Hi, we just posted this:

http://www.power.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2352

Does anyone have any positive or negative feedback they would like to share?

If Power.org could be different, what would you like to see it be (here or there)?

R&B :)

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

Right now 'power.org' means a nice T-shirt for me :-)

In theory power.org should be a melting pot for Power sw/hw developers and users. In practice after some initial struggle, power.org is now in deep sleep mode, and all is happening over here, even for non Genesi hw.

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

Aww I never got my t-shirt!! :(
Indeed. One thing Power.org has to get going is reference designs, cheap development hardware and MOST importantly, developer support - in the form of conferences and developer meetings.

All of this is something you might get if you are a Power.org member, but it is nothing that you didn't get from being a Freescale partner or an IBM partner or licensing the technology in the first place.

Non-members (i.e. individuals and small businesses working with Power Architecture hardware, who may have nothing more than a forum account on Power.org) do not benefit at all from the organization as it stands. There is also some "fear" (which may be better described as "apathy") that Power.org will do absolutely nothing for these "developer members" either.

Should architecture support really cost upwards of $10,000 a year?

You can get 3 Apple Premier Developer packs for that, and you get a free WWDC ticket for the price, hardware discounts, and access to the compatibility labs.

What do you get with a Power.org Participant membership? Committee participation rights..

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Matt Sealey

+1

Power.org replaced the #1 AltiVec central point on the Internet (simdtech.org), with a mostly empty forum and some irrelevant blogs. If this is question about an actual change that might take place (and we're not talking hypothetically), then Power.org *should* convince/force all/most of IBM/Freescale/whoever developers/execs/CPU designers/etc to take part in it, discuss with the users, companies and interesting parties (that is us) and hear our voices with regard to the future of our favourite architecture. If they can't do this, then it's just another forum, and I hardly think we need another one. On top of that, if Power.org are really serious, I'd even suggest using a schema like freevec.org uses, which is more technical, but it's more than a forum, it allows Google Charts, LaTeX input, code highlighting, etc. But sth like that would only matter IF there are people sharing their knowledge. freevec.org is ok, but it only has one contributor.

Another idea, they might actually take a more active part in promoting the architecture. Those code contests they did were cool, but they should take place more often, and more organized, sth like GSOC does but for the PowerPC architecture (or Cell). There'are plenty of projects still waiting to be optimised for the Power architecture, be it using AltiVec or Cell or even plain ppc asm. They could even sponsor favourite ones. Want ideas? Ok, here are a few:

1. Sponsor the port of Shockwave Flash to the ppc architecture.
2. Nag Nvidia to port Cg to ppc and release binary drivers for ppc (after all nouveau is a long way till mainstream use). Cg in particular would mean we could use ppc for 3D development. That is not as crazy as it sounds, after all ppc IS used in ALL 3 main game consoles right now. (THIS is a crazy idea: How about producing an OPEN console using a 8610 and some fast nvidia/ati chip, using the open development model and providing a platform for user games, subscription-based games?)
3. Sponsor/further the development of LLVM to ppc32 and ppc64.
4. Sponsor more AltiVec optimisations.

Everything suggests a little more involvement than just a website presence. If they're serious then they have to see this seriously as well.