Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Patrick Lauer]

On Tue, 2003-07-15 at 15:20, cal@calevans.com wrote:

> Seriously John, you made some well thought out, eloquent but
> in-appropriate suggestions.  Yes, we need organization but not the top
> heavy beast you are proposing.  I have carefully read the new structure
I agree. Debian has been named as an example of what not to be.Gentoo
has a fast, dynamic and slightly uncontrolled development at the moment,
and I want it to remain like that. Voting etc. seems a bit extreme to
me, the discussions on the mailinglists are working at the moment, so
why change?

> that is being implements and it seems to me to be the bare minimum
> necessary to keep the project moving.  And IMHO that should be the measure
> of any government's size.
Well, maybe a tiny bit more, a kind of global TODO-list would be interesting. 
The project needs a focus, otherwise nothing gets done. 

In my opinion, most devs don't want to be put in a bureaucratical straightjacket,
so let's not scare away the biggest asset of this project, which is the 
developer community.



--
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[gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[John Davis]

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Good evening all:
I am sure that you have all noticed the recent changes in the Gentoo Linux management. For this effort, I believe that our current managers should be applauded for thier candidness and openness. Although, as with any organization, there is always room for constant change and improvement. Gentoo's current position can be summarized by a quote from bussiness philosopher Edward Demming:

Change is not mandatory, because survival is not a necessity.

Gentoo is at a crossroads: We can either continue to change and improve our management structure, or simply die like many other Linux distributions.

In light of this issue, I propose the following changes to the Gentoo management structure:

1. Constitution
	All great organizations realize the need to protect their most important asset, their volunteers and employees. Gentoo does not have such a document, therefore there is no 'legal' protection for the developers and volunteers. Although we all know that Gentoo is commited to this, it is nowhere in writing.

References: The Debian Constitution
http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution

2. Open voting
	At this point in time, there is no published ruleset for voting, and there is no public record of voting results. There is also no offical published method of calculating a voting quorum. Additionally, with regard to the election of new managers, the vote is kept secret.

In order for any democratic system that uses voting to be successful, there *must* be accountability, concrete rules, and open results. How can there possibly be accountability if the results of the vote are kept completely secret? The find line between an oligarchy and a representative democracy is voting accountability. The developers, managers, and uses *must* know that the Gentoo voting process is secure in its philosophy and practice.

References:
http://www.debian.org/vote/ (Voting policy)
http://www.debian.org/vote/2002/vote_0001 (Sample voting results)
http://www.debian.org/vote/howto_vote (Sample voting ballot)

3. Defined terms for managers
	In order to preserve the balance of power, while at the same time protecting the rights and interests of the users and developers, it is necessary that all manager positions have a clear term length along with a clear and defined manager voting process (see above).

	The developers and users need to make sure that their interests are being maintained, and that the managers are true delegates for the Gentoo community. The developers, as well as managers, need to ensure that this stays true through normal managerial election.

4. Clear meeting procedure
	I encourage all developers and managers to review Robert's Book of Rules, as it provides invaluable information on proactive meeting procedure.

By creating this document, I hope to help fix the problems that I see with Gentoo Linux. I believe that positive, intellectual conversation can lead us to the light at the end of the tunnel. I encourage you all to participate in this discussion, but please restrain from anger, lashing out, etc.

Kind regards,
//zhen

-- 
John Davis
Gentoo Linux Developer
<http://www.gentoo.org/~zhen>

----
Knowledge can be more terrible than ignorance if you're powerless to change your world.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[splite]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 09:46:21PM -0400, John Davis wrote:
> [...]
> 
> Gentoo is at a crossroads: We can either continue to change and
> improve our management structure, or simply die like many other Linux
> distributions.

Or we can slowly smother ourselves with bureaucracy like Debian is doing.

> In light of this issue, I propose the following changes to the Gentoo
> management structure:
> 
> 1. Constitution
>	All great organizations realize the need to protect their most
> important asset, their volunteers and employees. Gentoo does not have such
> a document, therefore there is no 'legal' protection for the developers
> and volunteers. Although we all know that Gentoo is commited to this,
> it is nowhere in writing.

"Protection" from what?  Mongol hordes?  Nobody is forcing anyone to use
or develop for Gentoo.  If someone feels their "rights" are being violated,
they can fork away.

> References: The Debian Constitution
> http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
> 
> 2. Open voting
>	At this point in time, there is no published ruleset for voting,
> and there is no public record of voting results. There is also no
> offical published method of calculating a voting quorum. Additionally,
> with regard to the election of new managers, the vote is kept secret.

Since when is Gentoo a democratic institution?  I thought it was a useful
collection of bits.

> In order for any democratic system that uses voting to be successful,
> there *must* be accountability, concrete rules, and open results. How
> can there possibly be accountability if the results of the vote are kept
> completely secret? The find line between an oligarchy and a representative
> democracy is voting accountability. The developers, managers, and uses
> *must* know that the Gentoo voting process is secure in its philosophy
> and practice.

Or what?  Violent overthrow?  Fascist Gentoo oligarchs beware!

> References:
> http://www.debian.org/vote/ (Voting policy)
> http://www.debian.org/vote/2002/vote_0001 (Sample voting results)
> http://www.debian.org/vote/howto_vote (Sample voting ballot)

Anything to avoid finishing sarge, apparently.

> 3. Defined terms for managers
>	In order to preserve the balance of power, while at the same
> time protecting the rights and interests of the users and developers,
> it is necessary that all manager positions have a clear term length
> along with a clear and defined manager voting process (see above).

Dammit, I paid $0 for this product and I demand my rights!

>	The developers and users need to make sure that their interests
> are being maintained, and that the managers are true delegates for the
> Gentoo community. The developers, as well as managers, need to ensure
> that this stays true through normal managerial election.

Where do I send my campaign contribution?  Should that be in hard or
soft money?

> 4. Clear meeting procedure
>	I encourage all developers and managers to review Robert's Book
> of Rules, as it provides invaluable information on proactive meeting
> procedure.

Motion to adjourn to the nearest pub for a swift half and some perspective.

> By creating this document, I hope to help fix the problems that I see
> with Gentoo Linux. I believe that positive, intellectual conversation
> can lead us to the light at the end of the tunnel. I encourage you
> all to participate in this discussion, but please restrain from anger,
> lashing out, etc.

If you think the problem with Gentoo is that it's not ossifying as quickly
as Debian is, then by all means, fix away.

> Kind regards,
> //zhen

Right back atcha.

--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[John Davis]

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> 
> Right back atcha.
> 
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
> 

Apparently, you did not read my last paragraph that asked for *intellectual* discussion, and not a flame war.

I am not going to flame with you, grow up, learn to be proactive.

//zhen

-- 
John Davis
Gentoo Linux Developer
<http://www.gentoo.org/~zhen>

----
Knowledge can be more terrible than ignorance if you're powerless to change your world.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Brad Cowan]

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:02:38 -0500
splite <gentoo@sigint.cs.purdue.edu> wrote:

In regards to your reply, I think it shows quite a bit of ignorance. The
next time why don't you show a little respect, even some tact to someone
else's well thought out and worded proposals and ideas.  You might end
up getting some respect for yourself, but you have gained none by me
with that post.


-- 
Brad Cowan <bcowan@gentoo.org>
Developer,
Gentoo Linux	http://www.gentoo.org/~bcowan

Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xB1F16A56
Key fingerprint = C408 75B9 E68D 26E2 EAAE  20CF 4D5E 293D B1F1 6A56

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[splite]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 11:08:01PM -0400, John Davis wrote:
> 
> Apparently, you did not read my last paragraph that asked for
> *intellectual* discussion, and not a flame war.

No flaming intended.  As it happens, I read your last paragraph very
carefully, hoping to see a big "April Fool!" at the end.

Sorry if my style offended you, but I wasn't aware that "intellectual"
meant "oblivious to satire."  So let me be direct:

The stuff you're proposing is what's killing Debian, and steered me away
from it in the first place.  I suspect I'm not the only one.

Here are some serious, intellectual questions (note the scholarly
Roman numerals):

I. Wouldn't developer's time be better spent _developing_ instead of reading
minutes, making motions, and voting?

II. Wouldn't users's time be better spent _using_ Gentoo to get some actual
work done instead of reading proposed amendments and lobbying for new
rules?

As a user and potential developer, I certainly don't have time for that
kind of shit.  If I want politics, I'll watch C-SPAN or run for city
council.

> I am not going to flame with you, grow up, learn to be proactive.

Good, I hate flamewars.

If by "grow up", you mean, "saddle myself and others with lots of
arbitrary rules in lieu of doing useful work", then no thanks.

And here I thought I was being proactive.  Or should I wait until the first
Gentoo Continental Congress and submit my concerns as a rider to an
appropriations bill?  Shoot, I'm satirising again, aren't I?

Seriously, I don't doubt your good intentions, but IMO, you're taking
Gentoo way _too_ seriously.  Gentoo is fun and useful.  Rules and politics
can only make it less so.

--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Ralph F. De Witt]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Monday 14 July 2003 08:40 pm, Brad Cowan wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:02:38 -0500
> splite <gentoo@sigint.cs.purdue.edu> wrote:
>
> In regards to your reply, I think it shows quite a bit of ignorance. The
> next time why don't you show a little respect, even some tact to someone
> else's well thought out and worded proposals and ideas.  You might end
> up getting some respect for yourself, but you have gained none by me
> with that post.
As well sounding and well written the proposals for change were, I do not feel 
Gentoo should necessaraly go the way of Debian to extinctcion. Debian is too 
mired in bureaucracy and way to slow to respond to change. What I like about 
Gentoo is it's responsiveness to change. I can go to bugzilla and request a 
version bump on favorite app or request a new app and usually within two days 
it is included in the distro. I have never seen that with Debian. Debian as 
good as it is, is just to slow out of date and unresponsive, because of the 
excessive bureaucracy most have a I have come in contact with have a 
snobbish, I can not be bothered air about them. Not the most firendly and 
open groups. I have never had that type of air putting on happen to me on a 
Gentoo list, most have gone out of there way to help me, and in the processe 
I have gained valuable knowledge. I am happy with the way Gentoo is run and 
the direction it is going. I feel change is needed only when necessary to 
maintain the distrto's performance. Not change for change sake only. And no 
unnecessary bureaucracy. This is my $.02 worth on the subject. 
- -- 
	Yours,
	Ralph.
It said Use Windows XP or better, so I installed Gentoo Linux 1.4 
Register Linux User 168814 ICQ #49993234 AIM ralphdewitt jabber.org 
ralphdewitt
GPG Public Key available at hkp://blackhole.pca.dfn.de
Key id = 0DE2 085D
Kernel version 2.4.20-gentoo-r2
Current Linux uptime: 2 days 20 hours 48 minutes.
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux)

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SmLaeG8xeps2CoB3fIlxe0A=
=B6yI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Stewart Honsberger]

splite wrote:
>>Gentoo is at a crossroads: We can either continue to change and
>>improve our management structure, or simply die like many other Linux
>>distributions.
> 
> Or we can slowly smother ourselves with bureaucracy like Debian is doing.

{sigh}

I read John's message twice, looking for the same "April Fools!" trailer 
you sought after.

I can't believe my eyes.

I'm so stunned by the beauroclaptrap I've just read I'm short for words.

I really think Gentoo's "management" needs to rethink their approach. I 
  don't want to be part of that future.

