I have a general quesiton about encouraging participation in
Kernel development. First the background: I have been using
Linux for many years, and have been working on a device
driver, that will eventually be released to the public
domain. When I found a bug that I felt needed to be fixed,
I invested the time to produce a test case that demonstrated
the bug, created a fix, and a patch to install that fix, and
posted it to the kernel mailing list.
Here is the problem: I only got two replies, both of which
ignored the problem and instead berated me for something
completely irrelevant, without addressing the issue.
The point: Do you want the kernel development to be a friendly
environment that encourages people to participate by running
beta code and providing bug reports and fixes? My experience
thus far has been to the contrary.
Suggestions: If the goal is a developer friendly environment,
something needs to change. I don't know exactly what, but I
have a couple of ideas that I will throw out for debate: I
think there needs to be an easy way to find a person responsible
for any particular part of the kernel, that one can rely on for
information about that part. When someone posts patches, or a
bug report, the person should be responded to on the merits of
the information given.
My frustration has come from not having any idea who should be
looking at the patches I provided. I got a couple of replies,
but are they authoritative or not? I have spent far more time
so far trying to get a fix implemented than in finding that fix,
and it has been an extremely frustrating experience. I don't
think that it has been one that encourages participation.
S. Baker
bakers@erols.com
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jun 07 2000 - 21:00:21 EST