Re: [gentoo-dev] GLEP ??: Critical News Reporting

[Daniel Ostrow <dostrow@gentoo.org>]

On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 12:08 -0500, Nathan L. Adams wrote:
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> Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> > 
> > Yeah, see, this is a case where not understanding the structure of
> > Gentoo gives you the wrong impression.  The GDP's policy applies to the
> > GDP.  That is not a global developer policy of any kind.  It is a policy
> > by a project, for that project.
> > 
> > If I were, for example, to write up a nice guide for something on the
> > games team and do it all in ASCII art, that policy has no bearing on
> > what I do.  If I were to write something for the GDP, then it would.
> > 
> > At any rate, that has *zero* bearing on whether or not our update
> > information needs to be written in GuideXML, so there's no point in
> > arguing it with you.
> > 
> 
> So you're saying that Gentoo consists of projects that are completely
> 'silo'd up' and have no bearing whatsoever on each other. Then the
> DevRel project only has bearing on those who actually join DevRel. Neat,
> a group formed for the sole purpose of coordinating itself. Security
> need only concern itself with securing its members (from who knows
> what!), and infra can just ignore the needs of everyone else (different
> project!). I wonder how any of the other projects *ever* made it onto
> the website...

Yet more proof that you don't understand what you are talking
about...not meant to be insulting just stating that you don't. Just
because some groups (DevRel, Infra, etc.) have farther reaching tendrils
doesn't mean that every group does. 

For example, each arch team has a slightly different way to go about
allowing package maintainers to keyword their own packages on a given
arch...some teams insist that the maintainer join the arch team...some
allow for special arrangements (they all follow the same basic
guidelines).

With documentation there are actually 2 different types, those bits that
fall under the GDP and those that fall under the herd that uses them.
Take Chris' games example, the games team is free to release an FAQ in
plain text in Pig Latin if they want to, so long as it is on their own
project page. The GDP policy -only- covers the GDP...not anyone else, so
if Chris wanted to move his plain text Pig Latin doc to the official
Docs repository he would have to make an English version and make it
GuideXML. That's it plain and simple.

> The errata.g.o (not the summaries w/ link that emerge would output)
> would obviously be documentation, would obviously be governed by the Doc
> rules, and it would be irrelevant which staff member happened to publish
> a particular guide. If Gentoo really is as balkanized as you state, then
> it is a sad state of affairs indeed. Maybe the 'full fledged' versions
> should be GuideXML-lite or something, I'm not sure, but your argument is
> just silly.

Another thing you seem to be missing is that the GLEP specifically
separates the news from the documentation. The news or errata is just a
plain text *short* summary that something needs to be attended to. It
can, but does not always have to, link to further more detailed
*documentation*. Note then that what would go up on errata.g.o in this
case would be the *summary* (which would not necessarily be governed by
the GDP or it's policies) and *not* the full documentation. Said summary
would contain links to any relevant *documentation* which would then be
governed by the GDP if said documentation was in fact Gentoo created and
in the official Docs repository.

-- 
Daniel Ostrow
Gentoo Foundation Board of Trustees
Gentoo/{PPC,PPC64,DevRel}
dostrow@gentoo.org

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