-- 
Stewart Honsberger
http://blackdeath.snerk.org/
"Capitalists, by nature, organize to protect themselves.
-- Geeks, by nature, resist organizaion."


--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[splite]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 11:40:33PM -0400, Brad Cowan wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:02:38 -0500
> splite <gentoo@sigint.cs.purdue.edu> wrote:
> 
> In regards to your reply, I think it shows quite a bit of ignorance. The

Ignorance of what?  It looks to me like the people involved in Gentoo
are feeling pressured by their rapid growth and rise in popularity to
"grow up" and adopt a more structured approach, hence Mr. Davis' screed.
Am I wrong?

My point was that (IMO) Gentoo's popularity and growth is a direct
result of it being more fun and useful and less political than the
alternatives, especially Debian.

By using Debian as a model (which Mr. Davis referred to several times),
might not you be dooming yourself to their fate-- obsolescence and
irrelevance?

Here's another Intellectual Question (tm):

I.  How many people came to Gentoo from Debian, and why?

> next time why don't you show a little respect

Calling him a boogerhead would have been disrepectful.  I was merely
making a point, though perhaps too obliquely for some.  Got your attention
though, didn't it?

> even some tact to someone

"Tact sucks."	-- Rob Pike

> else's well thought out and worded proposals and ideas.  You might end

It was indeed well worded.  I also appreciate the thought that went into
it, though I don't agree with it.

> up getting some respect for yourself, but you have gained none by me
> with that post.

Oh for Pete's sake, lighten up.  This is a geek mailing list, not the
Federal Register.

--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Kumba]

splite wrote:

> No flaming intended.  As it happens, I read your last paragraph very
> carefully, hoping to see a big "April Fool!" at the end.
> 
> Sorry if my style offended you, but I wasn't aware that "intellectual"
> meant "oblivious to satire."  So let me be direct:
> 
> The stuff you're proposing is what's killing Debian, and steered me away
> from it in the first place.  I suspect I'm not the only one.
> 
> Here are some serious, intellectual questions (note the scholarly
> Roman numerals):
> 
> I. Wouldn't developer's time be better spent _developing_ instead of reading
> minutes, making motions, and voting?
> 
> II. Wouldn't users's time be better spent _using_ Gentoo to get some actual
> work done instead of reading proposed amendments and lobbying for new
> rules?
> 
> As a user and potential developer, I certainly don't have time for that
> kind of shit.  If I want politics, I'll watch C-SPAN or run for city
> council.
> 

IMHO, Politics will always exist, even in an organization like Gentoo. 
You raise several good points, I admit that, but don't you think that 
your "satire" came off a little bit harsh in your original post?  Satire 
can be good satire or bad satire.  It's all about how you phrase it.

All the things zhen proposed were merely proposals.  They are not 
anything concrete or set in stone.  It is probable that any proposals 
made by zhen may have all live through debate to see the light of day, 
or all may be consigned to bitrot in /dev/null.  It is also probable 
that some (but not all) of his proposals may survive.  Who knows?  What 
matters is they were just that -- Proposals.  Ideas.

Because of the fact that they were just proposals, I think the way you 
made your point was perhaps a bit harsh, and a bit uneccessary.  There 
are better ways to say things w/o satiraclly picking apart every single 
sentence to expose any possible flaws.  You could have been much more 
polite in stating your belief of why Gentoo should steer clear of such 
ideas to avoid becoming the next Debian.



> Good, I hate flamewars.
> 
> If by "grow up", you mean, "saddle myself and others with lots of
> arbitrary rules in lieu of doing useful work", then no thanks.
> 
> And here I thought I was being proactive.  Or should I wait until the first
> Gentoo Continental Congress and submit my concerns as a rider to an
> appropriations bill?  Shoot, I'm satirising again, aren't I?
> 
> Seriously, I don't doubt your good intentions, but IMO, you're taking
> Gentoo way _too_ seriously.  Gentoo is fun and useful.  Rules and politics
> can only make it less so.
> 


You're absolutely right on several things here.  Flamewars suck, so lets 
not turn this discussion into one.  Second, Gentoo is indeed very fun. 
I was drawn to Gentoo because of the community atmosphere, and because 
developers were friendly to users.  Even to users who are using Gentoo 
as their very first Gentoo install.  This alone shows the vastly 
different attitude within Gentoo when compared to other distributions 
and other OSS OSes.

I don't see Gentoo becoming heavily politicized.  But I do feel Gentoo 
needs better structuring as an organization.  Several of the ideas 
proposed by zhen could very well assist that.  I'm quite sure if any of 
his proposals are found to be incompatible with how Gentoo structures 
itself, they will be summarily tossed aside and forgotten in the annals 
of time.  No need to lash out with such ferocity at mere concepts, ideas 
that haven't even been discussed/debated yet.  Simply state your opinion 
of said ideas, and back them up with proper logical reasoning.  That is 
the most any of us can hope to do.

--Kumba


-- 
"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: 
small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are 
elsewhere."  --Elrond


--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Brad Cowan]

My post wasn't to agree or disagree with the proposal, it was intended
to stifle the personal attacks/flamage/whatnot and improve the overall
quality of posts. Well thought out posts/ideas deserve well thought out
intelligent answers no matter how you feel one way or the other towards
the subject or even how stupid a subject is. It's a respect thing.
Anyway that's my 2 cents.

-- 
Brad Cowan <bcowan@gentoo.org>
Developer,
Gentoo Linux	http://www.gentoo.org/~bcowan

Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xB1F16A56
Key fingerprint = C408 75B9 E68D 26E2 EAAE  20CF 4D5E 293D B1F1 6A56

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[splite]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 12:55:20AM -0400, Kumba wrote:
> [...]
> Satire can be good satire or bad satire.  It's all about how you phrase it.

Actually, it's in how one reads it.  Guess I should have used more smileys;
all the great satirists do.  Mark Twain was famous for it:

 "The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely
  food for laughter, they are an entire banquet. :)"

						-- Mark Twain in Eruption

> All the things zhen proposed were merely proposals.  They are not 
> anything concrete or set in stone.  It is probable that any proposals 
> made by zhen may have all live through debate to see the light of day, 

I thought we were debating.  Now we're debating about how to debate.

> or all may be consigned to bitrot in /dev/null.  It is also probable 
> that some (but not all) of his proposals may survive.  Who knows?  What 
> matters is they were just that -- Proposals.  Ideas.
> 
> Because of the fact that they were just proposals, I think the way you 
> made your point was perhaps a bit harsh, and a bit uneccessary.  There 

But more fun.  Should using Gentoo be fun, but discussing it not be?

> are better ways to say things w/o satiraclly picking apart every single 
> sentence to expose any possible flaws.  You could have been much more 

I wasn't picking apart anything, really.  I disagree with the lot.
Mr. Davis carefully structured his proposal; my reply merely reflected
that structure.

> polite in stating your belief of why Gentoo should steer clear of such 
> ideas to avoid becoming the next Debian.

Man, if you guys want to be in politics, you need to develop thicker hides.
:) (Notice the smiley, your key to good satire.)

> You're absolutely right on several things here.  Flamewars suck, so lets 
> not turn this discussion into one.  Second, Gentoo is indeed very fun. 

It hasn't been so far.  Nobody's parentage has been questioned, and Hitler
hasn't been invoked once.  (I did use "fascist", but not in reference to
Mr. Davis.)

> I was drawn to Gentoo because of the community atmosphere, and because 
> developers were friendly to users.  Even to users who are using Gentoo 
> as their very first Gentoo install.  This alone shows the vastly 
> different attitude within Gentoo when compared to other distributions 
> and other OSS OSes.
>
> I don't see Gentoo becoming heavily politicized.  But I do feel Gentoo 

I hope not, otherwise you'll see it forking into "Fun Gentoo" and
"Structured Gentoo".  Guess where the hackers will go.

> needs better structuring as an organization.

Why?  Whose needs aren't being met?  Gang, the NYSE isn't depending on
you to fix a broken XMMS ebuild so that the Exchange can open in the
morning.  Nobody's pacemaker is in danger of failing because mod_ssl
doesn't work on SPARC.  If Joe Bob is running his business on Gentoo
but doesn't have the skills to fix things himself, he should buy
SuSE or Red Hat and a support contract.  You don't owe him anything.

> Several of the ideas 
> proposed by zhen could very well assist that.  I'm quite sure if any of 
> his proposals are found to be incompatible with how Gentoo structures 
> itself, they will be summarily tossed aside and forgotten in the annals 
> of time.  No need to lash out with such ferocity at mere concepts, ideas 

That was hardly lashing.  "You suck!" would have been lashing.

> that haven't even been discussed/debated yet.  Simply state your opinion 
> of said ideas,

Did that.

> and back them up with proper logical reasoning.  That is the most any of
> us can hope to do.

Nothing I said was illogical.  "The small green lintball in my navel told me
that expecting Linux geeks to adhere to Robert's Rules of Order is utterly
daft" would be illogical.

--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[William McArthur]

Read: http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

The important part to lift from that essay is that not all memebers of a 
group need equal say. Gentoo needs, and already has IMO, a passionate 
core group that *leads* the project. Also, there is a point where more 
policy/procedure becomes too much.

One thing I learned back when I was an active gentoo "developer" back in 
2001/2002 was that everyone want's to leave their mark on the project. 
While good intentioned, not all marks are really improvements.

My $0.02.

Sandy McArthur


--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Brandon Low]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5887 bytes --]

