[gentoo-amd64] What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[gentoo-amd64] What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Duncan]

[see subject]

I see him listed as having retired in GWN, and no longer listed as a dev 
on amd64.gentoo.org, but I saw no resignation note on either dev or here, 
neither have I seen anything about it until reading it in GWN.

I enjoyed reading his posts, and will miss him. =8^(

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday 17 April 2007 20:29:01 Duncan wrote:

> I enjoyed reading his posts, and will miss him. =8^(

Yes, and so shall I.

-- 
Rgds
Peter Humphrey
Linux Counter 5290, Aug 93
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Richard Freeman]

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Duncan wrote:
> [see subject]
> 
> I see him listed as having retired in GWN, and no longer listed as a dev 
> on amd64.gentoo.org, but I saw no resignation note on either dev or here, 
> neither have I seen anything about it until reading it in GWN.
> 
> I enjoyed reading his posts, and will miss him. =8^(
> 

I think gentoo as a whole will surely miss him!  He did send a brief
note to the amd64@gentoo.org alias - I'll let one of the amd64 leads
decide whether to broadcast it - I'm guessing he wanted to leave without
making a political statement out of it to the masses.

Unfortunately it seems like there has been a rash of departures of late.
 I think that gentoo will keep going and maybe if things calm down we
might see some helpful folks return - and even if not the beauty of open
source is that the people who have helped make gentoo so great will only
help us all out in other ways on other projects.

Just the same, I think the amd64 leads would be more than happy to have
help from anybody interested in stepping up.  If you check out the forum
I think there is a sticky post on helping out as an arch tester, and if
you just want to help out randomly I'm sure devs would be happy to see
volunteers adding patches to bug entries that fix problems - then they
just need to test and commit.  You don't need to talk to anybody to do
that - although it might not hurt to read the ebuild docs to make sure
you're following conventions (even if you don't you're probably still
saving somebody some work).  And if you toss together a patched ebuild
you can run "repoman scan" in the portage directory to catch any glaring
issues.
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[gentoo-amd64] Re: What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Duncan]

Richard Freeman <rich@thefreemanclan.net> posted
46258402.9000001@thefreemanclan.net, excerpted below, on  Tue, 17 Apr 2007
22:35:46 -0400:

> Duncan wrote:
>> [see subject]
>> 
>> I see him listed as having retired in GWN [...] but I saw no
>> resignation note [...]
>> 
> I think gentoo as a whole will surely miss him!  He did send a brief
> note to the amd64@gentoo.org alias - I'll let one of the amd64 leads
> decide whether to broadcast it - I'm guessing he wanted to leave without
> making a political statement out of it to the masses.

Unfortunately, that's a valid consideration these days.  It would still 
have been nice to see a farewell note, even if it just gave the usual 
"personal reasons" euphemism.  However, not wanting to make a big thing 
out of it is characteristic, from my read of him.  One of the great 
things about his posts were how "anchored in practicality, but seasoned 
with appropriate humor" they seemed.  His subtle but humorous commentary 
in the form of long thread and long post (mine, in the one case =8^| ) 
screenshots, among other things, will certainly be missed, but viewed 
thru the same lens, his low key (subtle) departure is entirely in 
character.

> Unfortunately it seems like there has been a rash of departures of late.
>  I think that gentoo will keep going and maybe if things calm down we
> might see some helpful folks return - and even if not the beauty of open
> source is that the people who have helped make gentoo so great will only
> help us all out in other ways on other projects.

Indeed, and not only help in other ways on other projects, but earlier 
contributions continue to be built on in a way not so possible in closed 
source, as well -- "standing on the shoulders of giants" for sure.  That 
is in fact one of the big things I value about my contribution to the 
community (mainly on the lists, and some bugs, so far) as well.  Were I 
to die today, or simply move on to other things, I could at least be 
comfortable in the thought that I had made the world a better place thru 
that community involvement, and my contributions will remain and be built 
upon long after I'm gone.  Everyone wants their life to be of value, to 
contribute positively to the common human knowledge base and condition,  
and involvement in the open source community is perhaps one of the more 
effective ways an ordinary person can leave such a positive legacy.

Simon Stelling certainly left such a legacy here with Gentoo.  Hopefully 
he'll eventually be back, to have a part in continuing to build on what 
was before, but regardless, he's already left a positive legacy he has 
reason to be proud of. =8^)

> Just the same, I think the amd64 leads would be more than happy to have
> help from anybody interested in stepping up.

