Re: [gentoo-dev] app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help

[Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com>]

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On Mon, 8 Dec 2008 08:37:42 -0800
Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Open and public debate about the right way to do things does take 
> longer, and it's something you certainly participate in quite
> frequently so I'm surprised to hear you badmouth it when it comes to
> your own ideas.

Open and public debate requires two or more well informed parties who
are seeking to reach the best solution regardless of who proposed it,
and a deciding body who are prepared to go for the best solution even
if it isn't universally popular. This sometimes happens with Gentoo,
but unfortunately all too often it's one of these instead:

* A good proposal gets a few incorrect objections from people who
  don't understand it and aren't prepared to put in the effort to
  become well informed. The Council then uses these objections as an
  excuse to sit on the proposal and do nothing for months, because
  making a decision is harder than maintaining the status quo.

* A good proposal gets a whole load of silly, trivial and nonsensical
  objections from sockpuppeting trolls who don't like the people who
  came up with the proposal (or sometimes from sockpuppeting trolls who
  suspect that the person who came up with the proposal once spoke to
  the cousin of a cleaner who once worked for the nephew of someone who
  said that the proposal looked sensible...). The Council do not
  dismiss these objections because they don't want to risk upsetting
  anyone.

* A good proposal comes along. Its proof of concept implementation is
  done using a project that is considered by some to risk upsetting the
  status quo. A bunch of people who are involved in the proposal get
  fired.

* A proposal gets implemented without the debate. It's either a lousy
  proposal that we're then stuck with, or a decent proposal that has a
  few flaws that could have been addressed.

This is the kind of 'open and public debate' one would expect from a
failing government trying to cling to power for a few more years or a
middle-management-heavy corporation on its last legs. It's fine if you
want to repaint the bikeshed a slightly nicer shade of magenta, but
it's a real nuisance for anything serious.

None of the people involved in the decision to fork eselect rather than
work on it for Gentoo are anything except entirely in favour of open and
public debate. It's just that they don't exactly have a positive
experience of that happening within Gentoo...

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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