[gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Caleb Cushing]

I'd like to start with, I'm not trying to stir up trouble but since
questions were asked i'll answer them.

> If you think neither should exist why do you have an opinion about this at all?

I merged the java-overlay into regen2 a couple of weeks ago. as of
right now I've no plans to support java-experimental.

I'm fine with overlays so long as working ebuilds spend no more than a
few weeks in them. I have my own development branch and half the stuff
that's in there that isn't in the main tree doesn't work. Things like
perl 5.10 have been rotting in an overlay for a year. Funtoo  ( under
my direction ) and Regen2 have had it ~arch for over a month now. We
found one bug post release thus far. I filed a bug on xorg-server
1.6.0 not being in tree. It was resolved fixed (in overlay) (which
another bug clearly states it has amd64 build issues). since when has
(in overlay) been an acceptable solution to a missing package? I said
it before, the reason I like gentoo* distro's is I don't have to find
the repository to get the latest package, that's just a pain, in
ubuntu, in opensuse, in fedora... etc. But no more... officially
supported huge overlays have ruined this.

on the topic of sunrise, I approve of sunrise to a degree. I like the
non-reviewed half, but once they're reviewed they should be put in
tree. Isn't it true that some of those packages never get maintainers?

> What makes you think that overlays aren't for developers, aspiring developers
> and interested users where they are working on stuff?

users don't know how to hack. the very definition of user says that,
imo. There are developers, admins, and users. admins don't want
overlays, they are supposed to be unstable. users can't hack, so what
do they care. the problem is, an overlay has become a repo, I'm not
sure that it was originally intended for that.

> It is desirable IMO that
> all such people can easily be given full access to muck around and learn.

this does not mean officially supported overlays. You obviously won't
commit just anything to an officially supported overlay which suggests
that you don't allow 'mucking around'.

> Further, overlays are good places to put ebuilds for software that is more
> experimental than what's expected for ~arch. That includes live ebuilds. In the
> end, overlays have a (far) lower level of guaranteed quality than the main tree,
> for their ebuilds

because ~arch is supposed to work? take open bug on wine-1.1.16 it
doesn't build on amd64 and yet it's ~amd64. how about that nam ebuild
that has invalid bash that I mentioned? that's some quality work
there. The point is the tree is no better or worse than the overlays
in many cases.

> might even argue that Funtoo is one big overlay. When your own ability to
> contribute directly depends on an overlay, then why are you arguing against
> other people's overlays?

perhaps this is the real problem gentoo's primary way to accept user
contributions is via overlays. I disagree with the calling of Funtoo
as one big overlay, it's a replacement tree, and it provides
everything needed within that tree, as does regen2. overlays however
rely on an external tree, and now you've been discussing making them
rely on other overlays.

> Please point me to the people willing and having the time to maintain
> those >100 new ebuilds in the main tree.

given all the problems with the in tree ebuilds that aren't properly
maintained, I see no difference.

Regen2, is attempting to fix these problems, and more. I do try to get
my fixes back upstream here, but more often than not the bug
languishes. I don't think Gentoo is bad, but I do think it's taken a
wrong turn. But I suppose that these things are problems are simply my
opinion.

I've probably already offended a large share of people on this list,
now lets see if I can offend a few more by soliciting.

I consider Regen2 ready for use, but pre-release since I have yet to
roll ISO's and tarballs. Anyone who wants to help is welcome, be you
current, former or aspiring developer. More info at http://regen2.org

I will not discuss regen2 further on this list as I feel this is not
really the place, but I was asked. I am willing to discuss overlays
further, but I'm not sure I really have more to say. I suppose the
last thing would be back in the day I got everything from the tree, if
I wanted, needed something else I downloaded an individual ebuild, and
put it in /my/ local overlay. I didn't download a bunch of incomplete
mini-trees using a tool.
-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Peter Alfredsen]

On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 02:32:13 -0500
Caleb Cushing <xenoterracide@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd like to start with, I'm not trying to stir up trouble but since
> questions were asked i'll answer them.
> 
> > If you think neither should exist why do you have an opinion about
> > this at all?
> 
> I merged the java-overlay into regen2 a couple of weeks ago. as of
> right now I've no plans to support java-experimental.

Then don't. Really.

> I filed a bug on xorg-server
> 1.6.0 not being in tree. It was resolved fixed (in overlay) (which
> another bug clearly states it has amd64 build issues). since when has
> (in overlay) been an acceptable solution to a missing package?


