Subject: RE: [alpine-devel] Alpine Linux on RISC-V

From: "Drew DeVault" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2019 21:43:56 -0500

Hi Simon!

On Tue Dec 31, 2019 at 2:22 AM,  wrote:
> Nice meeting you. Hope you having a great Xmas and wonderful starting of
> the New Year. : )

Likewise to you!

> I am Simon. I am in charge of SW ecosystem/partnership strategy and SW
> product planning. It's really great and we are looking forward joining
> and contributing to Alpine Linux.
>
> Usually we will build the partnership, with NDA and JPA (Joint Promotion
> Agreement signed, then share some resources included borrowing a dev
> board. I know some open source organizations doesn’t have similar flow
> and may not signed any kind of agreement, since the purpose is open (not
> closure) and it's always great and free to promote as much as possible.
> I just want to double check if we need these two agreements.

I should clarify that I don't officially speak for Alpine Linux - I'm
just a frequent contributor. There are those who do officially speak for
Alpine on this list (our emails are public, in case you were unaware).
Alpine Linux is an open, collaborative project which sees significant
outside contributions from volunteers and various interested parties.

I'm involved in this discussion because I put in much of the work for
the Alpine Linux and musl libc ports to RISC-V, based on a HiFive
Unleashed board, and would likely be the maintainer of the port if it
were merged upstream. Based on the HiFive board, this work is currently
stalled while we find some software+hardware combination that offers a
better boot story, which is what I was discussing with your colleague.

I would be happy to use your hardware to continue these porting efforts
towards supporting your board and rv32, but I work with Alpine as a
volunteer and not in any official capacity. I cannot sign an NDA or JPA
on their behalf, and would decline to sign them for my own part as well.
You should also be aware that for a port to be a candidate for upstream
Alpine Linux support, permanent hardware for the port's maintenance and
testing is required.

> We would like to sent you a board for borrowing. Please help to prepare
> the following info:
>
> - name
> - email
> - phone
> - address
> - company/organization name

To reiterate, this conversation is taking place on a public mailing
list. If you wish to provide any Alpine developer(s) with development
resources you should reach out directly to them to obtain any necessary
personal information.