Support for other platforms (was: Re: [Libvir] OS X Compile Issue)

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Mon, Mar 03, 2008 at 04:02:49PM -0500, Pat Wendorf wrote:
> endian.h does exist on OS X, but under a bits directory, but byteswap.h and
> mntent.h don't exist at all on the default X-Code install.  Any ideas?

Yes ... Basic problem is that we develop extensions to libvirt and
only ever test them on a single rather narrow platform (Fedora).  We
don't even compile, let alone test them even on Debian, nevermind
FreeBSD, Solaris, Windows, Mac OS X ...

For example, I got libvirt working on Windows and Mac OS X a while
back, but it appears that this has now regressed again.

The question is what do we want to do about this?  Here are some ideas ...

(1) Do nothing.  [We are here now]

(2) Get outside groups to support the other platforms and accept
patches from them.  Perhaps support those groups with space on the
website (some website space already exists but it's out of date).

(3) Set up some automated builders to build daily versions of libvirt
on other platforms.  "Name and shame" by posting the results to this
list so hopefully people are motivated to make fixes.

(4) Tier 1 support for the other platforms.  Only accept patches which
don't break them.  (This one is a bit tricky because developers won't
have / won't want to have access to some of the platforms in
question).

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top