That's pretty much at developer discretion. Please note that we have to
have an actual working distribution, which means that sometimes we use
overlays to make basic QA checks against installed packages (Does it
build? Does it work?). That said, I try to not close bugs before
they've been resolved in-tree precisely because of the reaction that
provoked on bug 260582. I personally like to have my bugs reflect the
state of the tree.

Bugzilla is a tool for developers to track progress, not for
third-party distributions to track progress. You've forked the tree.
That's fine. The license allows that. But it doesn't obligate us to
adapt our tools to fit your purpose. Bugzilla is a strictly
technical tool, so comments on bugs should be kept free of ad hominem
remarks. From all parties.

Your behavior on bug 260582 was clearly unacceptable. You
seem to think that we owe you something. Please re-examine your
premises. Donnie already told you he was working on it. Our job is not
to support your distribution. It is to make the best distro for
ourselves. In the case of xorg-server, that means getting something
into the tree that works. A masked ebuild will in this case be more
bother than it's worth because the mask would have to encompass a
bunch of other packages. Which leads me on to the next paragraph...

> I said it before, the reason I like gentoo* distro's is I don't have
> to find the repository to get the latest package, that's just a pain,
> in ubuntu, in opensuse, in fedora... etc. But no more... officially
> supported huge overlays have ruined this.

Please contact me on IRC. I'll mentor you. It shouldn't be painful for
someone as knowledgeable as you. That way you get to fix most problems
yourself. If you prefer someone else to mentor you, we can probably
arrange that too.

> on the topic of sunrise, I approve of sunrise to a degree. I like the
> non-reviewed half, but once they're reviewed they should be put in
> tree. Isn't it true that some of those packages never get maintainers?

They need maintainers to be maintained in-tree. Sorry, but that's the
deal.

> users don't know how to hack. the very definition of user says that,
> imo. There are developers, admins, and users. admins don't want
> overlays, they are supposed to be unstable. users can't hack, so what
> do they care. the problem is, an overlay has become a repo, I'm not
> sure that it was originally intended for that.

It wasn't. And if an admin has a problem with overlays he can become a
developer. *hint*

There are too many possible packages for the number of developers we
have in Gentoo. But that'll always be the case, probably, no matter how
many developers you pour in. If you have specific grievances, the
recruitment process is the obvious remedy since you seem to have the
time, the ability and the will to adress them.
 
> this does not mean officially supported overlays. You obviously won't
> commit just anything to an officially supported overlay which suggests
> that you don't allow 'mucking around'.

The only thing in Gentoo that's 'officially supported' is the tree.
 
> > Further, overlays are good places to put ebuilds for software that
> > is more experimental than what's expected for ~arch. That includes
> > live ebuilds. In the end, overlays have a (far) lower level of
> > guaranteed quality than the main tree, for their ebuilds
> 
> because ~arch is supposed to work? take open bug on wine-1.1.16 it
> doesn't build on amd64 and yet it's ~amd64.

QA fail, amd64 keyword dropped.

> how about that nam ebuild
> that has invalid bash that I mentioned? that's some quality work
> there. The point is the tree is no better or worse than the overlays
> in many cases.

In many cases that's true, but on average, the QA of the tree is much
better than overlays.

> perhaps this is the real problem gentoo's primary way to accept user
> contributions is via overlays. I disagree with the calling of Funtoo
> as one big overlay, it's a replacement tree, and it provides
> everything needed within that tree, as does regen2.

We Need Git. It would really ease the workflow of accepting user
contributions if users could just set up their own overlay and sent me
an email asking to merge their changesets.

> overlays however
> rely on an external tree, and now you've been discussing making them
> rely on other overlays.

Personally, I think that any itch that's scratch-worthy is commendable
but I would personally abstain from the rather elaborate java overlay
setup. Not because it doesn't work, it does to a degree, but because it
keeps potential developers away from Gentoo, instead playing in
sandboxes. And because it's a pain in the neck to keep track of
packages that aren't being used.

> Regen2, is attempting to fix these problems, and more. I do try to get
> my fixes back upstream here, but more often than not the bug
> languishes. I don't think Gentoo is bad, but I do think it's taken a
> wrong turn. But I suppose that these things are problems are simply my
> opinion.

