[Openvds-devel] So what's happening?

[Simon Burns]

There has been some general discussion about what we'd like to see in
VSD's future, but so far an apparent lack of anything happening. How do
you guys feel about setting some goals and taking on some responsibility?

In response to an earlier discussion, I'm looking at setting up a wiki web
to allow collaborative development of the documentation, based I guess on
the existing documents. We can each augment these with specific "hints and
tips" based on our own experiences. When I know more about the wiki
software I'll get back to you :) Alternatively, does savannah have
facilities to make something like this feasible?

There have been a couple of interesting articles posted on slashdot
recently, which I link below. One is the opinions of Linus and Alan Cox on
software development and design:

http://kerneltrap.org/article.php?sid=398

"Engineering does not require science. Science helps a lot but people
built perfectly good brick walls long before they knew why cement works."

The other is an interview with Joel Spolsky, Microsoft programmer:

http://www.softwaremarketsolution.com/

"SMS: Joel, what, in your opinion, is the single greatest development sin
a software company can commit?

"Joel: Deciding to completely rewrite your product from scratch, on the
theory that all your code is messy and bug prone and is bloated and needs
to be completely rethought and rebuilt from ground zero."

Incidentally, if we need to I have access to a system which can store
bulky files for us: it's on a 2MB/sec line which is not bandwidth-capped
and which is not charged back in any way. It's already used for ARM Linux
development: let me know if this could usefully augment the facilities at
savannah. The system is in the UK, and I can't guarantee it will always be 
available but that probably goes for most things on the 'net :)

--
Simon Burns