cc:386bsd-announce@agate.berkeley.edu cc:unofficial bugs list cc:unofficial FAQ cc:unofficial patches Current list of FAQ to me (jmonroy@netcom.com) As some of may know I am attempting to round up the code writers/beta testers/interested parties in the FDC & QIC-40/80 project. At the present I have received a response of about one dozen people, 1/3 interested directly in code writing. All have asked me a series of questions that I beleive would be best answered in this way. Who will help? -------------- While the reponse has been very good I will still attempt to apply for more help. Not only will I try to engage those of the 386bsd community, but also those of other PC unix-like-OSs, such as linux, minix, mach386, and even the commercial implementations, like coherent & SCO. This idea, as I see it, is overly ambitious and sentenced to doom. Then why attempt it? There are other groups similar to ours attempting similar projects and I am a great beleiver in not "reinventing the wheel". In the past, I have thrust my head, more that one, in the direction of a bearing wall and with only this in mind, I would consider it a great favor to have more critics than villeins(1). (1) villein - a feudal serf. serf - an oppressed laborer. How will the group be organized? -------------------------------- I have a few ideas, the are more rules of tradition, than original thoughts. To this I am open to all suggestions. Unfortunately, at the present I am the prosecuter, judge and jury of your thoughts, which will not sit well with some and even less with me, but in order to give direction and a new starting point to this project I will do this, for a very short time. Concurrent to this I will solicit all involved for IDEAS on organication & IDEAS on development. Dispenseful of all other preconceptions you are all free to suggest anything, I really don't care how radical (to the left or right politically) it is. What are the immediate priorities of the project? ------------------------------------------------- Make the FDC bullet-proof. Get the QIC-40/80 into betas. What other things are in the "pipeline" (not streams :^) ) ? ------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Get a bug/FAQ/patch list coordinated and past around to the unofficial bug/FAQ/patch groups. 2. Get the "mtools" working. 3. investigate auto-format detection including MS-DOS, MAC, SPARC, AMIGA...etc. 4. investigate auto-detection of chip sets for the FDC. 5. investigate a possible format for the 386bsd. 6. investigate the backward-compatibility issue (dd/cpio/tar..etc) 7. investigate the using/hiding the floptical as a floppy drive 8. investigate cross-compatible related devices 9. investigate the QIC-385, predecessor to the QIC-40/80 " the QIC-100, for cross-compatibility 10. jump start other device driver groups video-consol/hard drive & controllers/communication/etc. Do we have any help from the commercial sectors? ------------------------------------------------ Some help is coming. Most of these people will not be identified. They have real jobs in thes fields and it encompasses most of their time. The other reason is that some work for organizations of a "paranoid nature"(2). (2) By "paranoid nature", I mean these are usually companies which beleive "open systems technologies" is a good marketing buzz word, not a way of doing business. Do you have more questions? --------------------------- See my messages to code writers/beta testers/interested parties in comp.os.386bsd.development .