Confusion with new platforms and packages

[Justin M. Forbes]

On Thu, Apr 15, 2004 at 07:57:55AM +1000, Nathan Robertson wrote:
> 
> 1. Existing packages, like the kernel needing a .config file that 
> produces a kernel that boots, and does something useful.
> 
For these, there is already a maintainer, and the packages should have
already gone through licensing review, etc. Provided the patches are sane,
there is no reason these should be declined unless they do not DTRT.  IE
bandaid patches are not necessarily preferred.  Fix the root of the issue
if you can.

> 2. Adding packages that make the system more useful, and are essentially 
> equivalents for powerpc of packages that FC ships on x86. One example is 
> hfsutils (needed to write a NewWorld boot partition, bugs #117512, #120811).
> 
These now require a maintainer, packaging review, licensing review, etc.  I
would not expect this to happen overnight, and you really do need to
present a valid need for a package addition.

> 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.  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.  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.  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.

Justin M. Forbes
Fedora Developer, "previously unsupported platforms"