Re: bf rewrite?

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

Martin Schulze wrote:
> rumours said that the entire boot-floppies system is to be rewritten
> for woody?

That's correct.

> While I agree that the current mass floppy requirement is a major pain
> with Debian, I don't believe that this would be a proper goal.
> 
> We wanted to freeze potato last year but had no working boot-floppies
> handy.  Only very few people have worked on it.
> 
> Since then development was very slow, people dropped away, Enrique,
> Erik.  Left over are only a couple of people who contribute code.
> 
> I don't believe that "we" are able to rewrite the entire boot-floppies
> system from scratch within say three months so there is something to
> play with when something is about to be released.

Part of the reason behind the rewrite is what you've just discussed --
very few people are able to understand the current code-base and work on
it effectively. A big goal of the rewrite is to get as many new people
working on it as possible, and make the new system modular and well
documented for developers so a lot of people can contribute. I plan to
post to -devel and try to pull in as much new talent as I can.

> Thus, if a new system is to be written, develop on it in parallel with
> the current system and replace the current one as soon as possible,
> but don't abandon the current system or we will run into the same
> desaster as last year again.

Well this is something I've thought about. It's rather hard to plan for
since we don't have any projected release date at all yet. If we freeze
in 3 months you're right, the system is just not going to be all there 
(though I hope to have a rough working prototype in under a month). If
it takes another year before we release, as it did last time and the time
before, it will be ready.

If the current people who can deal with the current boot floppies want to
commit to maintaining them for woody until the replacement is deemed
ready to replace them, I'm hardly going to stand in your way. Quite to
the contrary!

-- 
see shy jo