[meta-freescale] Please review the proposal of FSL Yocto layers reorg

[Eric Bénard]

Hi Matthew,

Le Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:39:49 +0000,
McClintock Matthew-B29882 <B29882 at freescale.com> a écrit :

> On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Bob Cochran <yocto at mindchasers.com> wrote:
> > Can we get a statement in the Yocto layers reorg doc on how each SDK branch
> > will be maintained between SDK releases?  As a developer working to get
> > products out the door, will I view the patched SDK branch (between releases)
> > as a bug fixed SDK or as an experimental branch for the next SDK release?
> 
> I understand the sentiment but I don't think we can guarantee anything
> here. This is all done for free after all. I understand that's not a
> great answer but there are always limited resources spread around.
> 
that may be done for free but don't you think that providing up to date
software support for its components is a good added value for a company
which makes money by selling components like Freescale ?

You have a great interest in having as much people as possible using
your components to get money from them.
You can make the life of developers easier by having master _and_
stable branches up to date (with a big warning in the ReadMe concerning
the fact peoples using the git branches get _community_ support and not
official support you may provide on your official release which can be
downloaded from your website).

So you can make happy both peoples who need stability to release their
products asap (and may benefit from the latest fixes not yet released
in the official release) and peoples who want to test the bleeding edge
software for more long term projects (and also happy users from the
community which are also contributing for free).

So in the end you give a few for free but in the end you save a lot :
- by getting free feedback from many peoples who can use you up to
  date branches (and that's on a community mailing list so you don't
  have to answer to every problems peoples may ask and can redirect
  them to their Freescale/distributor FAE), 
- by getting free fixes from bleeding edge (and stable branches) users,
- by having community peoples supporting themselves through the mailing
  lists.

You are then using and producing free software in a very positive
way and are in a win win relation with the community and your customers'
developers who can subscribe to the mailing list to joing the community.

Best regards,
Eric