Re: Confusion with new platforms and packages

[Nathan Robertson <nathanr nathanr net>]

Justin M. Forbes wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 15, 2004 at 07:57:55AM +1000, Nathan Robertson wrote:

<SNIP stuff I agree with>

> > FWIW, I believe that we're just "completing" the support for PowerPC, 
> > not adding a new platform, because it pre-existed in devel. A community 
> > driven release of a platform previously unsupported in any way by Red 
> > Hat would certainly be send a really good signal to the doubters out 
> > there that Fedora Core isn't just Red Hat, just like Mozilla wasn't just 
> > Netscape (and they had their doubters too).
>
> There is more to it than just completing support for an existing arch.
> even the PPC stuff is aimed at IBM P-Series, and not necessarily listed as
> a Fedora supported arch.

Indeed, but in this case, the two architectures are similar enough for 
me to make the above statement. I have FC/devel booting, with Gnome and 
all the apps I use running on two of my Apple powermac machines. As in, 
straight out of devel, not some largely hacked thing.

> That said, there is certainly effort underway, as
> I know the Yellowdog folks have been working with Fedora as have Paul
> Nasrat and others to make it a supported platform.  Submitting new packages
> to bugzilla as RFEs is certainly the right thing to do provided you have
> looked over the licensing, packaging, etc.  But do not expect them to be
> blindly accepted.  Red Hat has been very supportive of comminity work for
> alternative architectures, but it does tread new ground, and patience is
> required.

Indeed. Don't think that I'm beating Red Hat up here. I'm just asking 
for clarification on their policy / vision.

> Considering where we are in the release calendar, and the amount
> of pain we went through with the x86_64 release, I would not expect a
> PPC/PPC64 Mac release until FC3.

Which is what I had in mind.

> In the meantime, building working trees,
> and showing that it can be supported without a ton of effort can go a long
> way towards getting things ready for the FC3 release cycle.  I will be
> working with PPC64 myself, joining the efforts of those listed above. But
> then again, I am not a RH employee.

The thing that differentiates the Apple powerpc port from the x86-64 
port is that Red Hat are actually shipping a x86-64 product, and IMO are 
unlikely to ship a RHEL/apple-powerpc, despite it being the second 
largest Linux architecture according to http://popcon.debian.org/ (third 
actually, but #2 is "unknown").

Which is really the point of the original email - to what extent are Red 
Hat going to let the Fedora project follow the needs and wants of users 
who are willing to contribute vs. what they're shipping / going to ship 
in RHEL? My email was not a criticism, just one asking for clarification 
on Red Hat's vision for Fedora.

Nathan.