[3049] in Release_7.7_team
Athena Release Team Monthly Status Report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Fri Nov 16 17:03:51 2001
Message-ID: <AvxMj29z0001Nf36ht@mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 21:57:22 +0000 ()
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: release-team@MIT.EDU, owls@MIT.EDU, delivery-council@MIT.EDU
Team Name: Athena UNIX Platform Development
Team Leader: Bill Cattey
Report Date: 31 October 2001
Submitted by: Bill Cattey
Team URL: http://web.mit.edu/teamhtml/Athena/
Release URL: http://web.mit.edu/release/www/
Accomplishments past period:
From goals:
* Get a presentation on one of the chosen EC3 topics. (DONE)
* Check in on Mozilla developments (Netscape-6 tech-watch) (PROGRESS)
* Check in on Star Office 6 Beta developments (Star Office
tech-watch) (PROGRESS: Downloaded Beta. Tried it out. Found
show-stopper in multi-user install.)
* Demonstrate tangible progress on Hardware Diversity project.
(PROGRESS: Did installs on unusual systems in W89, trying out new
installer volume.)
* Test and go live with (if tests successful) the automatic Sun
partitioning code. (DELAYED: Email client survey done instead.)
* Propose a GUI Email client to Owls for consideration. (DONE)
* Have a meeting with the Usability Team to discuss GUI Zephyr
clients. (There are two pre-existing candidate systems to review.
There is also an interest in comparing UNIX GUI Zephyr clients with
win-zephyr.) (DONE)
Other Accomplishments:
* Gave a talk at IT Partners conference on tradeoffs in Athena.
* Demonstrated prototype dual-boot Linux Athena install.
* We satisfied a user request to add more window manager key
bindings for window manipulation (Alt-Esc and Alt-Space), so that a
misbehaving application which has the mouse pointer grabbed can be
closed using the keyboard.
* Helped remedy a problem with some Motif-based courseware that was
causing trouble when the application was run under the now-default
sawfish window manager.
* Deployed a patch release which:
laid the groundwork for using a more reliable Linux filesystem,
improved guards against corrupting the passwd and group files, adds a
random number device on Solaris,
improves our remote diagnostic capabilities,
allows user mounting of CD-ROMs on Linux,
contains numerous security updates for Linux, and
fixes a couple of minor bugs.
* Made substantial progress on the BIND 9 upgrade task (it's integrated
in the source tree; just needs testing and configuration work).
Goals for the coming period:
* Integrate Linux ext3 filesystem code to remedy problems with
systems being un-gracefully rebooted, as preparation for long testing
period of this code. Target public deployment for early January.
* Order more Test Cluster furniture, and a different KVM to test with.
If the new KVM comes in, test it out. If the new furniture comes in,
build it, and do further cleanup of the test cluster.
* Submit budget proposal.
* Complete the second EC3 module.
* Work on test integration of Evolution for Email client testing.
* Refine dual-boot Athena Linux custom install into production quality.
Target deployment for early January patch release.
* Hold a meeting to discuss possible workplan responses to Zephyr
usability report (and other Zephyr issues, perhaps.)
* Get a Mozilla locker created and populated with current binaries
for people to play with.
* Ongoing look at Nautilus as a canidate for 9.1,
Issues:
As Athena becomes broader than UNIX-only, we are discovering that is is
a REAL evolving process:
coming to consensus on what work to resource.
checking in with the right stakeholders for user visible changes.
having the correct people sign off on decisions.
Key learnings:
Team dynamics:
Additional comments:
I sincerely hope that next year's budgeting process is less painful.
Everyone worked together, and we learned a lot, but it was STILL
a lot of work.
