[Freifunk-Bonn] Fwd: [gluon] Proposal: Bounty on load bug (#1243)

[edgar.soldin at web.de]

hey Alle,

da es uns auch betrifft s.u. leite ich es einfach mal weiter. vlt. will ja jemand privat einspringen oder weiss wo es nen Topf anzuzapfen gibt.

sommerliches.. ede

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: [gluon] Proposal: Bounty on load bug (#1243)
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2018 03:34:13 +0200
From: Matthias Peter Walther <m_walt11 at uni-muenster.de>
Organization: WWU
To: gluon at luebeck.freifunk.net

Hello,

probably everybody on this list knows about issue #1243, the high load
on many devices with firmware based on v2017.1.* or LEDE in general.

Progress seems to be stuck and probably implementing new features for
Gluon is much more fun then hunting this annoying bug.

But this bug is a real blocker for the development of our Freifunknetz
here in Münsterland, North Rhine-Westphalia. For more than a year, we
couldn't roll out a stable release.

As Gluon is FOSS it is of course in everybody's hand to enhance the
software continuously and so we tried to support Neoraider by setting up
a test system. This brought some new ideas, but no real breakthrough so
far. The only other way I can think of to support without having the
direct knowledge to hack the code, is giving financial support.

So we, the Förderverein freie Infrastruktur e. V., the incorporated
association for Freifunk in Münsterland, were thinking about putting out
a bounty on this issue. But we're reluctant to do so, as we're unsure
how the main developer and maintainer community would react to such a
move. In other words, we just don't want to step into this and affront
this well working community.

In the #gluon-irc someone said, that a winner-takes-it-all approach is
probably not the best way. So I was thinking about splitting the bounty
percentaged into three parts:

 - 30% for implementing or fixing the dynamic tracing in the linux
kernel for the MIPS architecture: As far as I understood Neoraider, this
missing tool is the main obstacle to hunt this bug down.
 - 30% for actually finding the bug
 - 40% for fixing it or other obstacles that come along the way

I will propose to the members of the association to provide 250 € as a
start and maybe other Freifunk associations will follow, so that we
might raise 1.500 to 2.000 €. If more money made a difference, we could
fill out an application for support for more funds on this at the
Staatskanzlei NRW, but that shouldn't be the first step in this new
approach.

If the money could be raised, maybe someone is willing to fix the
dynamic tracing for MIPS for 450 to 600 €. Maybe that is illusionary,
maybe not. I don't know.

To attract external developers, I was thinking about putting it up on
bountysource.com. But we'd be open to alternative suggestions.

Please give your thoughts about this.

Regards,
Matthias