> Should we have a separate list for discussion of porting NetBSD
> (more specifically, NetBSD/Mac) to the powerpc?

In a word, No.

Experience with various ports has shown that starting a mailing list
and trying to get people to work on it does _NOT_ get a port done.
Someone needs to do the majority of such a port, and then (and only
then) will a mailing list be created for it.

Mailing lists, to porters, can be incredible time sinks, and provide
no useful benefit until the mailing list members are able to
contribute code, or bug fixes, or even bug and experience reports
back the the porter(s).

Until a port gets to single-user mode, mailing list members who
aren't actively working on the port can't do a thing, and the
active workers should (hopefully!) have their own communication
methods.  But whatever that communication method is, it _shouldn't_
be a public mailing list.

I can provide examples of where public mailing lists have not helped,
and even sometimes hindered, porting efforts in the past.


On another note, any port of NetBSD to the PPC is _not_ likely to
be based significantly on the mac68k code.  Sure, some of the devices
are the same, but the CPU is completely different.  maybe
some of the devices could be lifted, but pretty much all of
/sys/arch/${ARCH}/${ARCH} would have to be written from scratch,
as would much of ${ARCH}/include.  (I say this from experience,
too -- I'm working on a port right now, that's basically the
"next generation of hardware" of an existing port.  all the same
devices, but different CPU, and _very_ little shareable non-device
code...)


People interested in working on ports of NetBSD to other architectures
should come up with a plan of how they're going to do it, then send
some mail detailing that plan to core@sun-lamp.cs.berkeley.edu; one
of the reasons we're here is to coordinate efforts, and pretty much
all of us have done or are in the process of doing ports...



chris

------------------------------------------------------------------------------