[gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Alec Warner]

It has been noted that certain projects do not communicate their
activities well.

Many projects provide documentation for things(java), provide status
updates on things(ppc), have bits in the gwn (x86,userrel,amd64),
Release releases (releng), or have active webpages (adopt-a-dev, bugday)

There are some projects that keep to themselves; AND these projects
concern other projects (are global, to an extent).  This AND means I can
 leave out things like arch teams, or smaller projects that don't update
often.  This mail is not meant for things like that.  So below we have 3
large far-reaching projects.

Gentoo Quality Assurance Team
Gentoo Infrastructure Team
Gentoo Portage Team
Gentoo Foundation
Gentoo Council

All 5 of these projects are active.  However all 5 have failed to
communicate what they are doing; leading to people asking multiple times
about an issue, people getting frustrated, people getting outright
pissed off and hostile.  Today especially has been a bad day for this.

Tsunam has blogged, so I will mail here instead.

I request that these teams present status reports bi-weekly (thats one
every two weeks).  You don't even have to write the reports, I will
volunteer to bug you every two weeks about what is going on in your
project and you can just drop a few words.  I will author the report for
you and post it to dev (if you wish for me to do so).

Note: I shouldn't have to write this here; but this mail is targetted at
no one.  All 5 of these teams are working for gentoo, however the
miscommunications have cost some friendships and caused bad blood
between many a pair of devs ( and in some cases, between teams ).

The Goal of this mail is not chastise anyone; but to keep the rest of us
informed on your progress.

PS: I have CC'd the teams necessary as I realize that not everyone reads
-dev, so I apologize if this gets to some people multiple times.
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Seemant Kulleen]

Your concerns are well noted. The trustees in general are quiet even
amongst themselves, but I hope this changes with the new board coming in
next week (ish?).  It's been my idea to propose that someone (tsunam was
in my head) publish a trustee monthly news or something. 

The one I'm curious about is the council -- the council posts to -dev
before and after every meeting (and puts meeting logs up on the website
within days of a meeting).  I suppose the webpage itself could be
updated, but I'm unsure what else the council can do.  Perhaps you have
some ideas?

Thanks!
-- 
Seemant Kulleen <seemant@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Foundation / Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Joshua Jackson]

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Hash: SHA1

Seemant Kulleen wrote:
> Your concerns are well noted. The trustees in general are quiet even
> amongst themselves, but I hope this changes with the new board coming in
> next week (ish?).  It's been my idea to propose that someone (tsunam was
> in my head) publish a trustee monthly news or something.
>
> The one I'm curious about is the council -- the council posts to -dev
> before and after every meeting (and puts meeting logs up on the website
> within days of a meeting).  I suppose the webpage itself could be
> updated, but I'm unsure what else the council can do.  Perhaps you have
> some ideas?
>
> Thanks!
Oh, even more reason to poke the trustee's! *grins evilly and starts
singing*

Its so easy when your evil.
To the gentleman, I'm Miss Fortune
To the ladies, I'm Sir prise

I'm the fly in your soup
I'm the pebble in your shoe
I'm the pea beneath, your bed that makes you wriggle and writhe

In otherwords I'll do it :)

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Kevin F. Quinn]

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On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:56:11 -0400
Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:

> [...] So below we have 3 large far-reaching projects.
>
> Gentoo Quality Assurance Team
> Gentoo Infrastructure Team
> Gentoo Portage Team
> Gentoo Foundation
> Gentoo Council
> 
> All 5 of these projects are active

it's growing ;)

> [...]
> I request that these teams present status reports bi-weekly (thats one
> every two weeks).

I'm not aware of the issue that sparked this, but if regular reports are
a solution, I suggest that rather than mandating a bi-weekly report,
each of the relevant projects should propose a reporting schedule that
is appropriate to them.

For example, the Council meets once a month, so a bi-weekly status
update seems inappropriate (half the reports are likely to be empty,
the other half a copy of the meeting minutes which we already get).
Perhaps the Foundation would be happier with a regular three- or
six-month update, with the occasional ad-hoc update as need arises.
Whatever, the point is that each project knows best how often it
ought to communicate stuff.

