Re: [gentoo-dev] [ANN] Multiple version suffixes illegal in gentoo-x86

[Richard Freeman <rich@thefreemanclan.net>]

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Seemant Kulleen wrote:
> 
> If I were to guess I'd say people are a little confused that this
> required action/decision this quickly and outside of a regular council
> meeting -- for a real emergency situation, you'd probably see a lot less
> of a hub-bub about it.  But, come on, this is a 3-package issue.

Perhaps they wanted to make sure it remained a 3-package issue, and
thought that it might grow before it could be addressed?

This all seems a bit like a tempest in a teapot to me, and I don't mean
to single out any individual's contribution to this discussion.

The council has stated that multiple version suffixes are to be avoided.
 I doubt they're going to suspend any developer who hasn't cleaned up
their packages by Friday.  I'm sure they're happy to see discussion on
- -dev regarding pros and cons of various ways of implementing this change
before it happens, and in the meantime new packages going into portage
will be mindful of the policy from the start.  If a particular package
needs a month to sort out some really messy issue I'm sure the
maintainer would be treated reasonably if they simply emailed a council
member about it.

Gentoo is a community, and sometimes people in a community don't always
agree.  Somebody has to make a decision, and we can't make every hill
the one we're willing to die on.  The council will generally represent
the majority opinion of developers, simply due to the fact that it is an
elected body.

Sometimes in a community cohesiveness is more important than
productivity, because it is the ability to mobilize hordes of developers
that matters more than the contributions of any individual.  Sometimes
that means an elegant solution to a problem gets put on the back burner
for a few months.  Sometimes that means that a developer who is
unusually productive is asked to cool down a little.  Personally, my
feeling has always been that if you want to avoid politics then avoid
doing things that create political messes (flamewars, heated discussion,
etc).  If you disagree passionately with somebody about something, try
having a private email conversation where both of you can let down your
guard and try to understand each other's concerns.  And then don't go
quoting each other all over public lists to bolster your arguments...

Remember, everybody is here to make Gentoo a better product, because
we're all users as well as contributors.  When users file poorly-worded
bugs they're just trying to help, and when some developer makes an
"idiotic" decision they probably think they're doing the right thing.
That means that they're going to be automatically predisposed to helping
you out if you just ask nicely.

When posting as a user in bugzilla I've been flamed more than a few
times (and not just on gentoo).  I just try to be as polite as I can -
after all I'm the one asking for a little help and somebody else is
taking the time to help me.  After all, it doesn't cost me anything, and
down the road it could pay dividends.  The same applies in reverse -
being nice to others doesn't really cost you anything, and you never
know when you will need their help down the road...
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