From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 13634 invoked from network); 21 May 2004 19:49:23 +0000 Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (156.56.111.197) by parrot.ussg.indiana.edu with SMTP; 21 May 2004 19:49:23 +0000 Received: from parrot.ussg.indiana.edu ([156.56.111.196] helo=parrot.gentoo.org) by smtp.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1BRG1A-0008GG-Ey for arch-gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org; Fri, 21 May 2004 19:49:20 +0000 Received: (qmail 13326 invoked by uid 89); 21 May 2004 19:49:20 +0000 Mailing-List: contact gentoo-dev-help@gentoo.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Received: (qmail 31287 invoked from network); 21 May 2004 19:49:19 +0000 From: Stuart Herbert Reply-To: stuart@gentoo.org Organization: Gentoo Linux Project To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 20:49:18 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.6.2 References: <200405201846.37173.cbrewer@stealthaccess.net> <1085146797.25036.52.camel@localhost> <200405211554.06946.c.j.bainbridge@ed.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: <200405211554.06946.c.j.bainbridge@ed.ac.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1; boundary="Boundary-02=_+0lrAXW0v2KhatH"; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200405212049.18357.stuart@gentoo.org> Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Stuff that makes people mad X-Archives-Salt: 7f44cc4f-1c89-419e-bf34-a2d712413a81 X-Archives-Hash: 36576166395e55374a4692c64ff391ec --Boundary-02=_+0lrAXW0v2KhatH Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On Friday 21 May 2004 15:54, Chris Bainbridge wrote: > One of the things that seems to annoy lots of people is this idea that > their ebuilds are being ignored. I've usually got a bunch (8 at the momen= t) > of ebuilds in bugs.gentoo waiting to be processed.. the oldest is almost a > year old now.=20 I can't speak for other people, but what works with me is when people take = the=20 trouble to come and talk to me about their pending ebuild. It also helps=20 when people talk to me about packages that I might personally find=20 interesting. That makes me more motivated to take on the commitment that=20 goes with adding an ebuild into Portage. > There ought to be some sort of procedure for dealing with=20 > user submitted ebuilds.=20 Just the other night, Zul and I were talking about this. We organise Bug D= ay=20 once a month. Maybe we should organise a New Ebuild Day once a month too. > I would suggest a system of putting them in ~x86=20 > (or whatever) immediately, and if there are no bug reports for x days move > them to x86. This sounds like the perfect way for someone to use Gentoo to distribute=20 unpleasant or downright malicious software around the Internet. Please, keep the ideas coming, but that one is never going to fly. It's fa= r=20 too open to abuse; and the idea that users will take personal responsibilit= y=20 for what they install has been proven time and time again to be a false ide= a. > All of this could be easily automated... the idea that every package needs > a maintainer is something that comes from Debian, and is imho unnecessary. I'm pretty sure that Patrick and the hard-working folks over at Slackware=20 would disagree with you on Debian inventing the idea of packages needing=20 maintainers ;-) I had some small involvement with Slackware 3.0.3, and whi= le=20 Patrick didn't have per-package maintainers like we have today, nothing wen= t=20 into the distribution without him having checked all the contributions and= =20 patches first. > You end up with a few problems: a limited number of maintainers with > limited package interests and a lack of time to devote, and an alienated > developer community who have no way to bug fix or add new ebuilds without > going through the single developer. I don't believe this is quite accurate. Our problem is that the 'alienated= =20 developer community' you're refering to ** aren't ** developers on the Gent= oo=20 project. They want to see their packages included in Gentoo, but they're n= ot=20 coming forward and saying 'I want to join the team'. The developer community are the people who have commit access to the Gentoo= =20 CVS tree. I don't say that to create a 'them and us' division. What I'm=20 saying is that the developer community is where we need people to be - and= =20 right now we don't have enough people taking part. > When that developers interests shift=20 > (as they invariably do), updates to the package become ignored, and once > again the developer community can do nothing to fix this as the power res= ts > with the maintainer. This is an area where the managers in Gentoo could add more value ;-) =20 Although we have people in 'manager' positions, most of them provide a lot = of=20 leadership rather than management. Leadership's good - we need lots of tha= t. =20 But we also need real management tasks - like knowing which ebuilds have=20 become unmaintained. Why do you say that the power rests with the maintainer? =20 And why do you see 'maintainers' as something separate from the developer=20 community? I'm genuinely curious. > There is no need to be defensive and start saying things like "if you don= 't > like it this way then fork away.." when the desire of the complainer is to > improve gentoo, not start/join another project. You can improve Gentoo by joining the project. I believe the email address= =20 you're looking for is 'recruiters@gentoo.org'. =20 About a year ago, I had very similar complaints to yours, about not getting= =20 changes into Portage. The response I had from Kurt and Seemant was the sam= e=20 as we're all telling you. Get involved by becoming a volunteer Gentoo dev.= =20 And you know what? They were right. Best regards, Stu =2D-=20 Stuart Herbert stuart@gentoo.o= rg Gentoo Developer http://www.gentoo.or= g/ http://stu.gnqs.org/diar= y/ GnuPG key id# F9AFC57C available from http://pgp.mit.edu Key fingerprint =3D 31FB 50D4 1F88 E227 F319 C549 0C2F 80BA F9AF C57C =2D- --Boundary-02=_+0lrAXW0v2KhatH Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Description: signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBArl0+DC+AuvmvxXwRAp2bAJsG1SDBfS+EN74TP7jvIh89gJQJswCfU7fM RdldA3gIadP85O+bHI/yCME= =sje5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Boundary-02=_+0lrAXW0v2KhatH--