The State of Alpha Linux

[Maciej W. Rozycki]

On Fri, 9 Jan 2009, Oliver Falk wrote:

> > If you think there's a chance you might be able to take over the job,
> > I encourage you to mail libc-ports, as I don't know the answers
> > myself.
> 
> As I said, since I don't know what skills one must have, I'm not sure if I
> might be able to take over the job. But I'm willing to try, of course.

 Just mail your patches to libc-ports.  Make sure they have been 
regression-tested with the testsuite; in fact it's a good idea to actually 
start with fixing failures in the test suite -- I am sure there are some. 
;)  You may want to run the test suite with a different platform first for 
a reference so as not to struggle with some generic problem by chance.

 Be insistent and ping about patches several times if there is no response 
as you can imagine people there are most interested in other platforms 
which get more attention these days, such as MIPS or ARM, and any review 
would be using their free time.  If your patches are good enough, then 
after a while you'll probably be granted write privilege to the ports 
repository.  Then you can ask people there if you could step in as a 
platform maintainer.  Do not forget to get the FSF copyright assignment 
sorted out -- you'll be requested to do so with the first substantial 
patch, but it can take weeks, so if you are serious about contributing, it 
may make sense to do that straight away.

 I still have some interest in the Alpha too, but I will have to make the 
kernel run first (DEC 3000) and I have planned to do so for years now, so 
don't hold your breath.  Regrettably it's not my top priority.

  Maciej