public inbox for gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Daniel Robbins <drobbins@gentoo.org>
To: John Davis <zhen@gentoo.org>
Cc: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part III?
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 18:30:43 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20030716003043.GA18366@inventor.gentoo.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20030715162704.472febd0.zhen@gentoo.org>

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5240 bytes --]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 04:27:04PM -0400, John Davis wrote:

> I have not mentioned my position change in the project *at all* in my
> proposal. Although the events leading up to that vote have something to do
> with my proposal, they do not constitute the entire reason I decided to
> write it. I decided to write the proposal because I deeply care about the
> direction of Gentoo Linux, and the simple reason that I see problems that
> can be easily remedied.

OK, so recent events did have something to do with your proposal.  I did
pick up on that in what you wrote.

> Right, we need to do exactly that. I would like to know one thing though,
> how are democratic ideas and procedures damaging to the 'Gentoo way'? 

They aren't. What I think could be damaging is to ignore the current
Gentoo-wide efforts that are under way to solve these problems.

I also think that you know that we are all working at 110%, and your
email reads like a list of demands rather than any kind of assistance.
Comments like this don't help:

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

So, our option is to accept your ideas or die? That's how it reads to me.
Because you obviously know that we are aggressively improving our management
structure as we speak.

We are very aware that a management structure must adapt to the needs of
Gentoo users and devs, and that it why we have a top-level *metastructure*
project devoted to this effort. You seem to ignore this.

Anyone looking fairly at what we have done should be able to see that we
*are* getting organized and are in the middle of implementing a management
structure that is making a big positive difference for Gentoo. 

Please understand that the way to ensure that the management structure
reflects your concerns is *not* to try to compete with it, but to actively
participate in the process via metastructure.

> Whether or not I spearhead *my* effort is my decision.

It's interesting that you refer to this as your personal effort. Please
participate in the Gentoo-wide effort going on currently.

> I will *not* be censored just because you do not believe with me.

It's not only if you are participating, but how you participate. If you
participate cooperatively, your ideas won't be ignored. Competing with an
existing in-progress plan is not a good way to participate. I don't know if
you thought that GLEP was the way to participate in the evolution of our
management structure, so you started a public rally for your issues? 

We have a project in place whose specific goal is to ensure that developer
and user management and general project issues are not ignored. By emailing
pauldv@gentoo.org, Paul will present your ideas at the weekly manager
meeting.

> I WILL NOT be censored in my proposals. They are not meant to be
> inflammatory, as you are trying to make them. All that I am doing is
> trying to open an intellectual dialogue about the problems that I see
> within the Gentoo management structure. I have absolutely no bone to pick
> with the management team, and I do not mean to mar the name of Gentoo
> Linux.

Consider what would happen if every develoepr began their own personal
effort to create a new, improved organizational structure on the
gentoo-dev mailing list, particularly right now. 

Now consider the alternative: what would happen if all these developers
decided to cooperate and support the existing effort by sending their ideas
to metastructure so that they could be represented in this process?

The first would lead to chaos, and the second would lead to a management
structure that reflects the needs of users and developers.

> I am very sorry if I have offended you Daniel, but I am not on the
> offensive against you or Gentoo. If you wish to take disciplinary action
> against me, so be it, just realize that you are setting a precedent for
> Gentoo, a precedent that is loathed by all.

I'm not taking disciplinary action against you, I'm trying to make sure that
users don't get treated as second-class citizens by developers. Honestly, I
have a real problem with our developers telling users what they should
think, or chewing them out just because they have a strong opinion that did
not happen to be the one you were hoping they would have.

For the future of Gentoo, users should tell *us* what they want to see, and
we should at least listen politely. If you don't agree, you should make an
effort to express the disagreement professionally without labeling them as
flamers or their opinions as invalid. That's not constructive conversation.

And developers should actively participate in the process that already
exists.

If you're going to be interacting with users, you should be asking them what
they think. I didn't have as much of a problem with your first email as I
did with your follow-ups. Although I may not completely agree with all your
ideas, my problem is with your approach and motivation for this effort, not
the ideas.

Sincerely,

-- 
Daniel Robbins
Chief Architect, Gentoo Linux
http://www.gentoo.org

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

      reply	other threads:[~2003-07-16  0:30 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2003-07-15 13:42 [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part IIa John Davis
     [not found] ` <1058280489.2910.27.camel@biproc>
2003-07-15 15:06   ` John Davis
2003-07-15 16:15     ` Grant Goodyear
2003-07-15 15:24 ` Brad Laue
2003-07-15 17:44   ` [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-core] " John Davis
2003-07-15 17:46   ` Martin, Stephen
2003-07-15 17:47     ` John Davis
2003-07-15 19:09 ` [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-core] " Stewart Honsberger
2003-07-15 19:23 ` [gentoo-dev] Gentoo part III? Daniel Robbins
2003-07-15 20:27   ` John Davis
2003-07-16  0:30     ` Daniel Robbins [this message]

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20030716003043.GA18366@inventor.gentoo.org \
    --to=drobbins@gentoo.org \
    --cc=gentoo-dev@gentoo.org \
    --cc=zhen@gentoo.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox