[os-infrastructure] State of the onion

[Joe Abbate]

Michael E. Touloumtzis wrote:
> The "just push this button" wrapper script to automatically build, 
> test, etc. is something that I abhor. Yes, it is an efficiency when 
> the process has been fully ironed out for a platform, for things like 
> repetitive nightly builds. But it obscures what is going on and 
> frustrates research to solve problems. The current build process is 
> well engineered and can easily be explained to anyone who understands 
> config and make concepts. We don't need to use config and make, IMHO. 
> If folks can't extrapolate from their skill base to slightly different 
> tools, then they need to seek work in another field. Our less than 
> open source management (as things stand), our fragmented discussion 
> forums, our broken builds for major platforms, and our instinct to 
> talk to ourselves and not to talk openly to the world at large 
> (customers and community) are big problems; the Jam tool is not a big 
> problem.

Although Jam is not a big problem, it has a very limited user base and 
is essentially unsupported.  On VMS, we have at least two major issues 
with Jam.  For one of them, Graham Steele made some changes to the Jam 
source, but AFAIK there's no maintainer to give the change so we don't 
have to keep track of our change.  On Windows, we are relying on a 
forked version.

Jam also only provides "make" capabilities.  Until very recently, Ingres 
was always built in controlled, porting environments where a porting 
engineer knew what was needed or ensured that the build machine had it.  
There is some configuration built into the Jam build, but nothing like 
what a ./configure typically provides.

Joe