[gentoo-dev] seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[gentoo-dev] seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Grant Goodyear]

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For whatever it's worth, I rather like the Gentoo Seeds project,
although I'm more interested in nice tools to make the seeds, than
in having pre-existing seeds.

Ciaranm has argued that the project really should have been GLEPped.
Although I wouldn't have opposed such a GLEP, it's not clear to me that
a GLEP is the right format here.  Underlying a GLEP is the notion that
somebody is going to have to approve it.  By our current policies,
anybody is welcome to start a new project (we welcome innovation, after
all), and if the effort underway doesn't involve other projects then the
only approval needed would be the project leader, which would be the
person who created the project, which would seem a bit silly.
Of course, nothing would stop somebody from posting an RFC to -dev
essentially in the same format as a GLEP, however.

Of course, what ciaranm and others are really suggesting is that before
there's an announcement that Gentoo has an official project to do blah,
it might be nice to get some feedback from the community first.  If we
(being Gentoo) say that we're going to do something, and then things
fall through, it might make us look bad, after all.  In this case,
though, it's not clear to me what stuart should have done differently.
He didn't issue a press release (unless I'm missing something), he sent
an e-mail to -dev announcing that he had created a new project and
described the purpose of that project.  If it had been me, I probably
would have sent an e-mail letting people know that I was seriously
thinking about creating such a project, pointed out that it was
experimental, and given people a (brief!) period of time to complain
before went ahead and pushed the button, but it's not clear to me that
any of that was actually required.  (I would like to suggest that it is
more courteous, though, not to surprise our devs w/ something new if a
more gentle introduction can be managed.)

To some extent, we're back to determining what the word "official" means
in these cases.  My goal in making projects easy to create was to
support innovative ideas.  Most innovative ideas don't pan out, however,
so a corollary has to be that just because a project exists (and thus is
somehow "official") doesn't mean that anything useful will come out of
it, nor that what does come out of it will be supported by the community
as a whole.  If we need to change things to make that reality more clear, I'm
certainly willing to listen to suggestions. 

-g2boojum-
-- 
Grant Goodyear	
Gentoo Developer
g2boojum@gentoo.org
http://www.gentoo.org/~g2boojum
GPG Fingerprint: D706 9802 1663 DEF5 81B0  9573 A6DC 7152 E0F6 5B76

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Re: [gentoo-dev] seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Simon Stelling]

Grant Goodyear wrote:
> If we
> (being Gentoo) say that we're going to do something, and then things
> fall through, it might make us look bad, after all.

Maybe it's just me being stupid, but what exactly do we have to loose?
(This is a serious question, I'd appreciate serious answers.)

-- 
Kind Regards,

Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 developer
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Joshua Jackson]

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Simon Stelling wrote:
> Grant Goodyear wrote:
>> If we
>> (being Gentoo) say that we're going to do something, and then things
>> fall through, it might make us look bad, after all.
>
> Maybe it's just me being stupid, but what exactly do we have to loose?
> (This is a serious question, I'd appreciate serious answers.)
>
Well, I'd probably say. The respect of others both in and out of the
open source community.

Secondarily I'd say that we lose a bit of the corporate ready
appearance that some are working towards (which I don't oppose).

Third, we lose the respect of each other in the project. Seriously,
its not something to be thought of lightly. If a project you announce
fails, people will remember oh Simon started so and so, and it failed
utterly.

/me considers these to be serious replies ^.^;; <--the face however
isn't *wink*
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Re: [gentoo-dev] seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 20:28:46 +0200 Simon Stelling <blubb@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| Grant Goodyear wrote:
| > If we
| > (being Gentoo) say that we're going to do something, and then things
| > fall through, it might make us look bad, after all.
| 
| Maybe it's just me being stupid, but what exactly do we have to loose?
| (This is a serious question, I'd appreciate serious answers.)

Huge amounts of time, effort and users. How much arch team time was
spent fixing genkernel? How much time was spent fixing the OS X mess?
How many users did we lose as a result of all the QA screwups?

As much as I hate relying upon slashdot for anything reasonable at all,
an awful lot of people in that thread were suggesting that more time be
spent on QA and fixing existing bugs and much less on fancy new
things...

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh
Mail            : ciaranm at ciaranm.org


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Re: [gentoo-dev] seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Simon Stelling]

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> Huge amounts of time, effort and users. How much arch team time was
> spent fixing genkernel? How much time was spent fixing the OS X mess?
> How many users did we lose as a result of all the QA screwups?

Eh, I wanted answers, not more questions :P

> As much as I hate relying upon slashdot for anything reasonable at all,
> an awful lot of people in that thread were suggesting that more time be
> spent on QA and fixing existing bugs and much less on fancy new
> things...