Digesting the various dev documentation and taking my Gentoo community 
participation to the next level has been on my list for awhile.  
Fortunately, I've been able to check off a couple things on that list 
recently, so Gentoo's moving up. =8^)

Interestingly, I recently became aware that I've been on the dev list as 
an "active user" for longer than some devs' entire Gentoo life cycle.  
However, in contrast with the "couple of years while in uni" folks, I've 
always been a "slow burn" type guy, and watching the petty squabbles and 
etc on the dev list /has/ been... "maturing".  Just as it took me over 
two years to switch to Linux, but when I did, it was a permanent 
commitment to software freedom (no going back to the land of 
slaveryware!), and given that I've found Gentoo nearly my perfect match 
in every way (petty squabbles aside), if Gentoo is still here 20 years 
from now, there's a relatively good chance that in one form or another, 
I'll still be contributing to it.  Still, building on what came before is 
what the FLOSS community is all about, and if Gentoo and I are still 
around 20 years from now, we'll still be building on the contributions of 
those 2-years-at-uni guys, not just the folks that stuck around.  The 
contributions are of value either way.  If Gentoo (or I) am /not/ still 
around in 20 years, well, the community will continue to build on what we 
were and what we contributed to it.

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Bo Ørsted Andresen]

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On Tuesday 17 April 2007 21:29:01 Duncan wrote:
> I see him listed as having retired in GWN, and no longer listed as a dev
> on amd64.gentoo.org, but I saw no resignation note on either dev or here,
> neither have I seen anything about it until reading it in GWN.

Mmm.. guess you don't read the planet..

http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/blubb

-- 
Bo Andresen

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[gentoo-amd64] Re: What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Duncan]

Bo Ørsted Andresen <bo.andresen@zlin.dk> posted
200704180645.08609.bo.andresen@zlin.dk, excerpted below, on  Wed, 18 Apr
2007 06:45:00 +0200:

> On Tuesday 17 April 2007 21:29:01 Duncan wrote:
>> I see him listed as having retired in GWN, and no longer listed as a
>> dev on amd64.gentoo.org, but I saw no resignation note on either dev or
>> here, neither have I seen anything about it until reading it in GWN.
> 
> Mmm.. guess you don't read the planet..
> 
> http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/blubb

Hmm... no I hadn't.  Thanks.

I keep thinking I should get into checking planet.gentoo, as there's a 
world (um, planet) of things going on there I'd be interested in, but 
haven't gotten around to it yet.  Actually, I should probably delete (or 
simply not follow as regularly, but...) some of my knewsticker feeds, 
thinning down what I'm following there and making more room for new 
stuff, so I don't have to find more time for it, just reapportion the 
time already spent on feeds.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Wednesday 18 April 2007 06:14:55 Duncan wrote:

> I should probably delete (or simply not follow as regularly, but...) some
> of my knewsticker feeds, thinning down what I'm following there and making
> more room for new stuff

Is there a news feed talking about Gentoo? I went looking just now but 
didn't find anything.

-- 
Rgds
Peter Humphrey
Linux Counter 5290, Aug 93
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Mark Knecht]

On 4/17/07, Bo Ørsted Andresen <bo.andresen@zlin.dk> wrote:
> On Tuesday 17 April 2007 21:29:01 Duncan wrote:
> > I see him listed as having retired in GWN, and no longer listed as a dev
> > on amd64.gentoo.org, but I saw no resignation note on either dev or here,
> > neither have I seen anything about it until reading it in GWN.
>
> Mmm.. guess you don't read the planet..
>
> http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/blubb
>
> --
> Bo Andresen
>
>
Like others here I always found Simon quite helpful.

Reading through a few of his (hopefully not) final posts I see that
Simon was going to start serving in the Swiss army around the 1st of
April. I will hold out a little hope that his departure from Gentoo
might have been hastened a bit by the stress of such a large life
change. Maybe he'll be back when his service is complete. I know he
will be welcomed.

Cheers,
Mark
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[gentoo-amd64] Re: What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Duncan]

Peter Humphrey <prh@gotadsl.co.uk> posted
200704181010.17480.prh@gotadsl.co.uk, excerpted below, on  Wed, 18 Apr
2007 10:10:17 +0100:

> On Wednesday 18 April 2007 06:14:55 Duncan wrote:
> 
>> I should probably delete (or simply not follow as regularly, but...)
>> some of my knewsticker feeds, thinning down what I'm following there
>> and making more room for new stuff
> 
> Is there a news feed talking about Gentoo? I went looking just now but
> didn't find anything.

