Gordbert, the evil HR director [was: Hurd PPP]

[Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@trick.fig.org>]

>>>>> Brent Fulgham writes:

 BF> After reviewing the debian-hurd, bug-hurd, and help-hurd mailing
 BF> lists, I see that there has been very little talk about PPP and
 BF> what we need to do to implement it.

More accurately, there's been lots and lots of talk, but nobody who
both has PPP as one of their priorities and knows Hurd architecture
well enough to implement it.

 BF> I think we need to make PPP a real priority, especially if we
 BF> mean for this hurd port to be a viable distribution.  [...]

 BF> I am attaching some stuff from the various hurd lists about ppp,
 BF> and invite comments about how to proceed in implementing PPP.

1) Learn Mach.
2) Understand the existing pfinet server.
3) Plan a way to implement PPP, and talk about it on
   bug-hurd@gnu.org, where your design will be critiqued.
4) Do it.

So, what is everybody doing, then?

>From the FSF (and ex-FSF) gang:

Thomas and Roland are working on deeper, tougher bugfixes that need to
be done in order to have a reasonably stable system.  I don't know
what Jose is up to, but I think he's busy at another job.  Miles is no
longer an active hacker.  devnull is working hard as GNU's sysadmin,
and in spare time is implementing a memory-based filesystem to help
himself learn more about the Hurd.  I'm building grub, glibc, gnumach,
hurd, and e2fsprogs packages for Debian GNU/Hurd (over and over again
until they look stable).

>From the vast volunteer pool:

OKUJI Yoshinori is making major improvements to gnumach.  Mark
Kettenis is implementing pthreads for the Hurd.  Marcus Brinkmann is
coordinating the first big release of Debian GNU/Hurd (compiling
hordes of .debs).  UCHIYAMA Yasushi has been porting real applications
to the Hurd (such as XFree86 and Mozilla).  Stephen L. Favor is
working on documentation and web pages.  M.C. Vernon is attempting to
finish Jose's rpctrace.  I'm not sure what Santiago Vila is up to: I
think he's occupied with the Debian slink freeze.

That accounts for 13 hackers, 9.5 of whom are actively working on the
Hurd, and 3.5 of whom are probably too busy with other things to even
think about the Hurd.  I don't know of any other people who are
actually doing work.  If you're out there, please tell me!

So, Brent, you're free to tell us that getting PPP working is a
priority, and I agree with you, but we simply don't have people who
can work on it right now.  The only solution is to wait until some of
the active hackers clear things off their plate, or else (better),
find somebody who wants to get involved, point them in my direction,
and let me figure out how they can help.

If you're lucky, that person will be a talented hacker that just needs
a little guidance to be able to do PPP.  Even if they're not a hacker,
they can take on tasks to help free up the rest of us to do cooler
things (like work on PPP).

And that the end of this important message from Gordbert, who has now
permanently and irrevocably identified himself as a management-type.
``Bah!  My disguise is ruined!  Curse Brent and his PPP!'' ;)

-- 
 Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@fig.org> //\ I'm a FIG (http://www.fig.org/)
    Lovers of freedom, unite!     \// I use GNU (http://www.gnu.org/)
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