Will you use the "new" Sharp devnet?

[zenyatta]

I think you guys are being a little harsh on Sharp. I mean what they did was lame in the extreme but there is a chance they\'ve gotten their act together and it\'s worth giving them a shot. My attitude is \"if they care then I do\" and I\'ll have to see what they come up with. I have one acid test though: whether or not they will have someone actually interacting with us. If not, they can forget it.

And yet, there is one possible use for Devnet even if they don\'t let their people talk: we could use the forums to offload development-related traffic from this site and keep offroadgeek\'s broadband bill in check. For that to work, however, we would have to find a way to make daily incremental backups of Devnet postings (independently from Sharp) so that we can replicate in case anything ever happens again. Any volunteers? :grin: Thought so...

When I registered with Devnet my ZUG usage pattern involved reading *all* new posts. I felt overwhelmed on Devnet so I stopped going there. As it went down, traffic on ZUG became overwhelming as well and I had to learn to be selective. So maybe I could now enjoy Devnet as well. We\'ll just have to wait & see.

z.

[ScottYelich]

we also had info on irc.freenode.net #zaurus -- pretty quickly... and a work around -- and a note to the effect was put
in channel topics (#cacko?) and on sites like zaurus.spy.org

Scott

[bluedevils]

I don\'t feel we are being too harsh.  Sharp has not shown loyalty to its 5500 customers and development environment.  They would have to earn that trust with action and persistence.

[n8a]

\"if they care then I do\" and I\'ll have to see what they come up with. I have one acid test though: whether or not they will have someone actually interacting with us. If not, they can forget it.  

 
The only problem with this is that you don\'t know that they will continue to care tomorrow!  They seemed to really care about the community, they had Spencer working with the community, and suddenly they decided to go another route - namely, all that WE had contributed to their site would suddenly be removed with no warning.  I could see them pulling a jeckyl/hyde again VERY easily.

[zenyatta]

I understand they are very hard to trust, in fact I wouldn\'t trust them at all. Their goals are ultimately different from ours - they\'re a for-profit corporation. There\'s nothing wrong with that per se but it limits (or even eliminates) the amount of trust we can safely place in them (unless we establish written contracts and pay them - which is another story).

Instead, I\'m wondering how we can use them without trusting them. In other words, it would be nice if we could take advantage of their resources while minimizing our dependence on them. It may sound cynical but it\'s still less cynical than what they did...

z.

[DrWowe]

It\'s not exclusive, developing trust is a GREAT business strategy because it keeps your customers coming back, recommending to their boss and colleagues and clients, increasing 3rd party support, and building a base.  All successful platform companies bend over backwards for their developers.  Sharp does the opposite.

[rbourne3]

I actually didn\'t know ZUG was down until I got the e-mail. I visit 15/20 sites regularly and have all of them in my hosts file. Saves time on DNS lookups which can be slow at times.

[mussi]

The main problem with Sharp is they lost credibility, and they\'d need to regain it. They could do it (given they want) in three areas:

1. SD/MMC driver. Opensource it. This way, we have about all the HW specs and could write new kernels for Sharp. They\'d be faster. Possible problems with this idea include that some stuff inside this SD driver is patented by the company that created the SD/MMS interface (Intel?).
2. Hire Zecke, Mickeyl and a few developers on a contingency basis and have them develop more software. We could then start porting a few useful things like Kontact or Ximian Evolution for the Z.
3. Sponsor this website (sounds illogical? How much does it cost to hire two full-time webmasters instead of giving away 2k US-$ per months to ORG for bandwidth and hosting? Simple math....)

[tumnus]

1. SD/MMC driver. Opensource it. This way, we have about all the HW specs and could write new kernels for Sharp. They\'d be faster. Possible problems with this idea include that some stuff inside this SD driver is patented by the company that created the SD/MMS interface (Intel?).

It\'s the SD Card Association that holds the licence to the SD card specs. You have to sign a NDA and pay a hefty fee to get the information and licence. Intel are only general members and are not even executive members. Sharp are in fact Board members (highest group), which is ironic since they have such a lousy implementation of a SD driver. The point is, you are not going to get an open-source SD driver unless someone manages to reverse engineer the current driver or the hardware and any such activity could possibly attract some kind of litigation from the SD Card Association.

Anyway, Sharp aren\'t going to put much effort into any developer website if developers do not show much interest to them, so I think we should give them a cautious benefit of the doubt (i.e. make use of any resources they offer to advance the Zaurus, but don\'t depend wholey on them)

[amrein]

I understand they are very hard to trust, in fact I wouldn\'t trust them at all. Their goals are ultimately different from ours - they\'re a for-profit corporation. There\'s nothing wrong with that per se but it limits (or even eliminates) the amount of trust we can safely place in them (unless we establish written contracts and pay them - which is another story).

Instead, I\'m wondering how we can use them without trusting them. In other words, it would be nice if we could take advantage of their resources while minimizing our dependence on them. It may sound cynical but it\'s still less cynical than what they did...

I agree.

Note: You are not cynical.

Offroadgeek doesn\'t have time those days to add changes to zaurususergroup.com and the site bandwidth is sometimes full. I don\'t think that we will see a working and active community.zaurus.com mirror (kind of sourceforge.net but for Linux PDA) on zaurususergroup.com because of bandwidth too (the present one is a snapshot but certainly wont evolve). Nor we will see the FAQ becoming Wiki with a left menu build from Wiki page content (again bandwidth)...