These users are ignoring the fact that time is not the only and most
important factor. Motivation is far more important IMO, and it's pretty
hard to get the motivation together to test 60 packages instead of
tinkering around with a new idea. At least for me it often is.

-- 
Kind Regards,

Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 developer
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Mike Pagano]

On 9/21/06, Simon Stelling <blubb@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> > Huge amounts of time, effort and users. How much arch team time was
> > spent fixing genkernel? How much time was spent fixing the OS X mess?
> > How many users did we lose as a result of all the QA screwups?
>
> Eh, I wanted answers, not more questions :P
>
> > As much as I hate relying upon slashdot for anything reasonable at all,
> > an awful lot of people in that thread were suggesting that more time be
> > spent on QA and fixing existing bugs and much less on fancy new
> > things...
>
> These users are ignoring the fact that time is not the only and most
> important factor. Motivation is far more important IMO, and it's pretty
> hard to get the motivation together to test 60 packages instead of
> tinkering around with a new idea. At least for me it often is.
>
> --
> Kind Regards,
>
> Simon Stelling
> Gentoo/AMD64 developer
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

Maybe a recruiting drive to help with the maintenance.  A typical
business brings on new blood and assigns them just that role to free
up more senior developers for more complicated projects.

New developers should definitely meet a standard, but the possibility
of bringing developers with energy and potential to assist in
maintenance might be worth a consideration.
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-dev] Re: seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Peter]

On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 17:01:02 -0400, Mike Pagano wrote:
> Maybe a recruiting drive to help with the maintenance.  A typical
> business brings on new blood and assigns them just that role to free up
> more senior developers for more complicated projects.
> 
> New developers should definitely meet a standard, but the possibility of
> bringing developers with energy and potential to assist in maintenance
> might be worth a consideration.

That's a laugh! Problem is that no devs seem to get approved in a timely
fashion. And, any potential devs would be rather turned off by the goings
on here. You guys seem to try and stifle innovation at every turn --
trying to turn Gentoo into GLEPtoo. Instead of progress, you have
arguments. Instead of innovation, you have arguments. Instead of new
blood, you lose people.

You (collectively meaning the critics of new projects) are so worried
about the perception of Gentoo that you can't see the forest for the
trees. The fact that every new proposal gets a 100 message thread as a
response looks really silly. Having developers submit ebuild quizzes and
then not hear for 6 weeks is silly.

Here's my take on what wrong with leadership and the process in
Gentoo-land . Many people have ideas, and some make attempts to implement
them. That's great. However, some then think it's not right or not proper
or not proposed the right way. Some of the critics may be right, but who's
the arbiter? Who's to say, "STFU, this project is going ahead" or "You've
got a point, let's discuss it." No one. There's no one person or group who
seems to have the authority to step up and take control of a situation. No
one who can say to bashers, "You're out of line." Oh I know, there's the
council, but really, I've yet to see them exert any authority. Look at the
calamity that surrounded Paludis or Sunrise.

Instead, you have a dozen people jerking around over the propriety of the
manner in which a project was proposed! All trying, with good intent,
to influence the future direction of Gentoo. Good god. It's like third
grade.

So, my unofficial 2 cents are: Encourage development at every turn.
Accelerate approval of developers (hint, kloeri, christel?), and, instead
of flaming and arguing all the time, maybe offer assistance! And lastly,
for goodness sakes, someone take control. You really need an authority
figure here who is respected and whose word is final. Otherwise, every
tom, dick, and harry with an opinion is going to chime in and say "Oh no,
you can't do that."

-- 
Peter

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-dev] Delay in approval of new developers

[Andrew Ross]

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Peter wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 17:01:02 -0400, Mike Pagano wrote:
>> Maybe a recruiting drive to help with the maintenance.  A typical
>> business brings on new blood and assigns them just that role to free up
>> more senior developers for more complicated projects.
>>
>> New developers should definitely meet a standard, but the possibility of
>> bringing developers with energy and potential to assist in maintenance
>> might be worth a consideration.
> 
> That's a laugh! Problem is that no devs seem to get approved in a timely
> fashion.

As a recently recruited developer, I'd just like to say that I was very
happy with the approval time of my recruitment bug (#139633), which was
filed on 2006-07-07 and resolved on 2006-08-08.

I understand that not all recruitments occur as quickly as mine, but I
also accept that Gentoo is comprised solely of volunteers, and that
devrel (and particularly recruiters) are understaffed (in terms of
available manhours - not necessarily project members).

> Having developers submit ebuild quizzes and
> then not hear for 6 weeks is silly.