On Mon, 07/14/03 at 21:46:21 -0400, John Davis wrote:
> Gentoo is at a crossroads: We can either continue to change and improve our management structure, or simply die like many other Linux distributions.
I agree, we are at a crossroads, but I disagree about which of the many
branches we should follow.  I think we have got the management thing
about as big as it needs to be, if we go any further toward managing
things, we're going to lose a lot of what many of us consider what is
GOOD about Gentoo, the FUN, the excitement, the 'cool' factor of being
able to SEE changes help users in almost real time without having to
wade through bullshit to do it.
> 
> In light of this issue, I propose the following changes to the Gentoo management structure:
> 
> 1. Constitution
> 	All great organizations realize the need to protect their most important asset, their volunteers and employees. Gentoo does not have such a document, therefore there is no 'legal' protection for the developers and volunteers. Although we all know that Gentoo is commited to this, it is nowhere in writing.
> 
> References: The Debian Constitution
> http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
We have the Gentoo Social Contract, that is the only guarantee that any
users should really need, it ensures that if anyone feels that they need
a different structure than what Gentoo currently offers they are free to
fork without retribution, and to have a good tiem doing it.  To further
constitutionalize ourselves and turn ourselves into a debian like
monstrosity would not help us but rather hinder us  by alienating our
most important asset: our users.  These are users who (I would guess)
close to half run ~x86 bleeding edge sometimes broken apps because it is
FUN.  These people have NO interest in politics or in the runnings of an
OSS project, they just want to see their favorite apps, and the latest
greatest toys on their desktops NOW, and they will not only help, but
ENJOY helping to fix issues which come up.
> 
> 2. Open voting
> 	At this point in time, there is no published ruleset for voting, and there is no public record of voting results. There is also no offical published method of calculating a voting quorum. Additionally, with regard to the election of new managers, the vote is kept secret.
> 
> In order for any democratic system that uses voting to be successful, there *must* be accountability, concrete rules, and open results. How can there possibly be accountability if the results of the vote are kept completely secret? The find line between an oligarchy and a representative democracy is voting accountability. The developers, managers, and uses *must* know that the Gentoo voting process is secure in its philosophy and practice.
> 
> References:
> http://www.debian.org/vote/ (Voting policy)
> http://www.debian.org/vote/2002/vote_0001 (Sample voting results)
> http://www.debian.org/vote/howto_vote (Sample voting ballot)
Someone else said this, but WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY, we are a loosely
conglomorated group of friends and associates with the common goal (and
this is the only common goal we really have) of making Gentoo GREAT, and
that is something I think we are all trying to do, but the problem is
that tryin to turn Gentoo into some kind of socio/political funhouse
ISN'T going allow the free and rapid development that we've been able to
maintain thus far.  What has let Gentoo become great is that everyone
has been completely free in their 'development time' to do whatever they
feel they need to do to better the distro, yes that meant that many
great projects that had a lot of hours in them got thrown out, but many
others that may never have even been started if everyone was doing
development tasks as assigned have become core aspects of our system.
> 
> 3. Defined terms for managers
> 	In order to preserve the balance of power, while at the same time protecting the rights and interests of the users and developers, it is necessary that all manager positions have a clear term length along with a clear and defined manager voting process (see above).
> 
> 	The developers and users need to make sure that their interests are being maintained, and that the managers are true delegates for the Gentoo community. The developers, as well as managers, need to ensure that this stays true through normal managerial election.
> 
See above, we're not a democracy, managers in an OSS project are there
because they earned the respect of their peers sufficiently to get that
place.  I DARE ** DARE ** someone to try to convince Linus or any of his
core people to have 'terms of office' in their roles, and see just how
fast whomever suggests it bites the dust.
> 4. Clear meeting procedure
> 	I encourage all developers and managers to review Robert's Book of Rules, as it provides invaluable information on proactive meeting procedure.
> 
> By creating this document, I hope to help fix the problems that I see with Gentoo Linux. I believe that positive, intellectual conversation can lead us to the light at the end of the tunnel. I encourage you all to participate in this discussion, but please restrain from anger, lashing out, etc.
You win on this point, we already have one, and enhancing it to further
our ability to communicate wouldn't hurt a bit.
> 
> Kind regards,
> //zhen
> 
No offence, Zhen, I like you, and I like your work, but I almost
completely disagree about the best direction for this project to take in
order to remain the great and fun project it is and to be able to
continue to grow and innovate in the great ways it has been for recent
years.

Sincerely,

Brandon Low

> -- 
> John Davis
> Gentoo Linux Developer
> <http://www.gentoo.org/~zhen>
> 
> ----
> Knowledge can be more terrible than ignorance if you're powerless to change your world.



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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[splite]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 01:01:44AM -0400, Brad Cowan wrote:
> My post wasn't to agree or disagree with the proposal, it was intended
> to stifle the personal attacks/flamage/whatnot

Nobody made a personal attack.  "What a dumb idea, you suck, go back
to using Debian" would have been a flame.  I'll cop to having plenty
of whatnot.

> and improve the overall quality of posts.

I think my posts are of reasonable quality.  I try to pay attention to
spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc.

> Well thought out posts/ideas deserve well thought out
> intelligent answers no matter how you feel one way or the other towards

Screeds aren't my style.  I think I made my point as succintly as
possible.  Are you uncertain of my position on the subject?

> the subject or even how stupid a subject is. It's a respect thing.

Nobody has cracked wise about anybody's momma.

On the other hand, I didn't receive any answers to the questions I
posed, just critiques of my literary style.  I would have been happy to
get replies in satire, haiku, ASCII art, whatever got the idea across.
Can't we have fun discussing a fun distro?

> Anyway that's my 2 cents.

I appreciate your responses, but maybe you could work in a booger joke
next time.

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-dev] Re: Gentoo part II.

[Martin Gramatke]

While Gentoo is actually blessed with highly respectable managers, I have
absolutely no idea what the future will be if some of them change their
life plans, e.g. get headhunted by MS ;-)

So I would really appreciate a more democratic structure in Gentoos's
management and I think Debian is a nice antetype. 

Not necessarily the users have to participate in such a voting system and
you really don't have to vote about technical issues which should be
decided by managers within their area of accountability. But at least the
managers should elect their own circle, role by role and temporal limited.

Gentoo now has a good base to start such a restructuring. With respect to
the notable efforts of individually managers in the past, I fully
understand if they want to keep their good influence on Gentoo.

But a democratic structure would give me a much better feeling concerning
the long term availability and stability of Gentoo. This would wipe off my
last doubt if Gentoo is my distribution for at least the next twenty years.

I support John's proposal by one hundred percent.

mg




--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Ralph F. De Witt]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Monday 14 July 2003 11:16 pm, Brandon Low wrote:
> I agree, we are at a crossroads, but I disagree about which of the many
> branches we should follow.  I think we have got the management thing
> about as big as it needs to be, if we go any further toward managing
> things, we're going to lose a lot of what many of us consider what is
> GOOD about Gentoo, the FUN, the excitement, the 'cool' factor of being
> able to SEE changes help users in almost real time without having to
> wade through bullshit to do it.
>
IMHO I agree.

[snip]
>
> We have the Gentoo Social Contract, that is the only guarantee that any
> users should really need, it ensures that if anyone feels that they need
> a different structure than what Gentoo currently offers they are free to
> fork without retribution, and to have a good tiem doing it.  To further
> constitutionalize ourselves and turn ourselves into a debian like
> monstrosity would not help us but rather hinder us  by alienating our
> most important asset: our users.  These are users who (I would guess)
> close to half run ~x86 bleeding edge sometimes broken apps because it is
> FUN.  These people have NO interest in politics or in the runnings of an
> OSS project, they just want to see their favorite apps, and the latest
> greatest toys on their desktops NOW, and they will not only help, but
> ENJOY helping to fix issues which come up.
>
IMHO I agree.

> > 2. Open voting
> >       At this point in time, there is no published ruleset for voting,
> > and there is no public record of voting results. There is also no offical
> > published method of calculating a voting quorum. Additionally, with
> > regard to the election of new managers, the vote is kept secret.
> >
> > In order for any democratic system that uses voting to be successful,
> > there *must* be accountability, concrete rules, and open results. How can
> > there possibly be accountability if the results of the vote are kept
> > completely secret? The find line between an oligarchy and a
> > representative democracy is voting accountability. The developers,
> > managers, and uses *must* know that the Gentoo voting process is secure
> > in its philosophy and practice.
> >
> > References:
> > http://www.debian.org/vote/ (Voting policy)
> > http://www.debian.org/vote/2002/vote_0001 (Sample voting results)
> > http://www.debian.org/vote/howto_vote (Sample voting ballot)
>
Who wants voting. I am more than happy filling a bugzilla request for a app or 
a bug fix and seeing it happen almost real time with out some voting 
processes and having to wait months if it get's enough votes etc. IMHO bad 
idea.

> Someone else said this, but WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY, we are a loosely
> conglomorated group of friends and associates with the common goal (and
> this is the only common goal we really have) of making Gentoo GREAT, and
> that is something I think we are all trying to do, but the problem is
> that tryin to turn Gentoo into some kind of socio/political funhouse
> ISN'T going allow the free and rapid development that we've been able to
> maintain thus far.
IMHO I agree.

  What has let Gentoo become great is that everyone
> has been completely free in their 'development time' to do whatever they
> feel they need to do to better the distro, yes that meant that many
> great projects that had a lot of hours in them got thrown out, but many
> others that may never have even been started if everyone was doing
> development tasks as assigned have become core aspects of our system.
Here Here. IMHO I agree.

Let us not turn Gentoo into a Meta Debian distribution. Lets stay near 
bleeding edge, quick fix time fun distribution. With a structure of our own 
design that works for us.
- -- 
	Yours,
	Ralph.
It said Use Windows XP or better, so I installed Gentoo Linux 1.4 
Register Linux User 168814 ICQ #49993234 AIM ralphdewitt jabber.org 
ralphdewitt
GPG Public Key available at hkp://blackhole.pca.dfn.de
Key id = 0DE2 085D
Kernel version 2.4.20-gentoo-r2
Current Linux uptime: 2 days 23 hours 42 minutes.
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=aHiQ
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Brad Laue]

Brandon Low wrote:
>  if we go any further toward managing
> things, we're going to lose a lot of what many of us consider what is
> GOOD about Gentoo, the FUN, the excitement, the 'cool' factor of being
> able to SEE changes help users in almost real time without having to
> wade through bullshit to do it.

This is a unique quality, one Gentoo has created by means of its 
friendly developer community and its fast paced movement. I don't 
believe any other distribution can do what Gentoo does.

> These are users who (I would guess)
> close to half run ~x86 bleeding edge sometimes broken apps because it is
> FUN.  These people have NO interest in politics or in the runnings of an
> OSS project, they just want to see their favorite apps, and the latest
> greatest toys on their desktops NOW, and they will not only help, but
> ENJOY helping to fix issues which come up.

Exactly.

> See above, we're not a democracy, managers in an OSS project are there
> because they earned the respect of their peers sufficiently to get that
> place.  I DARE ** DARE ** someone to try to convince Linus or any of his
> core people to have 'terms of office' in their roles, and see just how
> fast whomever suggests it bites the dust.
> 
> 
> No offence, Zhen, I like you, and I like your work, but I almost
> completely disagree about the best direction for this project to take in
> order to remain the great and fun project it is and to be able to
> continue to grow and innovate in the great ways it has been for recent
> years.
> 

Not to incite an argument, but I think we can all see the areas where 
Debian fails to be a shining example of Linux development. I see a great 
number of suggestions being made that call for Gentoo to move more in 
line with Debian's development structure, and it smacks of not being 
able to learn from the mistakes of the past.

As I said above, Gentoo is unique, it is not Debian. I think a 
management structure and a methodology for shaping Gentoo's future must 
be very different from that of Debian if Gentoo is to maintain that 
uniqueness.

Democracy in a development environment will create chaos. A constitution 
is going to create a distant core team environment which, as we've seen, 
has not been of benefit lately to XFree86 or the FreeBSD project, let 
alone Debian itself - there will be constant bickering over legalities 
and entitlements. Restricting the length of time in which a manager can 
remain a manager doesn't make any sense. Isn't someone only going to get 
better at their job, the longer they do it (rhetorical)?

Cheers,
Brad


--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 15 July 2003 07:29, splite wrote:
>
> I hope not, otherwise you'll see it forking into "Fun Gentoo" and
> "Structured Gentoo".  Guess where the hackers will go.

Guess where the users will go. 

Although I don't like politics, they are unavoidable. There are now like 150 
developers for gentoo. Having a single "boss", and a "lieutenant" with no 
structure at all is not going to work. Especially as the amount of developers 
grows. We need structure. Part of that structure is a place where things are 
documented, like responsibilities.

The problem is that with 30 developers you could easilly ask something you 
didn't know. Now the problem is that you can still ask, but you don't know 
who to ask. Documenting procedure and formalizing a bit should help.

There are also many people and organizations that want gentoo to run on their 
servers. Those people have one thing they REALLY REALLY hate, and that is 
comming to office in the morning and finding out that the nightly world 
update fucked up their setup, and it will take at least until the end of the 
morning fixing things up. Normally such thing will mean a great loss of 
productivity.

Since we believe that the gentoo technology is better than the competition, 
even for servers we want to offer what they want while keeping what we have. 
For offering what is needed for servers we do need more quality assurance. 