We need to get you recruited. Why haven't you pushed us more? You could
have made thousands of commits already, fixing a substantial amount of
the problems you've raised. I know the perl herd is always in need of
new devs. This isn't a quick fix. You'll have to work with people and
that can sometimes be frustrating. But you'll get to be part of the
development process and you'll get to work with the things you care
about.
 
> I've probably already offended a large share of people on this list,
> now lets see if I can offend a few more by soliciting.

If people can't take a bit of honest criticism, we've become too
thin-skinned.

/loki_val

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Thomas Anderson]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1361 bytes --]

On Wed, Mar 04, 2009 at 02:32:13AM -0500, Caleb Cushing wrote:
> > Further, overlays are good places to put ebuilds for software that is more
> > experimental than what's expected for ~arch. That includes live ebuilds. In the
> > end, overlays have a (far) lower level of guaranteed quality than the main tree,
> > for their ebuilds
> 
> because ~arch is supposed to work? take open bug on wine-1.1.16 it
> doesn't build on amd64 and yet it's ~amd64. how about that nam ebuild
> that has invalid bash that I mentioned? that's some quality work
> there. The point is the tree is no better or worse than the overlays
> in many cases.

Heh, that's the problem with ~arch. ~amd64 keywords aren't added for
every new version; keywords are carried over from the previous version.
Having to test each new version of a package before it receiving a
keyword puts far too much stress on the arch teams(who are struggling
under the current workload, a lot of >75 stable request bugs). What
happens is the keyword gets carried over from the previous version. So
if a developer screws up, the arch teams really have no idea because 1)
we don't get assigned any bug with our keyword in it. 2) We don't run
~arch.

-- 
---------
Thomas Anderson
Gentoo Developer
/////////
Areas of responsibility:
AMD64, Secretary to the Gentoo Council
---------

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Caleb Cushing]

> Bugzilla is a tool for developers to track progress, not for
> third-party distributions to track progress. You've forked the tree.
> That's fine. The license allows that. But it doesn't obligate us to
> adapt our tools to fit your purpose.

I've done lots of version bump bugs over the years. my reasons for
doing so may have changed. But the general process has not. Does it
matter if I've forked? doesn't the package still need an update?

> Your behavior on bug 260582 was clearly unacceptable. You
> seem to think that we owe you something. Please re-examine your
> premises. Donnie already told you he was working on it. Our job is not
> to support your distribution. It is to make the best distro for
> ourselves. In the case of xorg-server, that means getting something
> into the tree that works. A masked ebuild will in this case be more
> bother than it's worth because the mask would have to encompass a
> bunch of other packages. Which leads me on to the next paragraph...

this and all the cases given are examples, and perhaps my behavior was
unacceptable. But I think the response to my bug was too. No gentoo
doesn't owe me or regen2, a thing. It might, however, owe users
something. I agree on committing ebuilds that work, that doesn't mean
I don't have the right to open a bug and watch for progress reports.

> In many cases that's true, but on average, the QA of the tree is much
> better than overlays.

I couldn't say... I suppose I agree yes on most overlays, but a few
are supposed to be more 'exceptional'. the biggest problem is the bugs
that result between ebuilds in the tree and those of overlays. like
one I filed on virtual/perl-Mime-Base64. or like how inkscape won't
build against 5.10, except with patches already in bugzilla, but both
cases seemed to be one of 'perl 5.10 isn't in the tree so we won't
fix' I think they should put it in before 5.10 is in the tree. put
that's just me.

> We Need Git. It would really ease the workflow of accepting user
> contributions if users could just set up their own overlay and sent me
> an email asking to merge their changesets.

git's great. but I've actually found 'merging' changesets to be a bad
idea from people. It can lead to some really sloppy commits, and
merging is a less stringent review than cherry-picking patches.

> You could
> have made thousands of commits already, fixing a substantial amount of
> the problems you've raised.

thousands seem like a high number. I think I've been pushing an
average one 1 patch per day since january to the tree (my tree).
*laughing* I'm still the #1 contributor of git patches to funtoo.

> This isn't a quick fix.

> You'll have to work with people and
> that can sometimes be frustrating.

I already have to 'work' with these people, the difference would be
what? how much respect I get? in gentoo land having @gentoo.org seems
to mean something... if you don't have that, you seem to
auto-magically get less respect, than you would if you did have it.