I'll assume here that you're referring to hearing back from recruiters,
rather than a mentor. If a mentor is taking that long to respond they
need to be replaced, as per
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/recruiters/mentor.xml

If recruiters are taking that long, but it's due primarily to a lack of
manpower, then there's not much that can be done to improve the
situation. It's not like the potential-dev has to sit around twiddling
their thumbs - bugs still need to be fixed, and if there's a holdup with
devrel the mentor can offer to commit things on behalf of the recruitee.

Not all developers are cut out to be recruiters, and I'm sure some of
those who have what it takes would rather work on something else :-)
Much like infrastructure, my impression is that being a recruiter isn't
exactly a glamorous role. On top of that, the actions a recruiter must
perform for each recruitment aren't exactly 5 minute jobs:

"Recruiters need to possess several talents in order to successfully
oversee additions to the development team. First and foremost, a
recruiter needs to be a good judge of character. While most new
developer sponsors pick only the best candidates, there have been and
will be occasional duds. Recruiters need to be able to analyze an
individual's background, experience, and past contributions, then use
that information to decide whether or not to accept a developer.
Recruiters also need to be aware of the big picture in order to
recognize weaknesses in the organization and accept developers who will
shore up those weaknesses."
	http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/recruiters/

Cheers

Andrew



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[gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Peter]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 19:25:26 +1000, Andrew Ross wrote:

snip...
>> 
>> That's a laugh! Problem is that no devs seem to get approved in a timely
>> fashion.
> 
> As a recently recruited developer, I'd just like to say that I was very
> happy with the approval time of my recruitment bug (#139633), which was
> filed on 2006-07-07 and resolved on 2006-08-08.
> 
> I understand that not all recruitments occur as quickly as mine, 

you are the exception.

> 
> If recruiters are taking that long, but it's due primarily to a lack of
> manpower, 

or poor organization.

> Not all developers are cut out to be recruiters, and I'm sure some of
> those who have what it takes would rather work on something else :-)
> Much like infrastructure, my impression is that being a recruiter isn't
> exactly a glamorous role. On top of that, the actions a recruiter must
> perform for each recruitment aren't exactly 5 minute jobs:
> 

months of silence in the many cases unlike yours are rude and inexcusable.

> 
> Cheers
> 
> Andrew

glad you were an exception.

-- 
Peter

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Jochen Maes]

Peter wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 19:25:26 +1000, Andrew Ross wrote:
>
> snip...
>   
>>> That's a laugh! Problem is that no devs seem to get approved in a timely
>>> fashion.
>>>       
>> As a recently recruited developer, I'd just like to say that I was very
>> happy with the approval time of my recruitment bug (#139633), which was
>> filed on 2006-07-07 and resolved on 2006-08-08.
>>
>> I understand that not all recruitments occur as quickly as mine, 
>>     
>
> you are the exception.
>   
first of all, i may not be a recruiter anymore nor even a gentoo dev,
but  find it appalling  that again this issue arises.

>   
>> If recruiters are taking that long, but it's due primarily to a lack of
>> manpower, 
>>     
>
> or poor organization.
>
>   
there is a good organisation, but the problem lies in that there aren't
many recruiters and that they are burned out very quickely.
The 2 quizzes needed must be sent in one by one, approved by a recruiter
and then a small interview is needed (for each quiz) concerning the quiz.
When i did my recruitements the first quiz always took between a half
hour till and hour and a half.
The second at least an hour. (read, check, ask questions).
Then you need to add the person to the system, which takes a few
commands on different systems.
Overall recruiting 1 person takes about 2-3 hours at least.
None of the recruiters and solemnly recruiters, they all work on other
things for gentoo also.
This takes time and you can't say to someone hey i'll check you half,
tomorrow half again and then day after i'll do the addition itself.

The time it takes is providing you are online at the same time, and that
the persons connect their recruiters after the mentor approved the quiz.
I've had lots of recruitements where they send in the first quiz, but i
had to wait a month or 2 for the second. In these 2 months you are busy
tracking the person, trying to contact him etc.

recruitement of 1 person takes a lot of time if you want to do it
correctly. The way the organisation works is as good as we can do it.
>> Not all developers are cut out to be recruiters, and I'm sure some of
>> those who have what it takes would rather work on something else :-)
>> Much like infrastructure, my impression is that being a recruiter isn't
>> exactly a glamorous role. On top of that, the actions a recruiter must
>> perform for each recruitment aren't exactly 5 minute jobs:
>>
>>     
>
> months of silence in the many cases unlike yours are rude and inexcusable.
>   
same for the people asking to be recruited, we see that all the time.
and it's easy to complain and nag, but is there any constructive
critisism here?
>   
>> Cheers
>>
>> Andrew
>>     
>
> glad you were an exception.
>
>   
glad i never knew you when i was a gentoo dev... I know one thing, you
won't ever get a hump out of me!
-- 
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[gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Peter]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 13:15:14 +0200, Jochen Maes wrote:

snip...

