Open Recall: Kernel maintenance, porting and reverse engineering

Open Recall is a space on The H for those things that are too small to package as news but are worth the linkage. Open Recall collates the interesting stories that didn't quite make the cut. This edition is all about the heavy lifting that goes on around the open source community.

• The role of a Linux kernel maintainer – Greg Kroah-Hartman has written an article summarising a discussion that developed out of a talk he gave at LinuxCon Japan, addressing how the Linux kernel maintainers work and the issues they face on a daily basis. Video of the talk is available; Kroah-Hartman has made the text of the presentation public on GitHub and encourages people to read it: "If you have ever wondered why a maintainer of an open source project could be a bit grumpy about anything you have sent them, I strongly suggest you go read the notes I wrote for that talk."
  

• Porting Apache OpenOffice to Solaris – The Apache Software Foundation has published an interview with Nicolas Christener of Adfinis SyGroup where he explains how he got into contributing to Apache OpenOffice and how his company went about porting the project to Solaris for a customer. The interview also contains links to the finished Solaris builds for SPARC and x86, and Christener explains how Linux application developers can make it easier for their applications to be ported.

• PowerVR SGX reverse engineering project – The FSF has launched a project to reverse engineer drivers for the PowerVR SGX graphics chip. The goal of the project is to create free and open source replacement drivers for the GPU, which is used in the OpenMoko GTA04 smartphone. The project is currently being moved from the GNU Project to a different host due to legal concerns.
  

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