Openmoko build / R&D vs Integration

[Andy Green]

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Somebody in the thread at some point said:

| I think you are confused on:
| 	OE as a tool to build a distribution for a consumer device.
|
| 			vs.	
|
| 	OE as a tool to do development.

There are two subthreads in one here, one on each of those topics, so it
can seem confused.

1) "development": my suffering trying to get a handle on building DM2
with a library dependency with bitbake confirming  my downer on OE, and

2) "distribution": would abandoning OE for Moblin / Ubuntu Mobile, or
going in another direction still, leave us in a better place after the
dust settled.

|> WHY is what we are doing so DIFFERENT from what normal desktop distros
|> set out to provide that we need "a powerful build system, but it's quite
|> different so it can be hard to learn".
|
| The only normal distro I know is slackware? Is that your understanding of
| normal as well? ;)

The question that has turned up in front of us courtesy Intel is: do we
want to trade off some of that "different, hard to learn" against the
wide spectrum of used and unused options that "powerful" gives us?

I spoke several times about Openmoko not being able to afford to be in
the R&D game.  The only game we can play successfully is "integration",
to take chipsets and software and drivers from external vendors or
projects and figure out how to get them to work in one product.  See the
Glamo as what happens when we play R&D with even drivers.

(When I first joined I went as far with this logic as to ask why are we
making our own GUI apps at all.  The answer was it's our special sauce,
but now I see Qtopia turning up.)

Today Openmoko essentially does distro R&D: but we could take up Intel's
offer and merely integrate distro generation and maintainence from
"upstream" and plug into Moblin / Ubuntu Mobile with a connected sugar
daddy helping us along.  Naturally we would work closely with that
upstream and maintain and provide packages, etc as made sense.

Looked at this way, the offer from Intel is deeply interesting IMO and
the migration to an "integration" action we don't have to take care of
ourselves goes to balance the risk and cost of jumping horses.

I realize this level of detachment is a lot to ask, but consider that
possible future with us working with Ubuntu (Mobile) build systems in an
integrated way.  The world didn't stop turning, right?  The sun and X
will still come up.

- -Andy
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