>> glad you were an exception.
>>
>>   
> glad i never knew you when i was a gentoo dev... I know one thing, you
> won't ever get a hump out of me!

You're arguing a different point. I was commenting on the time delay, and
you responded with how difficult it is to be a recruiter. If the delay is
long then there is a problem. If you run a business and you want to hire
someone, yet you wait and wait and wait, it's quite possible the recruit
may accept another position. That's a loss to you. Same with potential
gentoo developers. When someone goes through the trouble to complete
tests, work with his/her mentor, spend time on bz, etc., the least they
can expect is courteous response when they choose to become a dev.
Perusing through recruitment bugs, you can see long lapses. It IS
inexcusable.

Yes, everyone does gentoo voluntarily, but that does not mean less should
be expected. It reminds me of the time my 5 year old cousin sadly was in
the hospital, and the nurse needed to take yet another blood sample. The
nurse said "I'm sorry I have to take blood again. I don't like to hurt
little boys." To which my very sharp cousin replied, "So, why are you in
this business?"

If a gentoo dev joins a particular project to perform a particular task,
he/she IS making a commitment to it. The dev should have known in advance
what's expected and the time required. AFAIK recruiters are hardly
overworked. There is no overfull pipeline of dev recruits banging on the
doors.

Simple courtesy requires they handle recruiting bugs quickly and
efficiently with either a Welcome or a thumbs down. Dragging the
recruitment out only makes it harder to get new recruits. They are, in
effect, working against themselves and their own goal.

> glad i never knew you when i was a gentoo dev

I have been recruited 3 times to be a dev, and declined. I find the gentoo
hierarchy and organization stifling and the amount of roadblocks to
progress ridiculous.

I appreciate your POV. Yes, you can't expect too much from volunteers.
But, in a worldwide linux distribution, which is run more or less like a
business, there is a higher standard that should be adhered to. I don't
accept slackers or inefficiency in my business, and nor should gentoo.

Why are you no longer a gentoo-dev, btw?

-- 
Peter

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Jochen Maes]

Peter wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 13:15:14 +0200, Jochen Maes wrote:
>
> snip...
>
>   
>>> glad you were an exception.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> glad i never knew you when i was a gentoo dev... I know one thing, you
>> won't ever get a hump out of me!
>>     
>
> You're arguing a different point. I was commenting on the time delay, and
> you responded with how difficult it is to be a recruiter. If the delay is
> long then there is a problem. If you run a business and you want to hire
> someone, yet you wait and wait and wait, it's quite possible the recruit
> may accept another position. That's a loss to you. Same with potential
> gentoo developers. When someone goes through the trouble to complete
> tests, work with his/her mentor, spend time on bz, etc., the least they
> can expect is courteous response when they choose to become a dev.
> Perusing through recruitment bugs, you can see long lapses. It IS
> inexcusable.
>
> Yes, everyone does gentoo voluntarily, but that does not mean less should
> be expected. It reminds me of the time my 5 year old cousin sadly was in
> the hospital, and the nurse needed to take yet another blood sample. The
> nurse said "I'm sorry I have to take blood again. I don't like to hurt
> little boys." To which my very sharp cousin replied, "So, why are you in
> this business?"
>
> If a gentoo dev joins a particular project to perform a particular task,
> he/she IS making a commitment to it. The dev should have known in advance
> what's expected and the time required. AFAIK recruiters are hardly
> overworked. There is no overfull pipeline of dev recruits banging on the
> doors.
>
> Simple courtesy requires they handle recruiting bugs quickly and
> efficiently with either a Welcome or a thumbs down. Dragging the
> recruitment out only makes it harder to get new recruits. They are, in
> effect, working against themselves and their own goal.
>
>   
>> glad i never knew you when i was a gentoo dev
>>     
>
> I have been recruited 3 times to be a dev, and declined. I find the gentoo
> hierarchy and organization stifling and the amount of roadblocks to
> progress ridiculous.
>
> I appreciate your POV. Yes, you can't expect too much from volunteers.
> But, in a worldwide linux distribution, which is run more or less like a
> business, there is a higher standard that should be adhered to. I don't
> accept slackers or inefficiency in my business, and nor should gentoo.
>
> Why are you no longer a gentoo-dev, btw?
>
>   
because i was sick of people discussing things that they knew shite
about and cluttering up the mailinglists.
you _can't_ compare gentoo with a business. simple as that
arf, why did i even start...

/me closes dev mailbox for another month
-- 
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[gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Peter]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 14:14:24 +0200, Jochen Maes wrote:

snip...

