[Server-devel] The road towards xs-0.3 - update

[Martin Langhoff]

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 9:49 AM, Martin Langhoff
<martin.langhoff at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am just settling down in my temporary "office" in Buenos Aires.

Things have moved forward quite a bit in the meantime, but alas we
haven't seen a 0.3 release. There's been some delays and distractions
- setting up shop in BA, and then in NZ, plus a nasty but lucky car
crash. But things are moving forward apace.

Here's a brief summary of our status

 - Wad has fixed some kernel driver issues, and I've fixed some
install bugs. A new build is available (163) but it's not quite yet a
formal release. Still, it's the recommended build at the moment.

 - XO-to-XS backup is at the top of my priorities list - displacing
installation/configuration issues a bit, and it is taking a bit longer
than expected. The XO side of it is quite new to me, and - in working
with the deployment teams - it becomes clear that the high cost of
dealing with bugs in released/deployed versions makes it worthwhile
being careful when working on infrastructural stuff. The XS software
has few testers, so "release early, release often" won't be enough to
uncover issues -- attention to detail is important.

 - Working on issues with the XS build/installation process itself is
extremely time-consuming.

 - I want to define an ID mgmt scheme to identify users to webapps on
the XO asap. This is the one main issue stalling webapp
development/customisation for the XS.

In spite of the delays - the roadmap still stands. My plan now is to
get backup sorted in the next couple of days. After that I'll be
travelling a bit to speak about OLPC and to work with a couple of
deployment teams. And then I'll get a few weeks at 1CC, which will be
a great opportunity to work on networking issues and authentication,
both things that interop with other parts of the stack.

Things are more organic & complex that I initially expected - but more
fun too. Stay tuned...

cheers,



m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff