Re: Re (2): NetBSD documentation-hackathon from August 10th to August 14th

[Jukka Ruohonen <jruohonen%iki.fi@localhost>]

On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 02:59:36AM -0700, Scrap Happy wrote:
> The problem with this approach is that *discarding* the "concept
> piece" makes folks balk -- "You were SO CLOSE (to being finished),
> why do you now want to start over FROM SCRATCH (using NetBSD instead
> of whatever you had on that little gizmo you showed us)?"  It's
> just another step that you have to document and argue to the client
> (i.e., why that original approach "wouldn't work"; problems with
> that particular piece of hardware; licensing issues; etc.)

There are many talented engineers in the NetBSD project. If you are doing
something specific, I wonder whether hiring a developer to do the
low-level tasks would be any less cost-inefficient. But if you are doing
consumer electronics, indeed, probably not.

> The second issue is access to information.  Many of these devices
> are poorly documented and have short production lifespans.  By the
> time you pick a platform, sort out *how* to develop on it and
> actually finish the development, the platform may no longer be
> available commercially (or, may no longer be cost-effective).  So,
> you either need to shorten the development timeline or *plan* on
> repeating some part of it to port your "solution" to the successor
> platform.

If you are doing a SoC (with with say 1000K units), you have the necessary
documentation (and/or help) or you are doing it wrong. Alas, if you are
doing one unit as a hobbyist, the situation may be entirely different.

> Being able to short-circuit the "hardware discovery phase" :> goes
> a long way to shortening that timeline.  Having *real* users
> (developers, in this case) who are identifying and solving the
> issues that you will ultimately stumble across in *your* port helps
> immeasurably.

No disagreements. Note though that a SoC is not bulk-x86.

- Jukka.