>> I appreciate your POV. Yes, you can't expect too much from volunteers.
>> But, in a worldwide linux distribution, which is run more or less like
>> a business, there is a higher standard that should be adhered to. I
>> don't accept slackers or inefficiency in my business, and nor should
>> gentoo.
>>
>> Why are you no longer a gentoo-dev, btw?
>>
>>
> because i was sick of people discussing things that they knew shite
> about and cluttering up the mailinglists.

THAT is not a reason to cease being a dev. Come on, you can do better than
that.

> you _can't_ compare gentoo with a business. simple as that arf, why did
> i even start...
> 

We can disagree on that point. All distros are businesses. Users are
customers. No users, no distro.

> /me closes dev mailbox for another month

Well, there is a lot of clutter sometimes :)

-- 
Peter

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Simon Stelling]

Peter wrote:
> We can disagree on that point. All distros are businesses. Users are
> customers. No users, no distro.

I haven't received a single paycheck in two years. What a shitty business.

-- 
Kind Regards,

Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 developer
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Seemant Kulleen]

On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 12:29 +0000, Peter wrote:


> We can disagree on that point. All distros are businesses. Users are
> customers. No users, no distro.

That is not strictly true.  You can have a distro without users --
nobody but you would be using it -- it's still a distro.  It all depends
on what you expect out of the project.  I think Sejo's got the right
idea this time -- this distro is just a community, and that's how it's
run (well, it's run more like a commune, but anyway).  If it were run
like a business, the behaviour would be a lot different (and a lot more
closed).  For starters, there would actually be a leadership situation
in place.  You can argue that Gentoo *began* its life as a business, but
the past three years have been far removed from that paradigm.


Thanks,
-- 
Seemant Kulleen
Developer, Gentoo Linux

-- 
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[gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Peter]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:55:14 -0400, Seemant Kulleen wrote:

> On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 12:29 +0000, Peter wrote:
> 
> 
>> We can disagree on that point. All distros are businesses. Users are
>> customers. No users, no distro.
> 
> That is not strictly true.  You can have a distro without users --
> nobody but you would be using it -- it's still a distro.  It all depends
> on what you expect out of the project.  I think Sejo's got the right
> idea this time -- this distro is just a community, and that's how it's
> run (well, it's run more like a commune, but anyway).  If it were run
> like a business, the behaviour would be a lot different (and a lot more
> closed).  For starters, there would actually be a leadership situation
> in place.  You can argue that Gentoo *began* its life as a business, but
> the past three years have been far removed from that paradigm.
> 
> 
And, IMHO, that's a problem. A business, per se, does not necessarily mean
for profit or even to generate revenues. However, one may argue that a
business should provide a service or manufacture something -- even if for
free.

That said, the community aspect of gentoo, while altruistic, has its
problems when it comes to adjudicating disputes or greenlighting projects.
Look at the chaos with Seeds! Some very vocal opponents, vocal supporters.
People advocating a Glep, others against it. Problem is, no leader can
or does say anything to squelch the dispute and allow the issue to either
move on or go completely unofficial.

That the dispute remains unresolved causes ill feelings to linger, allows
the people on either side to dig in to their respective positions harder
and looks plain dumb. Good points have been raised on either side,
although there are some very strong voices that seem to dominate the
discussion. However, those voices are NOT from the council. Do those
voices have the authority to change policy? Make policy? No.

Having a democratic organization is great. Having a community-run distro
is great. However, it's a little utopian and unrealistic when situations
like this arise. You need a group to lay down the law and establish
control. Otherwise, you may find yourself in a situation where good people
with differing points of view just get fed up and leave the fold. That
would be a loss for everyone.

Similarly, you cannot allow certain individuals with little or no standing
to try and dictate what policy vis a vis a proposed project should be.
Otherwise, you end up in a real mess.

I once served on a board with 39 members. It was a national association
charged with pr and marketing of it's core service. The 39 members came
from important companies from around the nation each in this business.

Despite the wonderful intentions of the board -- to promote our industry,
lobby the government (state, local, and federal), assist smaller players
-- agreement on even the most minor items took forever. Ultimately, after
a few years, the board was reduced to 13 and became more productive.

When new ideas are proposed and developed, gentoo's leadership must be
involved from the beginning. This will head off these 100 thread
flamefests, allow project originators to know where they stand, and allow
those who disagree to know that there is authority.

You cannot allow things to get out of hand like they do. Everyone here
obviously wants to make gentoo better. However, NOT everyone has the right
to do so. NOT everyone has veto power or authority to approve.

That's what's missing from this process. I think the council has been far
too quiet and policy far too vague which makes new ideas so difficult and
controversial.

You can't have a socialist model for a business. It simply does not work.
A union cannot run an auto company. You need leadership. Gentoo cannot be
run by 100 developers concurrently (yes, I know there are 300, but how
many of those are actually contributing?). There has to be a chain of
command. Otherwise, you are rudderless.