With QA and the growth of the project comes a management structure. That 
structure is inevitable. John made a proposal on how to arange parts of that 
structure. While we will put every effort in it not to create a new debian, 
we need to be more organized than before.

So please all discuss the merrits of his proposals. I believe that the 
problems they try to address are there and are well accepted.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 15 July 2003 06:38, Stewart Honsberger wrote:
> splite wrote:
> >>Gentoo is at a crossroads: We can either continue to change and
> >>improve our management structure, or simply die like many other Linux
> >>distributions.
> >
> > Or we can slowly smother ourselves with bureaucracy like Debian is doing.
>
> {sigh}
>
> I read John's message twice, looking for the same "April Fools!" trailer
> you sought after.
>
> I can't believe my eyes.
>
> I'm so stunned by the beauroclaptrap I've just read I'm short for words.
>
> I really think Gentoo's "management" needs to rethink their approach. I
>   don't want to be part of that future.

Zhen's proposal is NOT the official standpoint of the management. Personally I 
want to do everything possible to prevent gentoo from becomming a big 
bureaucracy. We do however need a bit more structure than before just because 
of the sheer size of the project. Please feel free to tell me the issues you 
have, and I'll try to make sure they are addressed.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Stroller]

On 15/7/03 10:06 am, "Paul de Vrieze" <pauldv@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> So please all discuss the merrits of his proposals. I believe that the
> problems they try to address are there and are well accepted.

I do not intend to make this post a criticism of Zynot, but at the time of
the recent fork, some of Gentoo's weaknesses with respect to leadership &
openness were highlighted by zwelch.

zwelch proposed that his Zynot fork would be characterised by its
constitution & democratic nature, and at the same time Gentoo addressed its
possible failings in this regard & published guidelines on its
restructuring.

3 weeks later, Zynot's most popular forum is about a vote to rename the
distro..! Even it's current name is unclear - the domain zynot.org is
registered, but the mailing lists come with "Re: [zynaut]" in the header.

When I visit a distribution's website, I kinda expect to find a page
explaining what that distro can so for me; the Zynaught page is essentially
a wikki, with its ethical Mission Statement & Zach's story-of-a-fork amongst
the most prominent links. I'm not really clear what Zynot can do for me -
can I install it on my x86 PC, as an alternative to Gentoo, or is it
focusing strictly on the imbedded market..?

Undoubtedly, it is early days for the fork, so it is not fair to diss them
at this stage - undoubtedly there's stuff going on in the background that
won't be apparent to casual observation - but equally it is not appropriate
for Gentoo to model itself on Zynot yet..!

The restructuring of Gentoo is too recent to have shown results yet, so
let's see how that goes before changing things TOO radically. It seems to me
to have been a correct & very positive step towards resolving management
issues, and additionally (as a result?) there seem to have been a number of
very positive proposals (including this one) recently.

#gentoo & this mailing list provide great opportunities for devs to get
feedback from users - as long as that feedback is not seen to be ignored,
then I believe that users will continue to be happy with Gentoo. I, like
many others, would prefer Gentoo to be fun & responsive, and that the
priority be on development over politics. I have a great deal of confidence
that  Gentoo will continue to grow strongly, but will switch to Zynot should
I feel that it better suits my needs - in this way competition is a Good
Thing .

Stroller.


--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 15 July 2003 09:21, Ralph F. De Witt wrote:
> > > References:
> > > http://www.debian.org/vote/ (Voting policy)
> > > http://www.debian.org/vote/2002/vote_0001 (Sample voting results)
> > > http://www.debian.org/vote/howto_vote (Sample voting ballot)
>
> Who wants voting. I am more than happy filling a bugzilla request for a app
> or a bug fix and seeing it happen almost real time with out some voting
> processes and having to wait months if it get's enough votes etc. IMHO bad
> idea.
>

I don't think John ever thought about votes for inclusion of ebuilds. There 
are however times when "big" decisions need to be made. There are basically 
three ways to handle that:
- Don't make them, and stay goalless
- Vote, which should ensure more commitment, but could also lead to middle of
  the road solutions
- Dictate a choice, in this case a choice would either be made by THE leader,
  or by "management". 

As there are no voting procedures at all, the current situation is that a 
solution is proposed, people have comments, after which the proposal is 
addapted. Then either the whole proposal and problem are forgotten about or 
someone decides that this is the way to go and gives the go-ahead.

The main issue with the current approach is that proposals are forgotten. The 
case with a management decision is not so much a problem as management also 
must get the developers along. If it doesn't people walk away and fork

Paul

ps. Note that zynot has also a management structure in place from the start

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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RE: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Stuart Herbert]

John,

> By creating this document, I hope to help fix the problems 
> that I see with Gentoo Linux.

Mmm ... the problems I see with Gentoo Linux seem to be a little different:

a) ebuilds marked stable w/ no robust QA procedures
b) unmaintained ebuilds
c) too many packages that Gentoo has no ebuilds for (yet ;-)
d) bugs not addressed quickly enough

Basically, I want STABLE to *mean* STABLE, I want ebuilds for new releases
on the day the releases come out, and I want to be able to install all the
applications that I want to use.  I'm a consumer in that respect, and my
concerns are anything that makes my consumer experience worse.  And that
includes death-by-committee(TM).

I don't see how any of your proposals are going to improve that situation.

1). Constitution

If people don't understand the spirit behind such rules, then the rules
themselves are no protection.  You'll get people nit-picking over the
written word, rather than over the intention behind those words.  This
happens everywhere, and is (unfortunately) human nature.  Something like the
Social Contract is much better, because it tries to capture the spirit that
is Gentoo.

I've actually made this mistake with an organisation once, and as you can
probably tell, I regret it quite deeply ;-)

2). Open Voting

This one's a close call for me.  There is a real danger in all groups of
them becoming inward-looking - a clique.  And when that happens, things tend
to go downhill very quickly.  Having anyone able to stand for a position,
and publically be judged for the role, might be able to offset that.

Problem is - that's exactly how useless good-for-nothing can't-code-for-shit
f**kers end up way over their heads in positions of authority.  They can't
do the technical job themselves, so they decide to tell others how it should
be done.  Politics is the passion of the parasite.

The Linux kernel thrives precisely because it's led by technically-competent
people.  Linus, Andrew, Alan et al are engineers first and foremost.  Right
now, the 'senior' people I've delt with in Gentoo appear to be of a similar
mould.  They've already survived the first hurdle - the threat of a fork -
and rather than circle the wagons, they've responded proactively and
positively to the *perception* that others have about Gentoo.  I'm
personally encouraged by what I've seen, and have more confidence in Gentoo
than I did two months ago.

3). Defined Terms For Managers

Preserve the balance of *power*?  If all this is about *power*, then I think
it's coming from completely the wrong direction.  The pursuit of power of
some, and the fear of giving up power by others, is the politics of the
insecure and the paranoid.  One lot believe the only way to survive is to
live off of the efforts of others, and the other lot live in fear of the
first lot because they know that they're too easy to push around.  Very
unhealthy ;-)

Why not do something more useful, and capture their *responsibilities*
instead?  The function of management should be to ensure that key
*responsibilities* are met; and Gentoo should be no exception.  This
healthier mindset would support the draft QA proposals that are kicking
around.  Never give power to anyone - just give them more work ;-)  And if
they don't meet their responsibilities, well - think of it as turkeys voting
for Christmas.

4). Meeting Procedure

I haven't been to any Gentoo meetings, so I can't comment on this.

--

I just want to add my small voice to those calling for Gentoo to remain true
to its original nature.  It's light, it's fast, and it's fun.  And it
results in a distro that is fresh, exciting, and constantly improving.
Debian, RedHat, Mandrake, <insert distro here> - none of these were
original.  They all arose from people who became unhappy with earlier
distributions - SLS, Slackware, Ygdrassil(sp?) and so on.  At first, they
were all different too.  But either politics, or money (or both) have
changed them, and not for the better.

As organisations increase in size, some structure is inevitable.  But it
seems the public debate is all about who gets into that structure and who
gets left out, rather than being about identifying clear goals for Gentoo
and then putting in a structure to meet those goals.  If the goals aren't
clear, then the structure becomes self-serving.

So I'm calling for the debate to shift away from politics, and onto
practicalities.  Where are the *procedural* problems with Gentoo?  What can
be done to get more ebuilds into portage, make it easier to keep ebuilds up
to date with current releases, and all whilst improving the quality of the
(dare I say it) 'customer experience'?  Damnit - *these* are the things that
should matter.

Best regards,
Stu
--



--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Gentoo part II.

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 15 July 2003 09:01, Martin Gramatke wrote:
> While Gentoo is actually blessed with highly respectable managers, I have
> absolutely no idea what the future will be if some of them change their
> life plans, e.g. get headhunted by MS ;-)
>
> So I would really appreciate a more democratic structure in Gentoos's
> management and I think Debian is a nice antetype.
>
> Not necessarily the users have to participate in such a voting system and
> you really don't have to vote about technical issues which should be
> decided by managers within their area of accountability. But at least the
> managers should elect their own circle, role by role and temporal limited.

This is exactly what happens. These internal elections are closed to protect 
the privacy of the people concidered, and to allow for open discussion. Be 
assured though that it's not just Daniel deciding everything.

> Gentoo now has a good base to start such a restructuring. With respect to
> the notable efforts of individually managers in the past, I fully
> understand if they want to keep their good influence on Gentoo.
>
> But a democratic structure would give me a much better feeling concerning
> the long term availability and stability of Gentoo. This would wipe off my
> last doubt if Gentoo is my distribution for at least the next twenty years.
>

In general gentoo is very democratic. Most decisions are debated through for 
extensive times on -core and #gentoo-dev. What is lacking is the fact that 
too often there is no one to say, "ok, this is what we agreed upon. If there 
are no new objections, implementors go ahead". 

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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RE: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Stuart Herbert]

> The main issue with the current approach is that proposals 
> are forgotten. 

Mmm ... are they really forgotten, or is it more a case that they fade away
because the work to implement them just doesn't get done?  If ideas don't
gather enthusiasm or momentum, then perhaps it is more healthy for them to
die, than to be half-heartedly implemented by someone working to a 'todo'
list drawn up by others?

> The case with a management decision is not so much a problem as 
> management also must get the developers along. If it doesn't 
> people walk away and fork

Project forks are typically political, not just technical.  They're about
power and control.

Managers should be there to make it *easier* for developers to do
development.  Managers don't do the work - it's the developers that do.  Any
agenda for a project should be defined by leaders.  Management and
leadership are very different roles!  When management insist that only
*they* can be the leaders, that's when developers start to vote with their
feet.
 
Best regards,
Stu
--



--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[splite]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 11:06:09AM +0200, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
Content-Description: signed data
> On Tuesday 15 July 2003 07:29, splite wrote:
> >
> > I hope not, otherwise you'll see it forking into "Fun Gentoo" and
> > "Structured Gentoo".  Guess where the hackers will go.
> 
> Guess where the users will go. 

When they see people voting instead of doing, they'll go elsewhere.  I did.

> Although I don't like politics, they are unavoidable. There are now like 150 

There's politics, then there's Politics.  Constitutions, voting, RRO, all
belong under the capital-P version.

> developers for gentoo. Having a single "boss", and a "lieutenant" with no 
> structure at all is not going to work. Especially as the amount of
> developers grows. 

Works for the Linux kernel.  Why do you need more developers?  Does every
package in the universe have to end up in the portage tree, with its own
developer?  I'm quite serious.  Just because someone cobbles up an ebuild
for whatever obscure package, does it have to go in?

