From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1GGOhz-0005eL-HV for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 24 Aug 2006 23:34:00 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.7/8.13.6) with SMTP id k7ONWawH000167; Thu, 24 Aug 2006 23:32:36 GMT Received: from smtp04.gnvlscdb.sys.nuvox.net (smtp.nuvox.net [64.89.70.9]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.7/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k7ONUEvA027697 for ; Thu, 24 Aug 2006 23:30:15 GMT Received: from cgianelloni.nuvox.net (216.215.202.4.nw.nuvox.net [216.215.202.4]) by smtp04.gnvlscdb.sys.nuvox.net (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with SMTP id k7ONV5pa016764 for ; Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:31:05 -0400 Received: by cgianelloni.nuvox.net (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:28:09 -0400 Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Democracy: No silver bullet From: Chris Gianelloni To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org In-Reply-To: <44EE135A.6010509@gentoo.org> References: <44ECF00D.7050107@gentoo.org> <44EE135A.6010509@gentoo.org> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=-zd1xRtqxwFpowVoMELIF" Organization: Gentoo Linux Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:28:09 -0400 Message-Id: <1156462089.19720.78.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.6.2 X-Archives-Salt: a00c7ac9-a0f4-4132-8396-4f062a0e25e9 X-Archives-Hash: 455dcd3a87623ceb475ceb9f19e0d081 --=-zd1xRtqxwFpowVoMELIF Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, 2006-08-24 at 14:00 -0700, Donnie Berkholz wrote: > A distribution is more than just an entity that packages upstream=20 > tarballs. I agree with your point, but it misses a large chunk of what=20 > we do. We also have releases. Another thing that we do is fix bugs, even in upstream packages, and submit them to the upstream. In this regard, we are a valuable member of the community as a whole. How many patches have come out of Gentoo to fix bugs/vulnerabilities? > If this is the Gentoo vision, then why are we even doing anything else?=20 > We've already reached our only goal, which is packaging stuff, and all=20 > we need to do is bump it. I surely hope this isn't the vision, or I've been wasting an awful lot of time. > > Except ... even today, folks simply aren't empowered to vote on every > > decision (other than by voting with their feet). Your hypothesis > > seems to be based on a flawed model of how Gentoo works, I'm afraid. >=20 > "Official" votes, sure. But what about GLEP discussions on -dev? That's=20 > the only way anything major ever happens, and it might as well be a=20 > requirement for a unanimous vote among all ~350 developers. The only=20 > time I can recall even a single dissenter before a GLEP moved on to the=20 > council was brix on Sunrise. I was there, too. Of course, I also prove some of your points. I got tired of giving the same arguments ad nauseum. I eventually gave up fighting it to move on to other things. I will admit that many of my concerns were resolved. > > The basic cause always comes down to weak or non-existent management. >=20 > Yes, and that's exactly my point. We need stronger management. Indeed. > >> All in all, the vocal minority has done a splendid job of becoming mor= e > >> influential, crippling Gentoo's ability to do anything at all about it= s > >> members, their flames, their outstanding work at ruining people's fun > >> and enjoyment of Gentoo, and their waste of everyone else's time. > >=20 > > Can you back this up with three examples in the last twelve months > > where this has happened? Sunrise (twice) Pretty much anything dealing with portage features (or lack thereof) > Any long debate where more than 25% of the posts came from a single perso= n. I know that I've been a participant in at least one of these. I've also noticed it an started to "dial back" my responses to try to stay more on-topic and technical. Having a nice release helps to curb the free time for replying to emails, too. ;] > > Our problem is that we have a critical mass of groups who do not share > > a culture to bind them together, and drive them to overcome their > > differences. >=20 > I'll agree with that. As would I. > I know this is partially changing, but I'm unsure that any group outside=20 > of the council will ever be trusted to suspend or kick people out. I agree with this pretty strongly, if only because the council is an elected group. > > Folks don't vote on stuff. To pick a recent example, none of the > > folks who opposed Sunrise actually had any means to vote to prevent it > > happening. What they had to do was to lobby the council, who were the > > only folks with a vote. >=20 > Oh, gimme a break. Screaming about it on -dev for hundreds of posts=20 > isn't just equivalent to a vote, it's better. It makes people think=20 > there's more than 2 developers opposed to it. Really? Even you didn't remember that *I* was opposed to Sunrise and probably accounted for at least a good 50 responses. Yes, good came from it. Yes, it could have been done much, much better. > I'd rather get rid of devrel altogether (at least its conflict=20 > resolution role) and have the council deal with this. Agreed. > > I'm not standing for election, but maybe someone who is would be > > interested in investigating some ideas Sejo discussed with me when he > > left us. The summary is my own; hopefully I've captured Sejo's ideas > > accurately. > >=20 > > * Every staff member has to belong to a team. You join a team by > > being voted onto the team by the other members of the team. They > > don't vote you in, you can't join. I don't think his ideas included anything explicit. Only more that the team (or even just the lead) could give a thumbs down to you joining. > > * If you're not part of any team, your rights and privileges as a > > staff member are automatically terminated. There's no place to go to > > appeal. I think the intention was for the council to be the appellate body. > > * You can be voted off the team at any time. The teams are self-manag= ing. I'm sure a vote wasn't necessary. > The goal? Hopefully, to streamline processes and give power back to individual projects to govern themselves in internal matters and let people get back to doing development. That's a goal I would love to see us strive to achieve in the next year. --=20 Chris Gianelloni Release Engineering - Strategic Lead x86 Architecture Team Games - Developer Gentoo Linux --=-zd1xRtqxwFpowVoMELIF Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBE7jYJkT4lNIS36YERAtUmAKCtBC2pY6n1WsxeFEsmldC24H7dbQCbBpoO VpUGLKarTMEwEx5DhO24Ork= =KrMq -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-zd1xRtqxwFpowVoMELIF-- -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list