JM$0.02
-- 
Peter

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Seemant Kulleen]

Peter,

Your two cents are worth a lot.  Pretty much all of what you've said has
been echoed time and again on this list and on the -core list (and
probably an irc channel or two).

The concept of "business" aside, the points you make about having a
leadership in place are on target, in my opinion.

Thanks,
-- 
Seemant Kulleen
Developer, Gentoo Linux

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Chris Gianelloni]

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I just want to prefix this by saying that I was simply going to ignore
your posts in this thread completely due to your obviously inflammatory
nature at the beginning.  Now that you're posting actual constructive
criticisms, I'd like to respond.  By the way, thank you for changing
your tone to something more productive.

On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 13:26 +0000, Peter wrote:
> Having a democratic organization is great. Having a community-run distro
> is great. However, it's a little utopian and unrealistic when situations
> like this arise. You need a group to lay down the law and establish
> control. Otherwise, you may find yourself in a situation where good people
> with differing points of view just get fed up and leave the fold. That
> would be a loss for everyone.

This is something that most of the new council feels needs to be done.
Gentoo has been run as an anarchy for far too long.  The "leadership"
has been pretty far removed from the day-to-day activities for some
time.  This isn't necessarily the fault of the people in power so much
as the failing of all of us.  Every single developer is responsible for
the situation we now find ourselves in through our inaction and apathy.

Let's stop this now and work towards cleaning up our house.

> Similarly, you cannot allow certain individuals with little or no standing
> to try and dictate what policy vis a vis a proposed project should be.
> Otherwise, you end up in a real mess.

Dictate, no.  Suggest, absolutely.

> When new ideas are proposed and developed, gentoo's leadership must be
> involved from the beginning. This will head off these 100 thread
> flamefests, allow project originators to know where they stand, and allow
> those who disagree to know that there is authority.

I agree, wholeheartedly.  I think that some of the principles under
which we are currently running are simply flawed.  While putting
unnecessary restrictions on projects is definitely not a way to
innovate, having no controls, whatsoever, leads to complete anarchy.

There are many contributing factors to these problems.  This is nowhere
near an exhaustive list, but a simple one from the top of my head.

- The council is not involved in new projects.
- New projects do not undergo a design phase to attempt to add sanity to
them prior to their announcement/official status.
- Projects do not communicate with each other.
- Existing projects are not informed of possible parallels with new
projects, resulting in duplication of work, hard feelings, and a lack of
good resource utilization.
- There are no ramifications against developers who do not follow the
decisions made by the council.
- The council, even after the recent change to allow meetings outside of
the monthly schedule, is limited in its ability to make decisions in q
quick and decisive manner.

> You cannot allow things to get out of hand like they do. Everyone here
> obviously wants to make gentoo better. However, NOT everyone has the right
> to do so. NOT everyone has veto power or authority to approve.

Correct.  The council is nominated and voted on by the developers to
represent them.  This should give the council the power to do what is
necessary to promote Gentoo and to improve Gentoo.

> That's what's missing from this process. I think the council has been far
> too quiet and policy far too vague which makes new ideas so difficult and
> controversial.

Agreed.  However, the new council has only been official for 11 days,
now.  Some of us are just now getting the feel of what is involved, and
we are discussing possible changes that need to take place.

I propose that we start discussing more on #gentoo-council and come
forth with some ideas for improvement by the 29th of September (1 week
from now) to be brought up at the next meeting and voted upon.

> You can't have a socialist model for a business. It simply does not work.
> A union cannot run an auto company. You need leadership. Gentoo cannot be
> run by 100 developers concurrently (yes, I know there are 300, but how
> many of those are actually contributing?). There has to be a chain of
> command. Otherwise, you are rudderless.

This has been the problem with Gentoo since Daniel left, quite honestly.
While things were far from perfect back then, the chain of command was
much more defined.  Currently, there is no chain, at all.

Again, I thank you for the constructive ideas and hope that this spurs
some discussion on how the council can act to improve Gentoo.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Peter]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:13:23 -0400, Chris Gianelloni wrote:

> I just want to prefix this by saying that I was simply going to ignore
> your posts in this thread completely due to your obviously inflammatory
> nature at the beginning.  Now that you're posting actual constructive
> criticisms, I'd like to respond.  By the way, thank you for changing
> your tone to something more productive.
> 

Bunk! Unnecessary to write. Why not just plonk me and be done with it.
Nothing I wrote was inflammatory at all. My criticism of the recruitment
process stand. Your response was welcome. The prefix was condescending and
offensive.

You, as leaders, have to really think through what your intentions are and
how you are going to deal with people and factions with various
objectives. Telling people they are obviously inflammatory is really not a
strong way to begin.