> We need structure.

You have structure now.  Why make it a full-blown bureaucracy?

> Part of that structure is a place where things are documented, like
> responsibilities.

You already have a place for documentation.

> The problem is that with 30 developers you could easilly ask something you 
> didn't know. Now the problem is that you can still ask, but you don't know 
> who to ask. Documenting procedure and formalizing a bit should help.

What's wrong with giving a shout-out to gentoo-dev?  I'd rather see someone
documenting Portage better (say, "how SLOTs work"), than documenting
procedures for asking questions.

> There are also many people and organizations that want gentoo to run on their 
> servers. Those people have one thing they REALLY REALLY hate, and that is 
> comming to office in the morning and finding out that the nightly world 
> update fucked up their setup, and it will take at least until the end of the 

Then those people shouldn't be idiots.  Seriously, who in their right mind
runs automated nightly updates on production systems?  Run them on a test
machine, then if things look okay afterward, push it out to the production
boxes.  That's common sense.

> morning fixing things up. Normally such thing will mean a great loss of 
> productivity.

Then they should be paying Red Hat or SuSE for support.  Folks, you're
not responsible for someone being dumb enough to let their systems be
borked nightly.  In fact, if you start acting like you are, you may
well find someone trying to hold you to it in court.

> Since we believe that the gentoo technology is better than the competition, 

Gentoo tech is quite nice, but it doesn't have to be all things to all people.

> even for servers we want to offer what they want while keeping what we have. 

If they want a system that's flexible and easy to fix and customize, Gentoo's
great.  If they want guaranteed uptime, they should buy a commercial distro
and a service contract.

> For offering what is needed for servers we do need more quality assurance. 

I hate to keep bringing up Debian, but it's a perfect example.  Their
desire for QA has brought the project to a virtual standstill.  Even given
the huge number of Debian Developers, they can't validate all 10,000+
packages on the 11 architectures they support in any timely fashion.
That's why they're taking years between releases now.

As long as Gentoo keeps being "good enough", it will have users.  As long
as its developers take pride and derive enjoyment from working on it,
Gentoo will be good enough.  You don't need Quality Assurance committees
drawing up charts and setting milestones.  If you want to set a release
date, just pick one, Bach's birthday, whatever.  Ship whatever you have
on that date; it's still bound to be better than Debian or Red Hat, even
with all their QA aparatus.

> With QA and the growth of the project comes a management structure. That 

Any "project" has a management structure, by definition.  If the present
structure can't keep up with growth, another possibility is to check the
growth.

> structure is inevitable. John made a proposal on how to arange parts of that 
> structure. While we will put every effort in it not to create a new debian, 
> we need to be more organized than before.

That's appreciated, but I and a few others think he went over the top.
Debian is not the model to emulate.  I wouldn't even try to make a "fixed"
version.  Maybe Gentoo should stick to its founding spirit and come up
with something different.

> So please all discuss the merrits of his proposals. I believe that the 
> problems they try to address are there and are well accepted.

I don't think the actual problems have really been discussed, at least
not here.  As I asked before, whose needs aren't being met here?  Simply
stating "we need structure" like it's axiomatic isn't an argument.  If the
developers are having fun, and the users are getting something useful (and
for free), why isn't that sufficient?

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Daniel Jaeggi]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 05:37:42AM -0500, splite wrote:
> > With QA and the growth of the project comes a management structure. That 
> 
> Any "project" has a management structure, by definition.  If the present
> structure can't keep up with growth, another possibility is to check the
> growth.
> 

There, you've said it! As a gentoo user, the way I see things is that
its are growing too fast and the current system and decision making
processes can't really keep up. In particular, bug tracking and fixing
and too many development ideas going there own direction. IMHO the
present structure can't keep up with growth. We agree so much!

The trouble is, is that growth seems to be the aim of the general
project. Witness Gentoo Games, Gentoo Embedded, Gentoo Hardened and
general noise from the gentoo project - people want to grow. 

Therefore, as checking growth is not posible and does not seem desired,
some change is a necessity. OK, I'm not in favour at all of
consensus voting, Debian style mis-management but there must be some
suitable structure that allows a handle to be keept on the project while
still allowing development freedom.

Dan


--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 15 July 2003 12:19, Stuart Herbert wrote:
> John,
>
> > By creating this document, I hope to help fix the problems
> > that I see with Gentoo Linux.
>
> Mmm ... the problems I see with Gentoo Linux seem to be a little different:
>
> a) ebuilds marked stable w/ no robust QA procedures
> b) unmaintained ebuilds
> c) too many packages that Gentoo has no ebuilds for (yet ;-)
> d) bugs not addressed quickly enough
>

I hope you realise that your desires are conflicting. more ebuilds leads to 
more unmaintained ebuilds. More QA needs more time.

We are trying to address these problems in a way that is satisfactory for 
everyone.

<big cut>

> So I'm calling for the debate to shift away from politics, and onto
> practicalities.  Where are the *procedural* problems with Gentoo?  What can
> be done to get more ebuilds into portage, make it easier to keep ebuilds up
> to date with current releases, and all whilst improving the quality of the
> (dare I say it) 'customer experience'?  Damnit - *these* are the things
> that should matter.

Be assured that these issues are being addressed. This requires time though, 
as restructuring is necessary for it to happen.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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RE: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Stuart Herbert]

> I hope you realise that your desires are conflicting. more 
> ebuilds leads to 
> more unmaintained ebuilds. More QA needs more time.

Rubbish.  Totally utter rubbish.

The right levels of QA *save* time, because things are done
as-right-as-they-can-be first time.  Instead of time going into bug fixing
and constantly re-doing what has been done, the time instead goes into
moving forward, and doing new things.  *Too much* QA just bogs the whole
thing down, and makes it impossible to get anything done in a timely
fashion.  The two are very different.

I can think of one way to make dealing with unmaintained ebuilds easy
enough.  First of all, put in place a mechanism to remove the guesswork
about whether a particular package is maintained or not.  Then, create a
pool of developers who will handle new ebuilds for these packages.  Finally,
make a site where people can come and tell you when an ebuild is out of date
(or just use Bugzilla).  That way, packages that no-one particularly wants
to maintain are driven by 'customer demand' (for lack of a better phrase).
Final step is to setup some 'tinderbox' machines, where the unmaintained
ebuilds are automatically built.  When they finally break, a bug could be
automatically raised on Bugzilla for someone in the pool to look at it.

There's also another way.  Encourage more opensource projects to maintain
their own ebuilds.  Many of them maintain SPEC files for building RedHat
RPMs.  So why not try and distribute the work more widely too?

What are *your* proposals for addressing this?  I'd like to hear them.

> We are trying to address these problems in a way that is 
> satisfactory for everyone.

Are you speaking for yourself, or for TheManagement(tm)?

> Be assured that these issues are being addressed. This 
> requires time though, as restructuring is necessary for it to happen.

You talk like we should run along and play, and not bother BigPeople(tm)
like yourself.  You'll have to excuse me if I don't like that ;-)  It's
exactly this sort of *presentation* (I use the work presentation because
you've included nothing of substance in your reply!) that makes people call
for more openness in the community.  Interesting.

Best regards,
Stu
--



--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 15 July 2003 12:37, splite wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 11:06:09AM +0200, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> Content-Description: signed data
>

> > developers for gentoo. Having a single "boss", and a "lieutenant" with no
> > structure at all is not going to work. Especially as the amount of
> > developers grows.
>
> Works for the Linux kernel.  Why do you need more developers?  Does every
> package in the universe have to end up in the portage tree, with its own
> developer?  I'm quite serious.  Just because someone cobbles up an ebuild
> for whatever obscure package, does it have to go in?

Well, Linus has more then one luitennant. And those luitennants also have 
their own sergeants etc. The kernel development process is surely structured. 
It has local responsibilities just as gentoo is going to have.

>
> > We need structure.
>
> You have structure now.  Why make it a full-blown bureaucracy?

No, we don't (well didn't, as we are trying to set it up now)


>
> > Part of that structure is a place where things are documented, like
> > responsibilities.
>
> You already have a place for documentation.

We need developer-developer documentation, and indeed we have a place for it. 
Having a place though, does not make that it doesn't need to get written.

>
> > The problem is that with 30 developers you could easilly ask something
> > you didn't know. Now the problem is that you can still ask, but you don't
> > know who to ask. Documenting procedure and formalizing a bit should help.
>
> What's wrong with giving a shout-out to gentoo-dev?  I'd rather see someone
> documenting Portage better (say, "how SLOTs work"), than documenting
> procedures for asking questions.
>

We are not documenting procedures at all, or aiming to. We are documenting who 
does what, so we can see the gaps and overlaps.

> > There are also many people and organizations that want gentoo to run on
> > their servers. Those people have one thing they REALLY REALLY hate, and
> > that is comming to office in the morning and finding out that the nightly
> > world update fucked up their setup, and it will take at least until the
> > end of the
>
> Then those people shouldn't be idiots.  Seriously, who in their right mind
> runs automated nightly updates on production systems?  Run them on a test
> machine, then if things look okay afterward, push it out to the production
> boxes.  That's common sense.
>

Of course they don't do that, but there are contacts with corporations that do 
want to use gentoo because they like its structure, but don't like the moving 
target nature of the tree. The idea is to create releases to suit those 
users. Those releases then only receive security fixes and major bug fixes.

> > morning fixing things up. Normally such thing will mean a great loss of
> > productivity.
>
> Then they should be paying Red Hat or SuSE for support.  Folks, you're
> not responsible for someone being dumb enough to let their systems be
> borked nightly.  In fact, if you start acting like you are, you may
> well find someone trying to hold you to it in court.
>

Of course no smart person does a nightly update on a production system. They 
just want MORE stability.

> > Since we believe that the gentoo technology is better than the
> > competition,
>
> Gentoo tech is quite nice, but it doesn't have to be all things to all
> people.
>
I didn't say it is perfect, I said that it is better than competition for the 
area's we care about.

> > even for servers we want to offer what they want while keeping what we
> > have.
>
> If they want a system that's flexible and easy to fix and customize,
> Gentoo's great.  If they want guaranteed uptime, they should buy a
> commercial distro and a service contract.
>

No OS vendor guarantees uptime as there are too many untracable causes for 
crashes. Many of them hardware (or position of the moon) related.

> > For offering what is needed for servers we do need more quality
> > assurance.
>
> I hate to keep bringing up Debian, but it's a perfect example.  Their
> desire for QA has brought the project to a virtual standstill.  Even given
> the huge number of Debian Developers, they can't validate all 10,000+
> packages on the 11 architectures they support in any timely fashion.
> That's why they're taking years between releases now.
>
> As long as Gentoo keeps being "good enough", it will have users.  As long
> as its developers take pride and derive enjoyment from working on it,
> Gentoo will be good enough.  You don't need Quality Assurance committees
> drawing up charts and setting milestones.  If you want to set a release
> date, just pick one, Bach's birthday, whatever.  Ship whatever you have
> on that date; it's still bound to be better than Debian or Red Hat, even
> with all their QA aparatus.

There is no final decision on QA yet, but the idea is to pick a date, say 
Bach's birthday, then do a fixed period of testing and fixing (coming from a 
stable branch that should have no bugs anyway), then release.

>
> > With QA and the growth of the project comes a management structure. That
>
> Any "project" has a management structure, by definition.  If the present
> structure can't keep up with growth, another possibility is to check the
> growth.