So yes, from a developper point of view it could be great to see community.zaurus.com back online (and doc.zaurus.com too). Only problem: we don\'t know if Sharp site will disapear someday without notice.

Note: before Sharp Zaurus forum close, I read a lot of post asking us to use zaurususergroup.com. Did a few people knew what would happen to Sharp forum/doc/devnet?

[offroadgeek]

Offroadgeek doesn\'t have time those days to add changes to zaurususergroup.com and the site bandwidth is sometimes full.

I don\'t have the time to do it alone, which is why I\'ve enlisted a few web developers to help out.  Do to time constraints from all three of us (not just me), we won\'t be starting the effort until probably mid to late June.

I simply don\'t understand the comment about the \"bandwidth is sometimes full\".  We currently have unlimited bandwidth, we get what we use.  The site hasn\'t slowed down a bit.

I don\'t think that we will see a working and active community.zaurus.com mirror (kind of sourceforge.net but for Linux PDA) on zaurususergroup.com because of bandwidth too (the present one is a snapshot but certainly wont evolve).

It\'s funny, you keep quoting bandwidth limitations, but it\'s simply not the case.  It\'s true, this kind of functionality will increase the bandwidth quite a bit, but I am also looking at things to mitigate the extra bandwidth.

Nor we will see the FAQ becoming Wiki with a left menu build from Wiki page content (again bandwidth)...

Bandwidth is not even a factor here.  We have both a FAQ and a wiki... if we wanted to migrate the FAQ into the wiki, then it would just take some effort.  BTW - was this ever requested before?  I haven\'t seen it...

Note: before Sharp Zaurus forum close, I read a lot of post asking us to use zaurususergroup.com. Did a few people knew what would happen to Sharp forum/doc/devnet?

I think a few people knew that Spencer was leaving Sharp, but I don\'t think anyone knew for sure that the forums would be shutdown.  You might have seen the posts after they killed the DNS for the devnet, I remember people accessing the site directly from the IP address.

[mussi]

1. SD/MMC driver. Opensource it. This way, we have about all the HW specs and could write new kernels for Sharp. They\'d be faster. Possible problems with this idea include that some stuff inside this SD driver is patented by the company that created the SD/MMS interface (Intel?).

It\'s the SD Card Association that holds the licence to the SD card specs. You have to sign a NDA and pay a hefty fee to get the information and licence. Intel are only general members and are not even executive members. Sharp are in fact Board members (highest group), which is ironic since they have such a lousy implementation of a SD driver. The point is, you are not going to get an open-source SD driver unless someone manages to reverse engineer the current driver or the hardware and any such activity could possibly attract some kind of litigation from the SD Card Association.

Anyway, Sharp aren\'t going to put much effort into any developer website if developers do not show much interest to them, so I think we should give them a cautious benefit of the doubt (i.e. make use of any resources they offer to advance the Zaurus, but don\'t depend wholey on them)

So we have to answer basically a few questions:

1. What happens, if by some miracle, somebody reverse-engineers the whole SD interface and creates a clean-room source code for the SD slot driver and places it in the public domain? After all, once the cat is let out of the bag, what do you want to do, especially if the creator of the source code remains unknown like those who write some Windows exploit? I doubt you could ever track down that evil penguin who wrote that code and released it into the wild?

2. If we want to do so, are there any PXA250/255 disassemblers so there could be a view at the code and the recreation of a specification?

3. Do \'we\', as non-hardware vendor, positively need a license?

4. If we do actually need a license, is there way we could ask the SD card association to receive such a license without paying the fees associated therewith since we are a not-for-profit organization? Teaming up with Sharp and profiting from their license seems illusionary to me when taking a good look at their track report for developer community support.

If we give Sharp the benefit of doubt for their developer support program, then for how long? Does the OpenEmbedded community define some milestones that Sharp has to reach in order to keep up the spirits down here?

[amrein]

Offroadgeek, I was thinking that there was a bandwidth problem reading other threads and posts about the big bandwidth numbers on the main page as I see it a few time too. I appologize. I wanted people to understand that you have already done a great job and that they could also add their own contribution (Website / FAQ / HowTo / Money...)

For the site suggestion, it has been done here:

http://www.zaurususergroup.com/index.php?n...&highlight=wiki

But offroadgeek, there\'s two kind of people: those who always complain, suggest, and don\'t do anything for the community (like me) and those who do things (like you, OE/OZ, pdaXrom...). In you case, you have give us a big contribution with your web site. It has became popular, has grab the attention of all Zaurus users and teams (OE/OZ, pdaXrom, Trolltech, Sharp, Zaurus ressellers, ...) and it\'s the stronger link between all member of this community. So keep up the good work and forget my post. English is not my first language and I begin to thing that I must go back to children scool to learn it. Too many clashs.

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[cwaig]

2. If we want to do so, are there any PXA250/255 disassemblers so there could be a view at the code and the recreation of a specification?

arm-linux-objdump -d file.o
arm-linux-objdump -D file.o

[Mickeyl]

Folks, the SD thing is really not the biggest problem.

I would be a very happy man, if we would have a 2.6 kernel upstream supporting all Zaurus models with \"just\" the SD module missing. But as it is we hardly have enough people to do _any_ kernel work let alone porting and rewriting a 7 Megabyte patch.

I consider talking about the SD module \"a bit\" premature...