What are you expecting us to do?

Seems that some of people started talking about issues, lots started to listen to them and whatever they said, other picked up blogposts and just wrote on them…

Fine and dandy, still I’m with tsunam and ferdy.

http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_150039.xml

We are alive and from what I could see the future isn’t that dark on the technical side.

21 thoughts on “What are you expecting us to do?”

  1. uhm, todays 2/3 gentoo news talk about issues that occurred due to “reduced man power”. So i don’t listen “some guys” but the official info…
    Well, if you think that a fail for a new release is nothing serious and there was no need to take actions months ago… plz tell us so the users can decide what they are going to do next.

    What we expect you to do? You already know…

  2. 2/3 of gentoo is a classical. I’m afraid you can’t even recall 10 names of people saying reduced manpower (check the number of devels), and I don’t recall official info about reduced man power. What’s sure is that the active devel/ packages ratio is diminishing, mostly because we have many package and those are increasing =)

    Remember that anybody can do a release ANYTIME, we provide the tools and the ingredients =) The fact that 2007.1 slept to 2008.0 because a lots of issue happened on upstream and some real life issues happened to key people isn’t a problem at all.

  3. Did you spend some time reading what you linked and what I linked? I think it’s quite well explained what is going on and you should not be so afraid. Or, if you are that afraid you may pick a bit of the items lacking in the thread I linked and try to help.

    Another alternative is trying one of the many other distributions.

    Writing comments on this blog/tsunam blog, attacking people isn’t productive at all.

  4. I think the users (well, at least I) expect a roadmap or a plan to get the administrative side of gentoo on track. Many see the end of the foundation as a symptom of bigger problems as other administrative aspects of gentoo are not working proper (PR, GWN, DevRel, UserRel) – at least in the last year or so.
    My propose is to give gentoo a second head – an admnistrative one that sits above PR, DevRel, UserRel, Legal etc.. Administration requires a different skillset than development and I think devs are not wellsuited to supervise those projects.
    Council and administrative head (however it is called) control and supervise each other. Either the administrative head or the PR team should crystallize a up-to-date mission statement, vision and a roadmap that gives the project a perceivable direction.

    Yours,

    Bj

  5. uhm…
    u keep not understanding that is already MONTHS that,well, everything “almost work”, “we are ok but ofc we need more devs” and “yeah we fixing some things,uhm,some improvements here and there”,”the basics so things just work”…

    It’s really pity to watch devs just doing their daily work like dull workers because if they try to do something, well, out of the handbook they will be bitched by other guys and cliques….

    Probably those things are all right for you and “isn’t a problem”…

    So that is the gentoo u want?
    Sry but just transforming a project for your own reasons and beliefs and telling the users to leave is rude.

    It’s a fact that gentoo succeed with Robbins and we want back that gentoo we knew. So deal with it and support his offer… plz =D

  6. bmichaelsen please see http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_150039.xml

    every project and subproject has a Plan.

    The main problem I’m seeing here is that some people do not grasp this fact, Gentoo is bigger that a single roadmap, there are many, some are little, some are quite big.

    The apparent failure of keeping a legal status in New Mexico has next to zero impact, the reason of that are being investigated and solutions being evaluated, pretty much ones deciding to stay in another state, way to reduce communication failure and so on. Gentoo in Europe is still alive as legal entity.

    CkION

    What you think is “success”? What you think is “something new?” I’m not telling ANYBODY not to leave, we are volunteer so it’s pretty much up to you users enjoy what we are doing, help improving or just move somewhere else.
    It’s not a fact that Gentoo was more successful with Daniel or with other people. I’m afraid you got quite emotive and I’m failing to deliver the right message (or you are failing to read the damn thread in the mailing list).

    We had one of the best init system and we still have it, we have one of the best support for cross/parallel/alien development, we keep supporting a plethora of packages and we strive to archive excellence in many fields. We are trying to smooth the transition even in the possible future case of radical changes now and lots of people is discussing with passion about this because all of them care.

    The council is trying it’s best to not force a solution before every alternative is examined to reduce the number of people in discomfort (So we may take 2 months instead one for certain decisions), you’d may like to have more flashy headlines, I’m pretty sure many would rather like to have a smooth incremental evolution.

  7. Hi Luca,
    I read that thread a few days ago. All of it. But I kinda have the idea “new blood” interested in maybe trying out gentoo will not dig through the mailing lists to find it. And even if, the thread gives an idea what subprojects do, but it does not tell what gentoo does. There is no “gentoo is this (5 bullet list), this year we are working towards the following exciting things (5 bullet list)”. If that is not there there _is_ _no_ _gentoo_ – then there are only subprojects.
    You guys are still wondering why you are lacking new devs? People like to be part of something big – thats motivating.
    The lack of new devs is a direct result of the lack of a roadmap, a vision and a mission (well, cutting of common communication channels to the user like the homepage did not help either).

    Yours, Bj

  8. sigh, again this misconception.

    – there isn’t lack of manpower in itself. Having 9 women won’t get you a child in 1 month.
    – there isn’t lack of new devs we are getting even more offers than we could handle in a short time.
    – there isn’t a 5 bullet list of stuff for Gentoo there is an about 5*project list of bullets, that thread.