No growth implies a change of the structure. We are currently in that process. 
And indeed we do check growth rates with our ability to manage it.

>
> > structure is inevitable. John made a proposal on how to arange parts of
> > that structure. While we will put every effort in it not to create a new
> > debian, we need to be more organized than before.
>
> That's appreciated, but I and a few others think he went over the top.
> Debian is not the model to emulate.  I wouldn't even try to make a "fixed"
> version.  Maybe Gentoo should stick to its founding spirit and come up
> with something different.
>
I never said I agree with everything that John said. 


> > So please all discuss the merrits of his proposals. I believe that the
> > problems they try to address are there and are well accepted.
>
> I don't think the actual problems have really been discussed, at least
> not here.  As I asked before, whose needs aren't being met here?  Simply
> stating "we need structure" like it's axiomatic isn't an argument.  If the
> developers are having fun, and the users are getting something useful (and
> for free), why isn't that sufficient?
>

Because we want to be better tomorrow than we are today. Gentoo is not 
perfect, and probably newer will be, but we can aim towards it. For gentoo 
developing to stay fun, developers must keep the feeling that their ideas are 
being considered. Any good idea that stays in a developers/users private 
overlay is basically a waste. Today that happens too often because of certain 
chokepoints.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Spider]

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begin  quote
On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 21:46:21 -0400
John Davis <zhen@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Good evening all:

Not as good as it could have been.  You dropped a bomb here in the idle
summer idyll of our list. And there's a lot of people who reacted to it.
 As expected I think.

I won't go through doing point-to-point rebuttals to your suggestions
here, frankly because I don't have the clarity of mind to do so in a
well thought out way.

Constitution..  We should protect our users, for what?  erm?

perhaps some limits on the management team, that they should not use
their management position or be in a management position if they have an
ulterior goal other than Gentoo? 

(We need to port this to f00-arch now! since I'll earn money off it in
private... *Evil glimmer of eyes and small portrouding horns out of
$NEW_MANAGERS head.)


Voting, Just who'm would be voting? So far all I've see as proposals
about voiting have been a developer (or a few) with an idea, and along
with the vote goes a technical debate, so iun turn itslike the
discussion of a RFC where you either agree or disagree, but also
-comment- in a useful way.
To take this and separate it further into blown-out global-dev votes
would remove a lot of that good discussion, frankly I -want- the
opinions of other developers (hey, they are technically inclined, and I
trust them to to either shut up or find out more if they think they
aren't.).  Instead it would risk falling down to the lovely anonymous
feeling of foo voted Bar, at which turn we'd loose another asset.
Discussion.


Wether the momentum that is needed to make it happen exists or not, is
another thing. Some such ideas might be hard to do but necessary, and in
that case I trust the -management-  to bring it up and space it out to
developers tehy think are capable of doing it.  And if failing to do so,
do it t hemselves.  :-)

Terms for managers?  Well, there are terms. until they grow tired, until
the people they manage go tired (I expect it to happen sometime.  There
will be a small set of rumblings on irc about a manager thats hard to
get hold of, then a note will be sent to the list. "Could you managers
kick $MANAGER in the ass and make him around more?" .  At this point I'd
expect management to be self-managing enough to either kick (and perhaps
kick hard)  or replace said $MANAGER.

Structuring it further and implying more limits will force even more of
the bothers of politics around, and frankly. Can you people show me a
democracy that works?  No, not in theory, in practice...
(don't reply to this last statement, if you do you fall into the
flame-trap)


Meeting procedure.  Ergh.  Frankly, as I've seen it they have managed
surprisingly well. Not all meetings -need- to be strict and formal after
the rule-set dictated by your local church. (point one, apply meeting
leader. point two assign secretary. point three, assign....   Whereby
the meeting starts after 20-30 minutes with the 9th post on the list
which is to read through last weeks protocol and jury it  as valid or
not.  SHeeesh.)

Frankly, I think they do it well. Let them keep doing it in a way they
are comfortable with.  its more important (for me) that developers are
comfortable than that they follow procedure. (remember, managers are
also developers.  perhaps not in life, but this is  better. ;-)


Regards, 
   Spider

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 15 July 2003 13:39, Stuart Herbert wrote:
> > I hope you realise that your desires are conflicting. more
> > ebuilds leads to
> > more unmaintained ebuilds. More QA needs more time.
>
> Rubbish.  Totally utter rubbish.
>
> The right levels of QA *save* time, because things are done
> as-right-as-they-can-be first time.  Instead of time going into bug fixing
> and constantly re-doing what has been done, the time instead goes into
> moving forward, and doing new things.  *Too much* QA just bogs the whole
> thing down, and makes it impossible to get anything done in a timely
> fashion.  The two are very different.

It is not rubbish, but there are ways that can try to make the conflicts as 
small as possible, but if you want to have an ebuild an hour after a package 
was released (which I also want) there is not much time to do QA, so things 
will break every now and then. If you don't want things to break at all, even 
in an unstable tree, use debian. Gentoo needs to find a middle road.

> I can think of one way to make dealing with unmaintained ebuilds easy
> enough.  First of all, put in place a mechanism to remove the guesswork
> about whether a particular package is maintained or not.  Then, create a
> pool of developers who will handle new ebuilds for these packages. 
> Finally, make a site where people can come and tell you when an ebuild is
> out of date (or just use Bugzilla).  That way, packages that no-one
> particularly wants to maintain are driven by 'customer demand' (for lack of
> a better phrase). Final step is to setup some 'tinderbox' machines, where
> the unmaintained ebuilds are automatically built.  When they finally break,
> a bug could be automatically raised on Bugzilla for someone in the pool to
> look at it.
>
Most breakage is not in compilation unfortunately, but in odd combinations of 
packages creating broken results.


> There's also another way.  Encourage more opensource projects to maintain
> their own ebuilds.  Many of them maintain SPEC files for building RedHat
> RPMs.  So why not try and distribute the work more widely too?
>
> What are *your* proposals for addressing this?  I'd like to hear them.

Well, what I'm doing to address some of these things is the herds project. It 
aims to find maintainers for all ebuilds. That way we can identify lost 
packages, and make sure they are maintained or abandoned.

>
> > We are trying to address these problems in a way that is
> > satisfactory for everyone.
>
> Are you speaking for yourself, or for TheManagement(tm)?

I'm trying to speak for the gentoo project, of which the management is a part

>
> > Be assured that these issues are being addressed. This
> > requires time though, as restructuring is necessary for it to happen.
>
> You talk like we should run along and play, and not bother BigPeople(tm)
> like yourself.  You'll have to excuse me if I don't like that ;-)  It's
> exactly this sort of *presentation* (I use the work presentation because
> you've included nothing of substance in your reply!) that makes people call
> for more openness in the community.  Interesting.
>

I don't consider myself to be a BigPerson(tm), and I don't mind to explain 
things, or even to change my opinion because of someone elses arguments. I do 
however don't want to bring up false hopes by comming out with proposals that 
need revision and are not ready yet. I can tell you however that we are busy 
finding a solution. I can not tell the solution because there is none yet.

The major problems at the moment are responsibilities (who does what), how 
will we finalize the management restructuring (as this proposal is part of), 
how can we rearange things to get better QA, and what to do with "small" 
ebuilds.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Spider]

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begin  quote
On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 12:39:54 +0100
"Stuart Herbert" <stuart@myrddraal.demon.co.uk> wrote:

okay, I'll start this off in a way that probably suits another forum
better, but I can't stop myself after theese posts about QA..

Yes, its a flame.


> > I hope you realise that your desires are conflicting. more 
> > ebuilds leads to 
> > more unmaintained ebuilds. More QA needs more time.
> 
> Rubbish.  Totally utter rubbish.
> 
> The right levels of QA *save* time, because things are done
> as-right-as-they-can-be first time.  Instead of time going into bug
> fixing and constantly re-doing what has been done, the time instead
> goes into moving forward, and doing new things.  *Too much* QA just
> bogs the whole thing down, and makes it impossible to get anything
> done in a timely fashion.  The two are very different.

[SNIP]

> What are *your* proposals for addressing this?  I'd like to hear them.



POLITICIAN!!!!! 
Mommy Mommy he's a politishian!! he bashes views without having
information!! POLITICIAN POLITICIAN!!!

*WEEEEE* 

Take the scary man away.

Lock him in a jar and make him read the herds proposals and
implementation which he has obviously heard about (Why else would he
suggest something thats documented as in-progress and then balk out
"What have you come up with? come come show us your ideas! " ) 



*Sigh*

And now for a more structured answer.
No, a well-done QA will -not- let a single developer manage more than
say ~30 builds, and perhaps even less if they are complex. 

At this point one can do two things.  Either kill all packages that are
unmaintained by a herd....  (And hear the whine from the same crowd that
demands proper QA)  ... or give developers to them.

Now, assume that each dev can handle approx ~30 packages, for our 
approx 5000 packages we need around 170 devs.  We dont have that, which
makes a few of our devs overstrained, as well as some packages
unmaintained.

Now add to this that some devs do other work than maintain packages (oh,
gasp ) and you can decimate a few more from our ranks.

So, we can throw more devs into the pool, without doing proper QA on the
devs (which has been in place for quite a while, mentoring programs and
so on)  or handle them as the bugs crop up.

All through this we hear from our QA demanding users.. "MORE PACKAGES
MORE PACKAGES! WE WANT MORE! WE WANT MORE!"   

At this point last we introduced a buffert-zone (testing packages)  and
even stricter rules on packages. No betas, no alphas, no live-cvs. ("but
we want this package, its really cool and actually builds.....  no, I
haven't tried it..."  we hear from some disgruntled bugzilla users)

To throw more devs at the group is something I feel as a foolish thing
if introduced in too rapid succession, sure, some QA might be handled
that way, but we cannot assure the developers QA.

Tinderboxing and automization was in progress but was shot down due to
hardware and maintainability reasons. Oops. 

out of date, we have bugzilla. people use it. of course, some people use
it as if its freshmeat. (dont bother, we subscribe to freshmeat,
-announce lists and others, most of the time packages in active tagging
are updated soon enough. if you find it stale for a week or so, then
poke bugzilla)

Encourage more uipstream manager s to maintain ebuilds.. .*ew* *shudder*

I already get to take bugreports semi-daily from people who in their
$INFINTIE_WISDOM  start using builds from BREAKmyGentoo or other places
in mixture with ~x86, whereby we have to track down a three level
subdependency issue to find the linking error which stemmed from the
interfacechanges in the development series...   (this alone could be
enough to warrant a ramble, I'll avoid that. most of our users deserve
their root account. )



Remember, I am not part of management, or representing the whole devteam
here.  I'm just me.

//Spider
 - irate developer


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[cal]

splite said:
> And here I thought I was being proactive.  Or should I wait until the
> first
> Gentoo Continental Congress and submit my concerns as a rider to an
> appropriations bill?  Shoot, I'm satirising again, aren't I?
>

And the crowd stands and cheers!

Seriously John, you made some well thought out, eloquent but
in-appropriate suggestions.  Yes, we need organization but not the top
heavy beast you are proposing.  I have carefully read the new structure
that is being implements and it seems to me to be the bare minimum
necessary to keep the project moving.  And IMHO that should be the measure
of any government's size.