-- 
Kevin F. Quinn

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Alec Warner]

Kevin F. Quinn wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:56:11 -0400
> Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
>> [...] So below we have 3 large far-reaching projects.
>>
>> Gentoo Quality Assurance Team
>> Gentoo Infrastructure Team
>> Gentoo Portage Team
>> Gentoo Foundation
>> Gentoo Council
>>
>> All 5 of these projects are active
> 
> it's growing ;)

Doh, I wrote the e-mail and then added 2 projects ;p
> 
>> [...]
>> I request that these teams present status reports bi-weekly (thats one
>> every two weeks).
> 
> I'm not aware of the issue that sparked this, but if regular reports are
> a solution, I suggest that rather than mandating a bi-weekly report,
> each of the relevant projects should propose a reporting schedule that
> is appropriate to them.
> 
> For example, the Council meets once a month, so a bi-weekly status
> update seems inappropriate (half the reports are likely to be empty,
> the other half a copy of the meeting minutes which we already get).
> Perhaps the Foundation would be happier with a regular three- or
> six-month update, with the occasional ad-hoc update as need arises.
> Whatever, the point is that each project knows best how often it
> ought to communicate stuff.
> 

The bi-weekly thing was just something I arbitrarily chose, and I agree
that it could be different per project.

However I myself don't mind empty reports.  If there is nothing to
report, then there is nothing to report *shrugs*.  For projects like
council and foundation, that is to be expected more often than not.

However if there is a pending issue I'd rather see "we are still waiting
on the lawyers" or "the guy who was supposed to setup the server got an
internship" or "there was a portage release last week so I've been
fixing bugs for two weeks instead of working on thing X".

It's a status report, it doesn't have to be lively, the point is to keep
developers and users informed of what is going on in these projects.

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:56:11 -0400 Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| I request that these teams present status reports bi-weekly (thats one
| every two weeks).  You don't even have to write the reports, I will
| volunteer to bug you every two weeks about what is going on in your
| project and you can just drop a few words.  I will author the report
| for you and post it to dev (if you wish for me to do so).

Bringing up something I proposed previously... How about having teams
that are considered 'important' (not a fixed list; this can vary
depending upon what's going on) or 'to be having issues' deliver status
reports to the council for their monthly meeting?

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh
Mail            : ciaran dot mccreesh at blueyonder.co.uk


-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Alec Warner]

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:56:11 -0400 Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> | I request that these teams present status reports bi-weekly (thats one
> | every two weeks).  You don't even have to write the reports, I will
> | volunteer to bug you every two weeks about what is going on in your
> | project and you can just drop a few words.  I will author the report
> | for you and post it to dev (if you wish for me to do so).
> 
> Bringing up something I proposed previously... How about having teams
> that are considered 'important' (not a fixed list; this can vary
> depending upon what's going on) or 'to be having issues' deliver status
> reports to the council for their monthly meeting?
> 

admittedly, my list is basically this, except of course who chooses
which teams are 'having issues' is rather arbitrary :)

For the original list of 5 I picked large projects that all impact other
portions of gentoo and have relatively little in-tree presence, meaning
most people don't notice progress even if it is made (since most
progress is internal to the project itself).  Portage, Infra, and
Trustees all have outstanding communication issues, QA has no lead and
as far as most devs know doesn't do much (outside of mr_bones and arch
teams which kind of fall under this, and treecleaners, although we too
have been silent lately), Council I think I added because it just
doesn't do much in general; and it is my feeling that it should do more,
although seemant pointed out that the case against the council issuing
reports is rather weak.

The problem with them delivering is that many would probably just not
show up.  In the current scheme there are no consequences for this and
people are admittedly busy.  This is why I volunteered to inte^H^H^H^H
nudge the teams in question for data.  If the council wishes for the
information to be presented during meetings I can probably wing that.
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:21:15 -0400 Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| The problem with them delivering is that many would probably just not
| show up.

Hence why I said 'to the council for their monthly meeting', not 'at
the council's monthly meeting'.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh
Mail            : ciaran dot mccreesh at blueyonder.co.uk


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Lance Albertson]

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Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:56:11 -0400 Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> | I request that these teams present status reports bi-weekly (thats one
> | every two weeks).  You don't even have to write the reports, I will
> | volunteer to bug you every two weeks about what is going on in your
> | project and you can just drop a few words.  I will author the report
> | for you and post it to dev (if you wish for me to do so).
> 
> Bringing up something I proposed previously... How about having teams
> that are considered 'important' (not a fixed list; this can vary
> depending upon what's going on) or 'to be having issues' deliver status
> reports to the council for their monthly meeting?

I would tend to prefer this than a standardized bi-weekly report. A lot
of times things don't change much, or its just general "maintenance"
type stuff that happens in the background. And as stated in a later
email, we can send a report to the council before the meeting in case we
can't make it to it. Many of us lead busy lives during the day and
having a free hour for yet-another-meeting is troublesome a lot of the
times.

I understand the lack of communication on some of the aspects of infra
specifically. Frankly, the attitude of a lot devs lately towards infra
have made many of us not want to communicate what we're doing. If we're
not getting respected by you, then why should we respect you back? At
least for me personally, I don't hold any personal grudges against
anyone unless you stop respecting the group and/or me. Personally, I
think the larger problem in Gentoo itself is the attitudes of many
developers. Communication aside, it means nothing if we can't deal with
each other in a semi-professional manner. It seems like mini-flame
explosions on irc/email have happened more frequently in the last few
months. This is just going to make the group implode if nothing is done
about it.

