[Automated-testing] [board-farm] Some questions (mailinglist, SD MUX and WiFI SD)

[Bird, Timothy]

Cc: people...

Sorry if you got looped into this thread without an introduction.  Here's the context:
There was a Board Farm BOF at ELCE where we discussed setting up an e-mail list to discuss
board-farm related topics.
Some people added their name to a wiki page (https://elinux.org/Board_Farm)
and now we're discussing the mailing list to use for discussing topics that
were raised in that session.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mirza Krak on  Monday, October 30, 2017 12:13 AM
>
> I collected your email from the Board Farm wiki page on elinux [1],
> since there is no mailing list (not that I know of at least).
> 
> My first question would be, who is in charge of setting up a mailing
> list? That person can consider him poked :).

A few ideas about the mail list made the rounds during the session.

Jan-Simon Möller (of the LF Automotive Grade Linux group) offered to have
the Linux Foundation create an e-mail list.

However, I believe there's an existing list which is a good fit for this and related
discussions.  It is here:
https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/automated-testing

This list was created in 2014 to discuss some harmonization of automated test
systems.  The traffic has since died down, and it's not being used for anything
at the moment.  I intended to ask someone official from the Yocto Project
if they minded if we "homesteaded" the list for board farm stuff, but didn't
get around to it at ELCE.  I'm copying Jeff Osier-Mixon and Richard Purdie on this e-mail
to give them an opportunity to object to our use of that list for this purpose,
if they want.

Here are the pros and cons:
== pros
 - it already exists
 - it's managed by someone neutral in the DUT controller and board farm market
   (or at least, I don't think that the Yocto Project has a horse in this race)
 - it's archived
 - I think board farm and board test automation fits the topic of the list well

== cons
 1) maybe YP doesn't want random people using their list
 2) maybe having it be a YP-run list would dissuade participation
from people using other build systems (e.g. buildroot)

I think that, with respect to 1, YP would likely be happy to have this
list used to help advance the state of the industry in board automation
for testing.  But they can tell us if not. With respect to 2, I don't think
buildroot devs or other build system devs would think it was a big issue.
But they can also speak up if they have an issue.
For good measure, I'm copying that list on this message as well.

So, my proposal is to request everyone on the board farm page to
subscribe to the above list.  I'll add the list to that page, and we can promote
it as the place to discuss board farm, test automation, DUT controllers,
DUT control software, DUT control standards, and related topics.
Once the list is off the ground, we can remove e-mail addresses from
the wiki page (as that is something problematic).  I would, however, like
to maintain a list of developers and projects on the wiki, as a resource.

Please respond if this is OK with you, and we can shift the discussions
to that list.  If I get more than 50% of the people on this thread agreeing,
I'll consider that consensus enough to move forward.

I think the next step after getting notice to those people from the BOF
would be to extend the circle to people known to be in this space, but
who I'm not sure were there.  For example were Anna-Maria Gleixner or
Manuel Traut at the BOF? They presented an interesting approach to DUT
control in their session at ELCE.
I think it would be good to invite as many people as possible to join the
list, before we get too deep into discussions.
 -- Tim Bird

P.S. One problem with this whole discussion is that there doesn't appear to
be any single "owner" of this space (or a good definition of exactly
what the boundaries of the "space" are).  I'm happy to step up and
initiate some discussions on the e-mail list, but I'd be happy to let
someone else lead, if they want to instead.  Believe me, I'm not trying
to build my own empire here. :-) Possible leaders, IMHO, are:
 - Andrew - since he initiated the BOF and identified some issues which IMHO
are worth collaborating on
 - Jan - who also had an ELCE presentation and maintains labgrid
 - Geert - who had a session at last year's ELCE and has shown interest in the topic
 - Kevin Hilman - the founder of KernelCI with an obvious interest in this topic
  (He and Patrick Titiano presented their "lab-in-a-box" concept at ELCE)
 - Tim - maintainer of Fuego, and ttc (DUT controller software that Sony uses and published
 as Open Source a number of years ago)

If I haven't mentioned you, please don't take it as a slight.  And if I have mentioned
you, please don't take it as a slight. ;-)