-- 
Peter

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Andrew Gaffney]

Peter wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:13:23 -0400, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> 
>> I just want to prefix this by saying that I was simply going to ignore
>> your posts in this thread completely due to your obviously inflammatory
>> nature at the beginning.  Now that you're posting actual constructive
>> criticisms, I'd like to respond.  By the way, thank you for changing
>> your tone to something more productive.
>>
> 
> Bunk! Unnecessary to write. Why not just plonk me and be done with it.
> Nothing I wrote was inflammatory at all. My criticism of the recruitment
> process stand. Your response was welcome. The prefix was condescending and
> offensive.
> 
> You, as leaders, have to really think through what your intentions are and
> how you are going to deal with people and factions with various
> objectives. Telling people they are obviously inflammatory is really not a
> strong way to begin.

I believe you just proved his point.

-- 
Andrew Gaffney                            http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/
Gentoo Linux Developer                                   Installer Project
Today's lesson in political correctness:      "Go asphyxiate on a phallus"
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Alec Warner]

> 
> You cannot allow things to get out of hand like they do. Everyone here
> obviously wants to make gentoo better. However, NOT everyone has the right
> to do so.

Not everyone has the right?  I think the GPL would preclude that 
statement.  Not everyone has the *drive*, or the social skills, or the 
technical prowess; but we all have the right.  This is FOSS after all ;)

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 14:37 -0400, Alec Warner wrote:
> > 
> > You cannot allow things to get out of hand like they do. Everyone here
> > obviously wants to make gentoo better. However, NOT everyone has the right
> > to do so.
> 
> Not everyone has the right?  I think the GPL would preclude that 
> statement.  Not everyone has the *drive*, or the social skills, or the 
> technical prowess; but we all have the right.  This is FOSS after all ;)

Ehh... The GPL doesn't say that *Gentoo* has to do something.  Yes, as
an individual, one has the right to take Gentoo's software and do Their
Own Thing(tm) with it, so long as they follow the GPL.  However, that
does not mean that Gentoo itself has to have any part in it.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Josh Saddler]

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Seemant Kulleen wrote:
> (well, it's run more like a commune, but anyway).

I *knew* someone else was using my soap!!!
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-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Delay in approval of new developers

[Grant Goodyear]

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Peter wrote: [Fri Sep 22 2006, 07:29:57AM CDT]
> We can disagree on that point. All distros are businesses. Users are
> customers. No users, no distro.

Actually, I still think that agriffis was correct in his assertion that
most devs work on Gentoo for their own interests, and that the
developers are our distro's primary consumers.  It is amazing that so
many others find our work useful, and we very much appreciate the
Gentoo community that has formed.  Consequently,  we are willing to do our
best to provide a distro that scratches our users itches as well as our
own, but ultimately it is developer self-interest that keeps things
going.

-g2boojum-
-- 
Grant Goodyear	
Gentoo Developer
g2boojum@gentoo.org
http://www.gentoo.org/~g2boojum
GPG Fingerprint: D706 9802 1663 DEF5 81B0  9573 A6DC 7152 E0F6 5B76

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Mike Kelly]

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On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 21:43:16 +0000 (UTC)
"Peter" <sw98234@hotmail.com> wrote:

> That's a laugh! Problem is that no devs seem to get approved in a
> timely fashion. And, any potential devs would be rather turned off by
> the goings on here. You guys seem to try and stifle innovation at
> every turn -- trying to turn Gentoo into GLEPtoo. Instead of
> progress, you have arguments. Instead of innovation, you have
> arguments. Instead of new blood, you lose people.

Hi, not so. I've just joined on as a dev, my recruitment process
happened in a timely fashion. After I passed all my quizzes, I became a
dev. I think we also had at least 3 other new folks in the past few
weeks, and maybe 1 person leaving.

While getting fresh blood is a good thing, you've gotta be sure that
the new blood is up to snuff. That takes some time. There's nothing to
stop them from contributing before they're "official." Hey, look at
what the other Summer of Code-ers and I did over the past few months.
Some of us have become devs, others haven't, but we all made sizable
contributions to Gentoo development.

-- 
Mike Kelly

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[gentoo-dev] Re: seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Peter]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:06:16 -0400, Mike Kelly wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 21:43:16 +0000 (UTC)
> "Peter" <sw98234@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> That's a laugh! Problem is that no devs seem to get approved in a
>> timely fashion. And, any potential devs would be rather turned off by
>> the goings on here. You guys seem to try and stifle innovation at
>> every turn -- trying to turn Gentoo into GLEPtoo. Instead of
>> progress, you have arguments. Instead of innovation, you have
>> arguments. Instead of new blood, you lose people.
> 
> Hi, not so. I've just joined on as a dev, my recruitment process
> happened in a timely fashion. After I passed all my quizzes, I became a
> dev. I think we also had at least 3 other new folks in the past few
> weeks, and maybe 1 person leaving.
> 
Not timely. Incredibly fast. I've never seen a one week soup to nuts
developer approval. However, others still languish. See bz.

