Announcing Embedded SIG

[Hans de Goede]

Trond Danielsen wrote:
> 2007/3/14, Hans de Goede <j.w.r.degoede at hhs.nl>:
>> Trond Danielsen wrote:
>> > Hi everyone,
>> >
>> > I just created a new SIG: Fedora Embedded systems special interest 
>> group.
>> >
>> > I have been a Fedora user for several years, and the one thing that I
>> > have been missing the most is tools for embedded software development.
>> > Many popular microcontrollers and DPS's such as Atmel AVR and AVR32,
>> > PIC, 8051 and Analog Devices Blackfin are supported by open source
>> > tools, but these have until now been missing from the Fedora
>> > repositories.
>> >
>> > What I want is to see as many of these tools availble in Fedora. Some
>> > packages have already been included, and other have been submitted for
>> > review. A list of submitted packages is available here:
>> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/TrondDanielsen.
>> >
>> > Support for embedded systems development depend on the guidelines for
>> > cross-compilers, and a preliminary for these guidelines is availbe
>> > from this page:
>> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/SIGs/CrossCompiling
>> >
>>
>> I must say I'm a bit disappointed to not see my (well received) 
>> proposal for
>> cross-gcc guidelines on this page, but instead a link to an old, stale
>> incomplete, never publicly discussed guideline attempt under the 
>> Packaging
>> hierarchy, to me sig specific guidelines belong under the SIG 
>> hierarchy where
>> they can be freely edited and not under the closeddown Packaging 
>> hierachy,
>> worse in this case the guideline proposal pointed to has not seen any 
>> attention
>> for over a year and was never publicly discussed.
> 
> I am sorry for not having updated the guidelines yet. I have been busy
> lately, but it's getting closer to the top of my TODO list. Due to
> this feedback I will push it further up, and have it ready by tonight.
> 

Good!

> The finished guidelines should indeed be under the corresponding SIG,
> but I was (mistakenly) under the impression that since they were not
> completed yet, the correct location was in the Draft section. Please
> correct me if I am wrong; remember I am a n00b when it comes to how
> many of these things are organized.
> 

There are no hard rules for this, so far (unoffically) there are 2 sorts of 
guidelines:
-official guidelines, which only can be created by the Fedora Packaging
  Committee (FPC) and by FESco, since neither has much (specific) interest in
  embedded stuff, the chances of getting any thing official out of them soon is
  small
-unofficial guidelines, created by SIG's I know that atleast the Games SIG does
  this. These have no status other then that they are practices adviced by the
  SIG (and if you want intra SIG reviews, people usually ask you to follow
  them).

I think atleast for now, that since these are very specific (iow non general) 
guidelines they are best off being unofficial SIG guidelines, this also has the 
advantage that we can easily modify / improve them, whereas the FPC way is 
significantly slower.

>> > If you think this sounds interesting, and want to help out, check out
>> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/SIGs/Embedded
>> >
>>
>> This sounds like something which can better be done under the Cross 
>> sig, when
>> you have cross tools you naturally want support for programmers, remote
>> debuggers simulators etc.
> 
> Ok, I agree, there is no need to separate these two. However, I think
> Embedded System Development is a more describing name that Cross
> Compiling. As you said, you usually want programmers, debuggers etc.,
> but Cross Compiling does not explicitly indicate that. Before this
> turn into a marketing/branding/flamewar, I'll just say that as long as
> the support for such tools improve, I am happy, whatever the umbrella
> is :).
> 

I'm happy with whatever name you choose, so choose a name and lets be done with 
this.

Regards,

Hans