Anyways, that's my thoughts.

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

---
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Key fingerprint: 0423 92F3 544A 1282 5AB1  4D07 416F A15D 27F4 B742

ramereth/irc.freenode.net


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Simon Stelling]

Lance Albertson wrote:
> Frankly, the attitude of a lot devs lately towards infra
> have made many of us not want to communicate what we're doing. If we're

I can understand that, partly. But that won't help anyone. Assuming
you're not thinking *nobody* outside infra does respect you, try to
write the status report for those who you feel respected by. It will
even make those happy who didn't respect you and maybe even make them
respect you again because they see that a genuine effort is made to
solve a problem that buggers them.

> not getting respected by you, then why should we respect you back? At
> least for me personally, I don't hold any personal grudges against
> anyone unless you stop respecting the group and/or me. Personally, I
> think the larger problem in Gentoo itself is the attitudes of many
> developers. Communication aside, it means nothing if we can't deal with
> each other in a semi-professional manner. It seems like mini-flame
> explosions on irc/email have happened more frequently in the last few
> months. This is just going to make the group implode if nothing is done
> about it.

Respect is something that should be applied unconditionally, in my
opinion. The "you don't so I won't" attitude gets us nowhere.

-- 
Kind Regards,

Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 Developer
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:33:17 +0200 Simon Stelling <blubb@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| Respect is something that should be applied unconditionally, in my
| opinion. The "you don't so I won't" attitude gets us nowhere.

But if respect is unearned and undeserved, it's meaningless. What's the
point of being respected if every incompetent jackass is respected?

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh
Mail            : ciaran dot mccreesh at blueyonder.co.uk


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Elfyn McBratney]

On Tue, Aug 22, 2006 at 03:40:31PM +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
 > On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:33:17 +0200 Simon Stelling <blubb@gentoo.org>
 > wrote:
 > | Respect is something that should be applied unconditionally, in my
 > | opinion. The "you don't so I won't" attitude gets us nowhere.
 > 
 > But if respect is unearned and undeserved, it's meaningless. What's the
 > point of being respected if every incompetent jackass is respected?

In a similar vein, what's the point in the meaningless replies, when all
you're going to do is be disrespectful?  If you can't say anything
constructive, why not just keep it zipped?

Just my two pence...

Regards,
Elfyn

-- 
Elfyn McBratney, Gentoo Developer
+----------------------------------+
|  irc.freenode.net / beu          |
|  beu [@] gentoo [.] org          |
+-------------------------- o.0 ---+
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:45:45 +0000 Elfyn McBratney <beu@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| On Tue, Aug 22, 2006 at 03:40:31PM +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
|  > On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:33:17 +0200 Simon Stelling
|  > <blubb@gentoo.org> wrote:
|  > | Respect is something that should be applied unconditionally, in
|  > | my opinion. The "you don't so I won't" attitude gets us nowhere.
|  > 
|  > But if respect is unearned and undeserved, it's meaningless.
|  > What's the point of being respected if every incompetent jackass
|  > is respected?
| 
| In a similar vein, what's the point in the meaningless replies, when
| all you're going to do is be disrespectful?

Perhaps you should look up 'respect' in a dictionary sometime. It does
not mean the same thing as 'courtesy'.

| If you can't say anything constructive, why not just keep it zipped?

Now that *is* irony.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh
Mail            : ciaran dot mccreesh at blueyonder.co.uk


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Lance Albertson]

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Simon Stelling wrote:
> Lance Albertson wrote:
>> Frankly, the attitude of a lot devs lately towards infra
>> have made many of us not want to communicate what we're doing. If we're
> 
> I can understand that, partly. But that won't help anyone. Assuming
> you're not thinking *nobody* outside infra does respect you, try to
> write the status report for those who you feel respected by. It will
> even make those happy who didn't respect you and maybe even make them
> respect you again because they see that a genuine effort is made to
> solve a problem that buggers them.

I'll see about sending an email in the next few days. Basically, we're
making progress on the bugzie end.

>> not getting respected by you, then why should we respect you back? At
>> least for me personally, I don't hold any personal grudges against
>> anyone unless you stop respecting the group and/or me. Personally, I
>> think the larger problem in Gentoo itself is the attitudes of many
>> developers. Communication aside, it means nothing if we can't deal with
>> each other in a semi-professional manner. It seems like mini-flame
>> explosions on irc/email have happened more frequently in the last few
>> months. This is just going to make the group implode if nothing is done
>> about it.
> 
> Respect is something that should be applied unconditionally, in my
> opinion. The "you don't so I won't" attitude gets us nowhere.
> 

I generally try to do that, but after the 10th time the person doesn't
respect you and demands things from you, its kind of hard to keep that
mentality.