=C=

p.s. splite.  All good bulleted lists have 3 points, not 2! :)

*
* Cal Evans
* http://www.christianperformer.com
* Stay plugged in to your audience!
*

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[John Davis]

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> Seriously John, you made some well thought out, eloquent but
> in-appropriate suggestions.  Yes, we need organization but not the top
> heavy beast you are proposing.  I have carefully read the new structure
> that is being implements and it seems to me to be the bare minimum
> necessary to keep the project moving.  And IMHO that should be the measure
> of any government's size.

Everyone has an opinion, and I am fine with that. I to, do not want the top heavy Debian management, but I firmly believe that we have to do *something* - please refer to my next top level post.

Thanks for the commentary,
//zhen

-- 
John Davis
Gentoo Linux Developer
<http://www.gentoo.org/~zhen>

----
Knowledge can be more terrible than ignorance if you're powerless to change your world.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Grant Goodyear]

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> The main issue with the current approach is that proposals are forgotten. The 
> case with a management decision is not so much a problem as management also 
> must get the developers along. If it doesn't people walk away and fork

Incidentally, the "proposals are forgotten" problem is why we're
instituting Gentoo Linux Enhancement Proposals (GLEPs,
http://glep.gentoo.org).  In fact, the original e-mail by zhen, with
just a tiny bit of tweaking, would have been an excellent GLEP (or
perhaps several GLEPs), and I hope he'll submit it/them so that we do
have a record of this discussion.

-g2boojum-
-- 
Grant Goodyear <g2boojum@gentoo.org>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[oford]

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On Tue, 2003-07-15 at 06:40, Paul de Vrieze wrote:>

> > > There are also many people and organizations that want gentoo to run on
> > > their servers. Those people have one thing they REALLY REALLY hate, and
> > > that is comming to office in the morning and finding out that the nightly
> > > world update fucked up their setup, and it will take at least until the
> > > end of the
> >
> > Then those people shouldn't be idiots.  Seriously, who in their right mind
> > runs automated nightly updates on production systems?  Run them on a test
> > machine, then if things look okay afterward, push it out to the production
> > boxes.  That's common sense.
> >
> 
> Of course they don't do that, but there are contacts with corporations that do 
> want to use gentoo because they like its structure, but don't like the moving 
> target nature of the tree. The idea is to create releases to suit those 
> users. Those releases then only receive security fixes and major bug fixes.

I believe that the "moving target" tree is the most innovative feature
in Gentoo.  I also think that it is the main reason that server folks
are starting to use it.  But those same people want to have their cake
and eat it too.

The server distro war is always between Flexibility and Stability and
the twain will never meet.  All Gentoo can do is provide some way
(possibility another ~arch style flag) to allow the admin to track a
different package set.

Don't try to "overcome the moving target.  It is the soul of Gentoo
IMHO.

-- 
oford <oford@ev1.net>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[John Davis]

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> Don't try to "overcome the moving target.  It is the soul of Gentoo
> IMHO.

That is definitely not my plan. I am one of those people that use Gentoo because it has a moving tree. You are correct in saying that it is Gentoo's soul.

What I am trying to do is bring some stability to management, as well as our core development policies. If done correctly, the 'moving target' will not be affected.

Regards,
//zhen

-- 
John Davis
Gentoo Linux Developer
<http://www.gentoo.org/~zhen>

----
Knowledge can be more terrible than ignorance if you're powerless to change your world.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Jon Portnoy]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 11:50:06AM +0100, Daniel Jaeggi wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 05:37:42AM -0500, splite wrote:
> > > With QA and the growth of the project comes a management structure. That 
> > 
> > Any "project" has a management structure, by definition.  If the present
> > structure can't keep up with growth, another possibility is to check the
> > growth.
> > 
> 
> There, you've said it! As a gentoo user, the way I see things is that
> its are growing too fast and the current system and decision making
> processes can't really keep up. In particular, bug tracking and fixing
> and too many development ideas going there own direction. IMHO the
> present structure can't keep up with growth. We agree so much!
> 
> The trouble is, is that growth seems to be the aim of the general
> project. Witness Gentoo Games, Gentoo Embedded, Gentoo Hardened and
> general noise from the gentoo project - people want to grow. 
> 
> Therefore, as checking growth is not posible and does not seem desired,
> some change is a necessity. OK, I'm not in favour at all of
> consensus voting, Debian style mis-management but there must be some
> suitable structure that allows a handle to be keept on the project while
> still allowing development freedom.
> 

I, personally, feel that the existing structure accomplishes that.

Additionally, the existing structure has only been in place for 
something like three weeks - maybe we should wait and see what kinds of 
improvements come from that before doing anything extreme.


-- 
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Jon Portnoy]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 12:39:54PM +0100, Stuart Herbert wrote:
> > I hope you realise that your desires are conflicting. more 
> > ebuilds leads to 
> > more unmaintained ebuilds. More QA needs more time.
> 
> Rubbish.  Totally utter rubbish.
> 
> The right levels of QA *save* time, because things are done
> as-right-as-they-can-be first time.  Instead of time going into bug fixing
> and constantly re-doing what has been done, the time instead goes into
> moving forward, and doing new things.  *Too much* QA just bogs the whole
> thing down, and makes it impossible to get anything done in a timely
> fashion.  The two are very different.
> 
> I can think of one way to make dealing with unmaintained ebuilds easy
> enough.  First of all, put in place a mechanism to remove the guesswork
> about whether a particular package is maintained or not.  Then, create a
> pool of developers who will handle new ebuilds for these packages.  Finally,
> make a site where people can come and tell you when an ebuild is out of date
> (or just use Bugzilla).  That way, packages that no-one particularly wants
> to maintain are driven by 'customer demand' (for lack of a better phrase).
> Final step is to setup some 'tinderbox' machines, where the unmaintained
> ebuilds are automatically built.  When they finally break, a bug could be
> automatically raised on Bugzilla for someone in the pool to look at it.
> 
> There's also another way.  Encourage more opensource projects to maintain
> their own ebuilds.  Many of them maintain SPEC files for building RedHat
> RPMs.  So why not try and distribute the work more widely too?
> 
> What are *your* proposals for addressing this?  I'd like to hear them.
> 
> > We are trying to address these problems in a way that is 
> > satisfactory for everyone.
> 
> Are you speaking for yourself, or for TheManagement(tm)?
> 

We (the top level managers) are definitely trying to address these 
problems. I'm pretty sure there's GLEPs about it, but I don't know URLs 
offhand. And come on now - don't try to turn us (the top level managers) 
into some kind of secret cabal; you know us.

> > Be assured that these issues are being addressed. This 
> > requires time though, as restructuring is necessary for it to happen.
> 
> You talk like we should run along and play, and not bother BigPeople(tm)
> like yourself.  You'll have to excuse me if I don't like that ;-)  It's
> exactly this sort of *presentation* (I use the work presentation because
> you've included nothing of substance in your reply!) that makes people call
> for more openness in the community.  Interesting.
> 

I don't think that was Paul's intention. Additionally, we're not hiding 
anything; proposals are on the web in the form of GLEPs AFAIK. However, 
we're still hashing out what we want to do for various things.

-- 
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Jon Portnoy]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 01:40:47PM +0200, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
Content-Description: signed data
> On Tuesday 15 July 2003 12:37, splite wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 11:06:09AM +0200, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> > Content-Description: signed data
> >
> 
> > > developers for gentoo. Having a single "boss", and a "lieutenant" with no
> > > structure at all is not going to work. Especially as the amount of
> > > developers grows.
> >
> > Works for the Linux kernel.  Why do you need more developers?  Does every
> > package in the universe have to end up in the portage tree, with its own
> > developer?  I'm quite serious.  Just because someone cobbles up an ebuild
> > for whatever obscure package, does it have to go in?
> 
> Well, Linus has more then one luitennant. And those luitennants also have 
> their own sergeants etc. The kernel development process is surely structured. 
> It has local responsibilities just as gentoo is going to have.
> 
> >
> > > We need structure.
> >
> > You have structure now.  Why make it a full-blown bureaucracy?
> 
> No, we don't (well didn't, as we are trying to set it up now)
> 

I would say that it _is_ set up now (as of the management structure) - 
that's operational right now. There are still growing pains involved, 
but I wouldn't call something that's already in place and operational 
"trying."

-- 
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[John Davis]

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> Additionally, the existing structure has only been in place for 
> something like three weeks - maybe we should wait and see what kinds of 
> improvements come from that before doing anything extreme.

Actually, now would be the best time to do anything extreme, simply because the new management is so young, therefore generally more receptive to change.

Regards,
//zhen
-- 
John Davis
Gentoo Linux Developer
<http://www.gentoo.org/~zhen>

----
Knowledge can be more terrible than ignorance if you're powerless to change your world.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Jon Portnoy]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 02:17:23PM -0400, John Davis wrote:
> > Additionally, the existing structure has only been in place for 
> > something like three weeks - maybe we should wait and see what kinds of 
> > improvements come from that before doing anything extreme.
> 
> Actually, now would be the best time to do anything extreme, simply because the new management is so young, therefore generally more receptive to change.
> 

But you haven't seen whether it works or not. Why do you want to 
immediately change something that's brand new?

I'm not opposed to some of the suggestions in your email, I'm just 
wondering why you feel they're necessary without allowing the new 
management structure to function for a while and observe how well it 
works.

-- 
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Todd Berman]

> But you haven't seen whether it works or not. Why do you want to 
> immediately change something that's brand new?
> 
> I'm not opposed to some of the suggestions in your email, I'm just 
> wondering why you feel they're necessary without allowing the new 
> management structure to function for a while and observe how well it 
> works.

Regardless of my personal feelings about John's proposal, I think he
intends them to be more of an addendum to the current management
situation, rather than a replacement.

Some parts of what he is saying I agree with, others I dont, but I do
think that he isn't implying that the existing management structure
should be replaced.

And if a lot of people think that certain changes make the system
better, why wait for the current system to fail before implementing
them?

--Todd


--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[John Davis]

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> 
> But you haven't seen whether it works or not. Why do you want to 
> immediately change something that's brand new?
>

tberman said it best in his post - why wait for it to break?
 
> I'm not opposed to some of the suggestions in your email, I'm just 
> wondering why you feel they're necessary without allowing the new 
> management structure to function for a while and observe how well it 
> works.

It is necessary because of personal experience. Please feel free to talk to me off list about it.

Regards,
//zhen
-- 
John Davis
Gentoo Linux Developer
<http://www.gentoo.org/~zhen>

----
Knowledge can be more terrible than ignorance if you're powerless to change your world.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[John Davis]

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> Regardless of my personal feelings about John's proposal, I think he
> intends them to be more of an addendum to the current management
> situation, rather than a replacement.
> 

Exactly.

> Some parts of what he is saying I agree with, others I dont, but I do
> think that he isn't implying that the existing management structure
> should be replaced.
> 

No, am not. It just needs some improvements.

> And if a lot of people think that certain changes make the system
> better, why wait for the current system to fail before implementing
> them?

/nods

Regards,
//zhen

-- 
John Davis
Gentoo Linux Developer
<http://www.gentoo.org/~zhen>

----
Knowledge can be more terrible than ignorance if you're powerless to change your world.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 15 July 2003 20:08, Jon Portnoy wrote:
> > > Be assured that these issues are being addressed. This
> > > requires time though, as restructuring is necessary for it to happen.
> >
> > You talk like we should run along and play, and not bother BigPeople(tm)
> > like yourself.  You'll have to excuse me if I don't like that ;-)  It's
> > exactly this sort of *presentation* (I use the work presentation because
> > you've included nothing of substance in your reply!) that makes people
> > call for more openness in the community.  Interesting.
>
> I don't think that was Paul's intention. Additionally, we're not hiding
> anything; proposals are on the web in the form of GLEPs AFAIK. However,
> we're still hashing out what we want to do for various things.

