[Etherboot-users] Development directions

[Marty C. <md...@et...>]

Holiday Greetings to everyone!

As it looks like I will finally have more time to actively work on  
Etherboot again, I thought I'd write down some thoughts, and invite  
conversation.  All ideas are welcome, so feel free to speak up.

One of the most satisfying things about programming (or really any  
collaborative activity) is talking to people who are interested in  
it.  I've been programming for over 30 years now, and it is still fun.

So, I've been thinking quite a lot of late about what we can do to  
make Etherboot better.
It's a hard question, because it immediately brings to mind the  
questions:

     better for who?
     better in what ways?

For me, making Etherboot useful to people is important.  Most of the  
things I've added to Etherboot have been because I felt they would  
allow it to be useful to more people.

At this point, however, I'm taking a hard look at Etherboot, and  
thinking that I'd like to strip out some of the things that have been  
added over the years.  Just as Mozilla spawned Firefox and  
Thunderbird, I'd like to create GPXE from Etherboot.

Basically, what I have in mind is to create a new module called gpxe,  
and take Etherboot 5.4, and using it as a base, strip out things that  
don't work, or aren't supported, or that no longer make sense for a  
PXE-centric bootloader.

5.4 will continue to be actively maintained, of course, and there  
have been some really nice contributions lately.  One reason to  
create another module is because it's really hard to change Etherboot  
without disrupting people who depend on one feature or another.

Speaking of development, Michael Brown is going to be continuing work  
on 5.5 in the not-too-distant future, which has a lot of nice  
improvements and simplifications, and now seems like a good time to  
work on gpxe.  Having Michael actively back in the development mix  
will be great, as he knows the internals of Etherboot better than  
anyone at present.

I'd also like to find out who else is interested in actively  
programming on Etherboot / GPXE.  Most of our programming is done by  
a few people, and that's probably always going to be the case, just  
because it's a rather specialized kind of work.  But I also think  
that there might be some people who would like to learn, and if there  
are, please let me know, or just join in the discussion.  Programming  
bare-metal and close to the machine can be a lot of fun, and is very  
educational.  I hope if you have an interest, you'll join this  
conversation.

Another thing that comes to mind is whether the separation between  
Etherboot-Developers and Etherboot-Users still makes sense.  Given  
rom-o-matic.net, I wonder if we should just have Etherboot-Discuss  
for people interested in keeping up with the project, and Etherboot- 
Announce for people who just want to know about new releases.   
Etherboot-Developers has over 100 people on it, but only a handful  
actively developing.

So that's what's on my mind.  What's on yours?

Let's get some conversation going, and see where it leads.

Warmest Greetings of the Season to all,

Marty

-- 
     Try: http://rom-o-matic.net/ to make Etherboot images instantly.

    Name: Marty Connor
US Mail: Entity Cyber, Inc.; P.O. Box 391827;
          Cambridge, MA 02139; USA
   Voice: (617) 491-6935; Fax: (617) 491-7046
   Email: md...@et...
     Web: http://www.etherboot.org/