful to not exaggerate; to not raise false hopes.
> 
> Who exactly is the target audience: who reads it? 

Nobody knows really.  :-)


> > > - GSoC 2010:
> > >     - dde linux26 (device drivers!)
> > 
> > Not yet ready.  (And this wasn't a GSoC project, even.)
> 
> Oh, i though it was GSoC… it is already in the repos, isn’t it? And can be 
> tested? 

Yes, but it involves a bunch of manual steps -- which shouldn't stop the
interested developer.

> > > - Translators (one of the main features) (procfs, tarfs, gopherfs,
> > > netio)
> > 
> > A (stable / usable / ...) procfs implementation is very nice of course,
> > but it's not interesting per se -- it's only procfs.  
> 
> It is interesting, because it uses translators. The purpose of including it 
> is 
> to show again, that translators are cool :)

OK -- these can serve as examples for other developers.


> > > I can flesh this out a bit more later, if you like it (reusing most
> > > parts of your text).
> > 
> > We need a publication-ready text by this Wednesday; so please hurry up if
> > you want to incorporate any changes.  I didn't have any time in the last
> > two weeks.
> 
> Uh, oh… getting at it… 

Originally I had a pretty tight schedule, which explains why I didn't
involve you guys in the first place.  Then, there was some delay on the
GNU side, but I didn't have time to work on it.  Next, I was informed it
was to be published the next day, so I didn't work on it anymore, and a
few days later I received message it has not yet been published, but will
be some days later, this Wednesday, tomorrow.  That's why I did this
report on my own.  For the next issue, we'll hopefully be able to work on
this in a more organized way.  (The idea of condensing the MotHs into a
yearly report is good, anyways, as is the idea of publicizing these some
more.)


On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:16:19 +0100, <olafBuddenhagen@gmx.net> wrote:
> I'm not happy with the text as it is though. Most notably, many of the
> points are way too defensive. Trying to preempt possible objections is
> never helpful; it only highlights problems. There is no need to justify
> things, unless people specifically ask about them. In a progress
> statement, we should only talk about that: progress.

Ack.  As I said above, I'll address your suggestions.

> On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 11:37:09PM +0100, Thomas Schwinge wrote:
> >     Olaf Buddenhagen is our main guy for organizing this, as well as
> >     he's spending considerable time with software design discussions,
> 
> I think we already discussed this once... "As well as" is not the right
> conjunction in this context. You could say something like "[...]; and he
> also spends [...]"

And I still think it can be used in this way (and your solution is
likewise fine).


More to come tomorrow morning, which happens to be in a few hours.


Grüße,
 Thomas

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