Hi Dennis,
On 31 March 2012 19:52, Dennis Gilmore dennis@gilmore.net.au wrote:
Linaro Connect and other events are probably the worst place for such decisions and discussions to be made. though maybe there is not a good place. the wider community needs to be engaged for greatest acceptance. otherwise then if falls into the vacuum of those attending the events. Like I said its not that it could never happen just that its not been discussed at all. so requesting that distros adopt it is a bit harsh and unrealistic.
At Linaro conference the need for changing linker path was agreed on, as well as the need to get a wide community agreement on it. To do the latter, an ARM minisummit was organized on at Plumbers 2011 [1]. Invites to wide range communities and distributions were sent, and for most someone attended. For the people not able to join physically, a call-in line was organized (I was on the call for example). With the expectation that people who attended in face or on call would convey the message back to their own communities. This didn't seemingly happen for everyone it seems.
Wide community engagement is a specter, something that escapes no matter how hard you try to reach it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try harder. For a starter, what community channels do you follow? If fedora wanted to change the linker path and you wanted to ensure all other distros remain compatible, which avenues would you reach for?
[1] http://www.linuxplumbersconf.org/2011/ocw/sessions/783
This needs to be a two way street. From my perspective there are many things that need to be fixed to making supporting arm by distros scale better, they are problems that need to be fixed at higher levels than the distros. I will work to find where to engage people to get them worked on.
That is why this linaro cross-distro mailing list was created. Unfortunately it hasn't generated lots of involvment yet (apart from the . Of course not everyone is aware of it, and there is a limit on how much can advertise before we are blamed as spammers. But also most distros appear to prefer to work within them self instead of in a wider community.
Riku