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

---
GPG Public Key:  <http://www.ramereth.net/lance.asc>
Key fingerprint: 0423 92F3 544A 1282 5AB1  4D07 416F A15D 27F4 B742

ramereth/irc.freenode.net


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Simon Stelling]

Lance Albertson wrote:
> I generally try to do that, but after the 10th time the person doesn't
> respect you and demands things from you, its kind of hard to keep that
> mentality.

Well, one out of >300. Simply do it for someone else then ;)

-- 
Kind Regards,

Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 Developer
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Lance Albertson]

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Simon Stelling wrote:
> Lance Albertson wrote:
>> I generally try to do that, but after the 10th time the person doesn't
>> respect you and demands things from you, its kind of hard to keep that
>> mentality.
> 
> Well, one out of >300. Simply do it for someone else then ;)
> 

And that's what I do. I hope I haven't given the impression that I don't
give a rats ass about all the developers. I've tried to be responsive to
all people who are respectful to us. If I haven't, then I'm sorry and
please let me know if thats the case. I'm not some close-minded
individual that doesn't listen to people.

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

---
GPG Public Key:  <http://www.ramereth.net/lance.asc>
Key fingerprint: 0423 92F3 544A 1282 5AB1  4D07 416F A15D 27F4 B742

ramereth/irc.freenode.net


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Sune Kloppenborg Jeppesen]

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On Tuesday 22 August 2006 02:06, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> Bringing up something I proposed previously... How about having teams
> that are considered 'important' (not a fixed list; this can vary
> depending upon what's going on) or 'to be having issues' deliver status
> reports to the council for their monthly meeting?
Sounds like a better and more dynamic solution to me.

-- 
Sune Kloppenborg Jeppesen
Gentoo Linux Security Team

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Marius Mauch]

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On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:56:11 -0400
Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:

> It has been noted that certain projects do not communicate their
> activities well.
> 
> Many projects provide documentation for things(java), provide status
> updates on things(ppc), have bits in the gwn (x86,userrel,amd64),
> Release releases (releng), or have active webpages (adopt-a-dev,
> bugday)
> 
> There are some projects that keep to themselves; AND these projects
> concern other projects (are global, to an extent).  This AND means I
> can leave out things like arch teams, or smaller projects that don't
> update often.  This mail is not meant for things like that.  So below
> we have 3 large far-reaching projects.
> 
> Gentoo Quality Assurance Team
> Gentoo Infrastructure Team
> Gentoo Portage Team
> Gentoo Foundation
> Gentoo Council
> 
> All 5 of these projects are active.  However all 5 have failed to
> communicate what they are doing; leading to people asking multiple
> times about an issue, people getting frustrated, people getting
> outright pissed off and hostile.  Today especially has been a bad day
> for this.

If this really concerns you then I have to ask why *you* didn't send
status reports for the Portage Team in the past?

Marius

-- 
Public Key at http://www.genone.de/info/gpg-key.pub

In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, 'Let there be
Light.' And there was still nothing, but you could see a bit better.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo-Status

[Alec Warner]

Marius Mauch wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:56:11 -0400
> Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
>> It has been noted that certain projects do not communicate their
>> activities well.
>>
>> Many projects provide documentation for things(java), provide status
>> updates on things(ppc), have bits in the gwn (x86,userrel,amd64),
>> Release releases (releng), or have active webpages (adopt-a-dev,
>> bugday)
>>
>> There are some projects that keep to themselves; AND these projects
>> concern other projects (are global, to an extent).  This AND means I
>> can leave out things like arch teams, or smaller projects that don't
>> update often.  This mail is not meant for things like that.  So below
>> we have 3 large far-reaching projects.
>>
>> Gentoo Quality Assurance Team
>> Gentoo Infrastructure Team
>> Gentoo Portage Team
>> Gentoo Foundation
>> Gentoo Council
>>
>> All 5 of these projects are active.  However all 5 have failed to
>> communicate what they are doing; leading to people asking multiple
>> times about an issue, people getting frustrated, people getting
>> outright pissed off and hostile.  Today especially has been a bad day
>> for this.
> 
> If this really concerns you then I have to ask why *you* didn't send
> status reports for the Portage Team in the past?
> 
> Marius
> 

Actually the Portage Team's lack of communication was brought to my
attention recently by Tsunam after a lengthy discussion on irc.  I was
on the team, I certainly knew what was going on ;)  Same with QA.  Same
with (mostly) infra since I hang out in -infra all day long.  But as it
has been noted in the past that not everyone can hang in every channel
and "get a feel for what is going on" I figured I would volunteer to
relay information.

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