    Again. Please check the facts or take my word as truth ^^;

  9. “- there isn’t lack of manpower in itself. Having 9 women won’t get you a child in 1 month.”
    There is a lack of manpower in critical areas: PR, GWN, Trustees to name just a few. The probem is current gentoo produces childs with 20 arms (ebuilds), but no legs (releases) and no head (vision, communication).
    “- there isn’t lack of new devs we are getting even more offers than we could handle in a short time.”
    Not in areas that seem to be critically understaffed. 20 ebuild maintainers wont get you any PR.
    “- there isn’t a 5 bullet list of stuff for Gentoo there is an about 5*project list of bullets, that thread.”
    Then gentoo is just an empty word. Then it has not only lost its legal entity but also its body.

  10. – pr, gwn and trustees are *optional*, once you realize that you’ll feel better.
    – You do not need PR strictly speaking.
    – gentoo e.v. (european stuff if you wonder) is quite fine and well, the gentoo body is just the developers+users, nothing else necessary.

  11. “- pr, gwn and trustees are *optional*, once you realize that you’ll feel better.”
    Actually I feel a lot worse, because you think they are optional. If the majority of devs actually believe this, gentoo is indeed doomed. Wouldnt have thought that to be possible, but the more I hear from devs the more I believe it could be true. This is naive, of cause. But i guess most gentoo devs are idealistic students and havent seen how the lack of administration can make projects implode. (I know it is a guess and an adhominem, but I am trying to explain this attitude for myself).

    “- You do not need PR strictly speaking.”
    You also dont need rsync mirrors strictly speaking. We could just mail around ebuilds. Or Bugzie. We will just mail around. Or a homepage (who is the owner btw?). We’ll just mail around. Or DevRel. We’ll just be nice. Or releases. Just use another LiveCD.

  12. Sigh… Realize that you DO NOT need a dedicated group involved in public relation IF all the people is doing evangelism, avoids misstatements and so on.
    Realize that GWN isn’t something you need since we got the planet.
    Realize that the whole trustee mess isn’t anything fundamental (c.f. freebsd)

    Those are *optional*. You can live without them. The core values are community and the people striving to improve. The rest is pretty much incidental. Something we could live w/out or could be radically improved, BUT it isn’t a live or death issue.

    About me, I’m just a leader of a small research group in my university. You may check it or the other projects in which I’m involved.

  13. I couldn’t agree with you more Luca.Unfortunately people tend to fall easily for ‘end-of-the-world schemes’. This has something to do with the wiring in our brains.

    Anyhow, I am not a dev, but I am getting a bit tired lately of reading comments from people who know it all better but haven’t contributed a thing. Keep up the good work! And thanks for making Gentoo possible in the first place πŸ˜‰

  14. “Realize that you DO NOT need a dedicated group involved in public relation IF all the people is doing evangelism, avoids misstatements and so on.”
    Thats an impossible if. People will always publish misstatements, even if unintended. Esp. if there is no easy and concise source of information for users (mailing lists and planet are not – they are way to much “in the trench” to be read regulary by all users. And franky, Devs posting “To our users: don

  15. What, in your opinion, should be the information that “general users” should expect?

    There are 3 newsitems covering in a concise way everything you should care. Is that not enough? We are open to address your concerns if there are more even if we got bad feedback and you aren’t accepting the fact that we may know better.

    Please re-read what I wrote. I said that none of the items that weren’t functional/quite active are fundamental. We could all agree that having them more active would be nice, but it isn’t necessary for short term survival ^^

    lu

  16. “3 newsitems .. not enough?”
    Thats enough. Things would have been a lot smoother I guess if they would have been out a week earlier though (or at least when it hit /.).

    “We could all agree that having them more active would be nice, but it isn’t necessary for short term survival”
    I think thats a general concensus.

    “What, in your opinion, should be the information that “general users” should expect?”
    I (as one general user) would certainly enjoy love to see a campaign/temporary project/whatever you call it to get more people helping communication and organizational issues in the gentoo project. Thats something I would contribute to, if I would be of help.

  17. i’m sorry luca but you just trying to cover everything up saying that everything is good based on a mailing list thread that doesnt say nothing more than that the basic bumps and fixes are being made…
    Innovation tells you something?
    And the rest problems are just… nothing to concern users, right?…
    Robbins have to come back reaaaally soon T_T

  18. bmichaelsen that would be wonderful

    CkION I’m afraid you didn’t read the whole thread. Innovation is an idiotic buzzword. Evolution sounds better (even if the mail client sucks), improvement sounds right.

    Gentoo never innovated, made always things easier w/out gloating about it. Ricers and other fun people made up some claims otherwise.

    I asked what you expect from Gentoo, “Drobbins back” is all you could say?

  19. Gentoo never innovated? T_T
    You are dev and council member, right? -_-;
    If gentoo never innovated to anything sir there is NO reason to exist.. simple as that.
    What i want is after a very very very long time to say “hey, wow!” to something new i will see in gentoo.
    As lxnay wrote in sabayon planet, i want back

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