-- 
Peter

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Christel Dahlskjaer]

On Thu, 2006-09-21 at 21:43 +0000, Peter wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 17:01:02 -0400, Mike Pagano wrote:
<snip>

Since you mentioned my name in your e-mail I figured I had something to
do with the delay on your becoming a developer, however, having
consulted bugzilla I find that this is not the case. Rather the
opposite, you requested that your bug be closed, which I presume means
that you decided you no longer had a wish to become a Gentoo developer. 

It is no secret however that the recruiters were struggling to keep up,
and still are to some extent, despite having recruited more recruiters
(my, that was a awkward sentence). As for delays, I can only speak for
those recruits assigned to myself, and there's no great time delays for
either of them. I generally opt for about a month from I pick them up
until I expect them  to be ready to interview and discuss their quizzes.
I currently am awaiting quizzes from a couple, and have a couple of
others who are marked and held up only by me waiting for them to get
back to me with a suitable time for us to sit down and go through their
quizzes in more of an informal interview style. My new recruits I
believe are happy, or atleast it would appear so from our talks
throughout their first months of devship. 

On occasion it may be difficult to arrange a time to sit down together,
be it due to time zone differences or trying to fit it in to both the
recruit and the recruiters otherwise busy schedule. As I am sure you've
heard many a time already, we all volunteer our time for Gentoo, and we
all work on other projects besides recruitment. This means that we can't
necessarily walk out of anything else we may be doing to sit down with
someone as and when they request it. Not only is availability affected
by other Gentoo projects, but also factors such as work, husbands,
wives, children, other hobbies and commitments taking up varying amounts
of time. I know I am having a tremendously busy time at the moment as I
am in the process of moving, changing careers, spending a lot of time on
one of my other projects due to the unexpected death of one of my
colleagues and friends. And sure, in my case this means that instead of
being able to tell a recruit that we can chat in  ten minutes I may ask
them that we talk in two days time at $rand o' clock, but this has not
been a problem so far. 

I guess, another factor is attitude, Gentoo doesn't pay enough for us to
sit around and take abuse, wait, it doesn't pay at all.. and so we are
less likely to expedite the process for someone who comes across as rude
and demanding. Generally speaking, I would spend more time with someone
who asked rather than demanded. And someone who discussed rather than
threw tantrums. 

Again, there's nothing stopping anyone from contributing while they are
waiting, you don't need a @gentoo.org e-mail address to fix bugs, and
for the most part the mentors are more than happy to proxy stuff on
their recruits behalf while they are waiting.  

Anyhow, it's 2.30am, I was looking over quizzes and then I shall head to
bed.




-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] seeds, GLEPs, and projects

[Lance Albertson]

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Grant Goodyear wrote:

> To some extent, we're back to determining what the word "official" means
> in these cases.  My goal in making projects easy to create was to
> support innovative ideas.  Most innovative ideas don't pan out, however,
> so a corollary has to be that just because a project exists (and thus is
> somehow "official") doesn't mean that anything useful will come out of
> it, nor that what does come out of it will be supported by the community
> as a whole.  If we need to change things to make that reality more clear, I'm
> certainly willing to listen to suggestions. 

I really like the idea that people can create new projects w/o some
overseeing board, but I don't like new projects that don't announce an
RFC before they say "here we are". I'd like to keep this process easy,
and I do agree with you that this particular case may not have fallen
under the GLEP area. So that being said, what's the harm in requiring
folks to send an RFC to -dev a few weeks prior to making some kind of
public announcement? I know that several people will argue that a lot of
things in a project may not be drawn out completely, but I think
encouraging people wanting to create new projects to try and at least go
through most of the process before announcing it to the world is a good
ideal.

I'm not implying that an RFC needs to be as drawn out as a GLEP, but it
certainly should lay out the goals, plans, some implementation details.
Who knows, maybe you'll get a few folks interested right off and that's
a plus for you in the long run. You'll of course have the few who will
flame the idea and you'll just have to take what they say as a grain of
salt. We're all knowledgeable about various things, why can't we utilize
that asset?

If people like this idea, I'd like to propose the council to add an
addendum to our "new projects" policy to include the requirement of some
kind of RFC before a public announcement saying 'we're ready' is done.
Its kind of a 'peer' review type of thing and it also builds
trust/communication between all of us.

This whole issue boils down to accountability and communication. We want
to make sure that We (gentoo) as a whole can be accountable for a
project that is created. We also want to be informed so that we can
either comment or become involved in a new project during its formation.

-- 
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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