I haven't seen any in particular, no (unfortunately).  However, those 
planet or similar agregators usually have one or more.  I had assumed 
Gentoo's would as well, but as I said it's still on my list of to-dos, so 
maybe not?

It'd be nice/interesting to get the gentoo-announce and GWN lists as news-
feeds as well, but again, I've not actually looked around to see if it's 
possible to do so just yet.  Of course, those I get thru gmane's 
list2news (nntp) service ATM, which is equally as useful to me, so no 
real need for those on newsfeeds here, but planet and the like, certainly.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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[gentoo-amd64] Re: What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Duncan]

"Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com> posted
5bdc1c8b0704180736v6d61323p5756d5ee6d8c84cc@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
below, on  Wed, 18 Apr 2007 07:36:41 -0700:

> On 4/17/07, Bo Ørsted Andresen <bo.andresen@zlin.dk> wrote:
>>
>> http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/blubb
> 
> Reading through a few of his (hopefully not) final posts I see that
> Simon was going to start serving in the Swiss army around the 1st of
> April. I will hold out a little hope that his departure from Gentoo
> might have been hastened a bit by the stress of such a large life
> change. Maybe he'll be back when his service is complete. I know he will
> be welcomed.

I had intended to comment to the same effect, but got off on the planet 
tangent and forgot.  So yeah, hopefully after the army service (or in the 
middle if it gets boring), he'll be back. =8^)


-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Daniel Iliev]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:29:01 +0000 (UTC)
Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

> [see subject]
> 
> I see him listed as having retired in GWN, and no longer listed as a
> dev on amd64.gentoo.org, but I saw no resignation note on either dev
> or here, neither have I seen anything about it until reading it in
> GWN.
> 
> I enjoyed reading his posts, and will miss him. =8^(
> 


Well, that's bad news. I wish him an easy army life and I hope
he would change his mind.

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Best regards,
Daniel

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Simon Stelling]

(Replying to the whole thread instead of each single mail)

Am I on TV now?

Seriously, it's amusing to find a whole thread about me just the moment 
I wanted to unsubscribe from the list. I guess I have to wait a bit with 
that :)

So, to answer the questions thrown up:

I sent a message about my resignation to -core. I didn't cross-post to 
-dev simply for the reason that my resignation isn't of much interest 
regarding Gentoo's development in the big picture. I just checked out 
amd64's buglist - it's again below 100 entries, so you see, things work 
well without me.

I only wrote a short notification to -core/planet because I don't like 
writing big dramas and more importantly, because the weather was too 
nice to spend a lot of time in front of the screen at the time.

As for the theory that my departure was connected to me having to join 
the army: Maybe. I surely remember the first two weeks being the most 
stressful ones of my life. On the other hand, the decision to resign was 
planned long before that, I just didn't have the balls to actually 
execute said plan before. Also, when I resigned, I wasn't in an 
emotional state at all. I simply took an objective look at Gentoo and 
deemed it not worth spending a lot of time to anymore.

As for the idea of me returning sometime: Sure, why not. Gentoo is still 
great from a technical point of view, just the dev community isn't all 
that great. However, I won't be coming back anytime soon. I have to 
serve the army until end of September (I originally thought it would be 
mid-August), and immediately after that I will start studying IT. I 
surely won't have enough (if any) free time until next year.

Now I'm almost ashamed of the long mail centered entirely around me, but 
hey, you asked for it :P

Kind regards,

Simon Stelling
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 21 April 2007 01:59:10 Simon Stelling wrote:

> Now I'm almost ashamed of the long mail centered entirely around me, but
> hey, you asked for it :P

From one you've helped more than once, Good Luck!

-- 
Rgds
Peter Humphrey
Linux Counter 5290, Aug 93
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[gentoo-amd64] Re: What happened to Simon Stelling (blubb)?

[Duncan]

Simon Stelling <blubb@blubb.ch> posted 462961DE.8090401@blubb.ch,
excerpted below, on  Sat, 21 Apr 2007 02:59:10 +0200:

> Seriously, it's amusing to find a whole thread about me just the moment
> I wanted to unsubscribe from the list. I guess I have to wait a bit with
> that :)

Thanks.  It feels better now, having a bit of "completion" direct from 
you. =8^)  Feel free to drop by now and again, and as has already been 
demonstrated, it looks like you'll have a dev home here any time you want 
it, at least from us users' perspective. =8^)

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and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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