Just so you all know, Stuart and I had an off-list discussion about this topic 
clarifying things up. I think I can say that there are no bad feelings, and 
that we are more clear concerning eachothers standpoints now.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Brett I. Holcomb]

John, I've followed this thread and given this some thought and am submitting 
my 2 cents as a simpel user who has only done one ebuild (in progress).

1.  Who do I need protection from?  I've not found the Gentoo management 
doing anything I needed protection from.  The Social contract is good enough 
for me.

2.  Voting on what?  Gentoo does not appear to be a democracy nor should it 
be.  To be effective there have to be leaders/managers who can make decisions 
without having to consult an entire constituancy or large group.  If leaders 
have to take a vote before they do anything then nothing will get done.  

In many cases we as users do vote.  If there are enough request/bugs for a 
package or feature it usually gets done.  If there  aren't enough requests or 
no one wants to create or maintain a package then it doesn't get done.

3.  Why?  To be honest I don't see the links to Gentoo being community owned 
nor do I see it as a democracy.  Daniel Robbins started it and set it up and 
now has people who have volunteered to help in many ways but it's his effort 
that got things going and his vison that is to be followed.  If Gentoo gets 
to far off track then it will fall off in popularity and use.  In short, 
Daniel put the time and effort into starting it - it's his thing.  Yes, he is 
trying to set up an organization that will help keep it running and wants to 
share it but still, it's his vision.  If put all that effort into creating a 
distro I'd sure want to make sure that I had a large say in the direction it 
took. - yes, I would try and make sure it was "shared" but I would want to 
set the direction of it.

Much of this point sounds paranoid to me - are people really worrying about 
what is happening to their interests?  I understand they are volunteers - if 
someone feels he's being abused and can't work it out he can stop doing work 
for Gentoo.

4.  Does Gentoo really need a parlimentary procedure?  Yes, Robert's rules 
have some guidelines that can help a meeting run smoothly but in all the 
meetings I 've been in the entire process has not been used.  In most project 
meetings you state the objectives or scope and go from there getting input 
and making decisions.

I have never used debian but from all I've seen and heard (and not just in 
this discussion) it is a nice distro but the stable branch is way behind in 
what's available.  Why use it as a model?

Also, Gentoo leaders have recognized that the phenomenal growth has caused 
problems (even slower growth would have caused this <G>!).  However, they 
appear to be taking steps to react to this - why not see how those changes 
work?

As I said, I'm just a user but of all the distro's I've tried Gentoo is 
really the best.  It's eliminated RPM messes and frustration, it's solid and 
stable (unless you're stupid enough to do ~arch on your production systems 
<G>) , packages that I've needed are kept up to date, and it is easy to 
maintain.  I hate to see it turned into a bureucratic organization that 
produces a dead distro.

I'm not sure it's broken so let's not be too quick to fix it.

> Good evening all:
> I am sure that you have all noticed the recent changes in the Gentoo Linux
> management. For this effort, I believe that our current managers should be
> applauded for thier candidness and openness. Although, as with any
> organization, there is always room for constant change and improvement.
> Gentoo's current position can be summarized by a quote from bussiness
> philosopher Edward Demming:
>
> Change is not mandatory, because survival is not a necessity.
>
> Gentoo is at a crossroads: We can either continue to change and improve our
> management structure, or simply die like many other Linux distributions.
>
> In light of this issue, I propose the following changes to the Gentoo
> management structure:
>
> 1. Constitution
> 	All great organizations realize the need to protect their most important
> asset, their volunteers and employees. Gentoo does not have such a
> document, therefore there is no 'legal' protection for the developers and
> volunteers. Although we all know that Gentoo is commited to this, it is
> nowhere in writing.
>
> References: The Debian Constitution
> http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
>
> 2. Open voting
> 	At this point in time, there is no published ruleset for voting, and there
> is no public record of voting results. There is also no offical published
> method of calculating a voting quorum. Additionally, with regard to the
> election of new managers, the vote is kept secret
.
>
> In order for any democratic system that uses voting to be successful, there
> *must* be accountability, concrete rules, and open results. How can there
> possibly be accountability if the results of the vote are kept completely
> secret? The find line between an oligarchy and a representative democracy
> is voting accountability. The developers, managers, and uses *must* know
> that the Gentoo voting process is secure in its philosophy and practice.
>
> References:
> http://www.debian.org/vote/ (Voting policy)
> http://www.debian.org/vote/2002/vote_0001 (Sample voting results)
> http://www.debian.org/vote/howto_vote (John Davis <zhen@gentoo.org>Sample 
voting ballot)
>
> 3. Defined terms for managers
> 	In order to preserve the balance of power, while at the same time
> protecting the rights and interests of the users and developers, it is
> necessary that all manager positions have a clear term length along with a
> clear and defined manager voting process (see above).
>
> 	The developers and users need to make sure that their interests are being
> maintained, and that the managers are true delegates for the Gentoo
> community. The developers, as well as managers, need to ensure that this
> stays true through normal managerial election.
>
> 4. Clear meeting procedure
> 	I encourage all developers and managers to review Robert's Book of Rules,
> as it provides invaluable information on proactive meeting procedure.
>
> By creating this document, I hope to help fix the problems that I see with
> Gentoo Linux. I believe that positive, intellectual conversation can lead
> us to the light at the end of the tunnel. I encourage you all to
> participate in this discussion, but please restrain from anger, lashing
> out, etc.
>
> Kind regards,
> //zhen

-- 

Brett I. Holcomb
AKA Grunt <><

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part II.

[Owen Gunden]

Just another user & couldn't agree more.  

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 09:44:36PM -0400, Brett I. Holcomb wrote:
> John, I've followed this thread and given this some thought and am submitting 
> my 2 cents as a simpel user who has only done one ebuild (in progress).
> 
> 1.  Who do I need protection from?  I've not found the Gentoo management 
> doing anything I needed protection from.  The Social contract is good enough 
> for me.
> 
> 2.  Voting on what?  Gentoo does not appear to be a democracy nor should it 
> be.  To be effective there have to be leaders/managers who can make decisions 
> without having to consult an entire constituancy or large group.  If leaders 
> have to take a vote before they do anything then nothing will get done.  
> 
> In many cases we as users do vote.  If there are enough request/bugs for a 
> package or feature it usually gets done.  If there  aren't enough requests or 
> no one wants to create or maintain a package then it doesn't get done.
> 
> 3.  Why?  To be honest I don't see the links to Gentoo being community owned 
> nor do I see it as a democracy.  Daniel Robbins started it and set it up and 
> now has people who have volunteered to help in many ways but it's his effort 
> that got things going and his vison that is to be followed.  If Gentoo gets 
> to far off track then it will fall off in popularity and use.  In short, 
> Daniel put the time and effort into starting it - it's his thing.  Yes, he is 
> trying to set up an organization that will help keep it running and wants to 
> share it but still, it's his vision.  If put all that effort into creating a 
> distro I'd sure want to make sure that I had a large say in the direction it 
> took. - yes, I would try and make sure it was "shared" but I would want to 
> set the direction of it.
> 
> Much of this point sounds paranoid to me - are people really worrying about 
> what is happening to their interests?  I understand they are volunteers - if 
> someone feels he's being abused and can't work it out he can stop doing work 
> for Gentoo.
> 
> 4.  Does Gentoo really need a parlimentary procedure?  Yes, Robert's rules 
> have some guidelines that can help a meeting run smoothly but in all the 
> meetings I 've been in the entire process has not been used.  In most project 
> meetings you state the objectives or scope and go from there getting input 
> and making decisions.
> 
> I have never used debian but from all I've seen and heard (and not just in 
> this discussion) it is a nice distro but the stable branch is way behind in 
> what's available.  Why use it as a model?
> 
> Also, Gentoo leaders have recognized that the phenomenal growth has caused 
> problems (even slower growth would have caused this <G>!).  However, they 
> appear to be taking steps to react to this - why not see how those changes 
> work?
> 
> As I said, I'm just a user but of all the distro's I've tried Gentoo is 
> really the best.  It's eliminated RPM messes and frustration, it's solid and 
> stable (unless you're stupid enough to do ~arch on your production systems 
> <G>) , packages that I've needed are kept up to date, and it is easy to 
> maintain.  I hate to see it turned into a bureucratic organization that 
> produces a dead distro.
> 
> I'm not sure it's broken so let's not be too quick to fix it.
> 
> > Good evening all:
> > I am sure that you have all noticed the recent changes in the Gentoo Linux
> > management. For this effort, I believe that our current managers should be
> > applauded for thier candidness and openness. Although, as with any
> > organization, there is always room for constant change and improvement.
> > Gentoo's current position can be summarized by a quote from bussiness
> > philosopher Edward Demming:
> >
> > Change is not mandatory, because survival is not a necessity.
> >
> > Gentoo is at a crossroads: We can either continue to change and improve our
> > management structure, or simply die like many other Linux distributions.
> >
> > In light of this issue, I propose the following changes to the Gentoo
> > management structure:
> >
> > 1. Constitution
> > 	All great organizations realize the need to protect their most important
> > asset, their volunteers and employees. Gentoo does not have such a
> > document, therefore there is no 'legal' protection for the developers and
> > volunteers. Although we all know that Gentoo is commited to this, it is
> > nowhere in writing.
> >
> > References: The Debian Constitution
> > http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
> >
> > 2. Open voting
> > 	At this point in time, there is no published ruleset for voting, and there
> > is no public record of voting results. There is also no offical published
> > method of calculating a voting quorum. Additionally, with regard to the
> > election of new managers, the vote is kept secret
> .
> >
> > In order for any democratic system that uses voting to be successful, there
> > *must* be accountability, concrete rules, and open results. How can there
> > possibly be accountability if the results of the vote are kept completely
> > secret? The find line between an oligarchy and a representative democracy
> > is voting accountability. The developers, managers, and uses *must* know
> > that the Gentoo voting process is secure in its philosophy and practice.
> >
> > References:
> > http://www.debian.org/vote/ (Voting policy)
> > http://www.debian.org/vote/2002/vote_0001 (Sample voting results)
> > http://www.debian.org/vote/howto_vote (John Davis <zhen@gentoo.org>Sample 
> voting ballot)
> >
> > 3. Defined terms for managers
> > 	In order to preserve the balance of power, while at the same time
> > protecting the rights and interests of the users and developers, it is
> > necessary that all manager positions have a clear term length along with a
> > clear and defined manager voting process (see above).
> >
> > 	The developers and users need to make sure that their interests are being
> > maintained, and that the managers are true delegates for the Gentoo
> > community. The developers, as well as managers, need to ensure that this
> > stays true through normal managerial election.
> >
> > 4. Clear meeting procedure
> > 	I encourage all developers and managers to review Robert's Book of Rules,
> > as it provides invaluable information on proactive meeting procedure.
> >
> > By creating this document, I hope to help fix the problems that I see with
> > Gentoo Linux. I believe that positive, intellectual conversation can lead
> > us to the light at the end of the tunnel. I encourage you all to
> > participate in this discussion, but please restrain from anger, lashing
> > out, etc.
> >
> > Kind regards,
> > //zhen
> 
> -- 
> 
> Brett I. Holcomb
> AKA Grunt <><
> 
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list