[Fedora-ia64-list] Fedora ia64 Buglist 2006-11-13

[Prarit Bhargava]

John L. Bass wrote:
> Hmmm ... interesting. given the list name and host, and that you are using
> fedora logo's in release (which wouldn't be allowed for a 3rd party release)
> along with bug reporting to devel at redhat, I do say, it's something of
> a suprise given the fedora/redhat license.
>
>   

I have an "official" written and verbal okay from the Fedora Project to do
"unofficial" ia64 releases as long as I stress that they are unsupported.

I guess in some sense it comes down to what the word "unsupported" 
means...  We are
submitting bugs, and they are being fixed -- by myself, sometimes by
other engineers.  Does that mean the arch is "supported"?  Not really 
because
ia64 bugs are treated as second class bugs -- they won't be used as 
blocking issues
for releases, etc..

Keep in mind a year ago it seemed to me that Fedora wasn't even 
interested in ia64
bugs (read below on how this has changed).

> What's it take to get the Fedore team to officially sponsor the project?
>   

We've made a lot of progress but there are still many obstacles before
Fedora Project will officially support ia64.

The bottom line is this: I (as in _me_, Prarit) need to show enough 
community
involvement in the project and show that the community involvement can be
sustained.  IMO, we're not quite there yet.  While this list has 100+ 
members I
would say that there are at most 10 people who are actively involved in the
project and maintaining the project.

IMO, we do not yet have enough demand for ia64 -- and there's the problem
with getting HW available for Fedora Project's testing, etc.

Don't let this get you down though -- we've come A LONG WAY.  IIRC, in
February the kernel did not boot and anaconda did not work :).  There was no
FC4 release for ia64.  Now when something breaks on ia64 the build
managers know precisely who to come to for help fixing the issues (.... 
thinking
about it, that's not such a good thing :) :) :) :) )

I've also succeeded in convincing individual package maintainers that 
replying
with "Well, it's only ia64 so who cares?" is not a valid response to bugs.

We have _CDs_ and a _DVD_ to install from -- that was unheard of last year.

One of the things I've been pushing for is that the ia64 extras branch 
be publicly
exported.  That's the next big thing on my list.

In conclusion, we've made a lot of progress but we have a long way to go ...

P.