> But you'll get to be part of the
> development process and you'll get to work with the things you care
> about.

you mean I'll be part of 'a' development process and work on some of
the things I care about. Obviously stepping on other developers toes
seems to be a taboo.
-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Caleb Cushing]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Thomas Anderson <gentoofan23@gentoo.org> wrote:
> eh, that's the problem with ~arch. ~amd64 keywords aren't added for
> every new version; keywords are carried over from the previous version.
> Having to test each new version of a package before it receiving a
> keyword puts far too much stress on the arch teams

I'm not talking about testing before... I was talking about removing
it after. I understand that not everything can always be tested
before. But when it's found to be broken, there shouldn't have been an
argument about the kewords removal in lieu of a proper fix.
-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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Hash: SHA1

Caleb Cushing wrote:
> I'd like to start with, I'm not trying to stir up trouble but since
> questions were asked i'll answer them.
> 
>> If you think neither should exist why do you have an opinion about this at all?
> 
> I merged the java-overlay into regen2 a couple of weeks ago. as of
> right now I've no plans to support java-experimental.
> 
> I'm fine with overlays so long as working ebuilds spend no more than a
> few weeks in them. I have my own development branch and half the stuff
> that's in there that isn't in the main tree doesn't work. Things like
> perl 5.10 have been rotting in an overlay for a year. Funtoo  ( under
> my direction ) and Regen2 have had it ~arch for over a month now. We
> found one bug post release thus far. I filed a bug on xorg-server
> 1.6.0 not being in tree. It was resolved fixed (in overlay) (which
> another bug clearly states it has amd64 build issues). since when has
> (in overlay) been an acceptable solution to a missing package? I said
> it before, the reason I like gentoo* distro's is I don't have to find
> the repository to get the latest package, that's just a pain, in
> ubuntu, in opensuse, in fedora... etc. But no more... officially
> supported huge overlays have ruined this.

The single tree model is not the only one, nor necessarily the best one.
I understand your concern, but as ciaranm argued in another thread, the
issues many people seem to have with overlays are caused by the current
level of support by Portage. What we need is better support for multiple
repositories, not to drop them.
As it has been discussed before, multiple repositories could even foster
the development in Gentoo, instead of halting it down - as quite a few
people seem to be affraid of. If we can have some repositories focusing
in certain areas or relaxing access rules to a few repos, some devs
might get more focused and some packages might find new maintainers and
or their way into "mainline" Gentoo.
One issue that has been raised is about having testing ebuilds in
overlays instead of the tree. In a few cases, we have ebuilds in
overlays, not because of the lack of QA of the ebuilds, but because of
the experimental nature of the packages or because of the difficulty in
making packages comply to Gentoo rules. One example of a package that
was never in the tree, but instead on an overlay was XGL. It was never
considered to be stable enough to get into the tree. KDE-4 work started
in overlays and was kept there until 4.0 because it was more flexible to
work in the overlay than it would have been to do it in the tree. By the
way, KDE-4 is a good example of how work in overlays can help the tree -
what we had for 4.0 and have now in the tree was mostly done by people
that weren't Gentoo devs. Work in these overlays has lead to an
injection of many new devs.

...

> users don't know how to hack. the very definition of user says that,
> imo. There are developers, admins, and users. admins don't want
> overlays, they are supposed to be unstable. users can't hack, so what
> do they care. the problem is, an overlay has become a repo, I'm not
> sure that it was originally intended for that.

Fortunately, Gentoo users are not like some other distributions users.
I've seen many Gentoo users working in ebuilds and quite a few working
with devs to improve the Gentoo tree.
Most admins don't like unstable packages. Unfortunately quite a few of
them have to support new (testing) packages whether they like them or not.

...

>> Further, overlays are good places to put ebuilds for software that is more
>> experimental than what's expected for ~arch. That includes live ebuilds. In the
>> end, overlays have a (far) lower level of guaranteed quality than the main tree,
>> for their ebuilds
> 
> because ~arch is supposed to work? take open bug on wine-1.1.16 it
> doesn't build on amd64 and yet it's ~amd64. how about that nam ebuild
> that has invalid bash that I mentioned? that's some quality work
> there. The point is the tree is no better or worse than the overlays
> in many cases.

If anything, I've been hearing lately complaints about the testing
branch having become the new stable branch, not that it's terribly broken.

...

> I've probably already offended a large share of people on this list,
> now lets see if I can offend a few more by soliciting.

I think you'll find a reasonable "tolerance level" in this ml about
technical issues and development models.

- --
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / SPARC / KDE
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Marijn Schouten (hkBst)]

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Caleb Cushing wrote:
>> Bugzilla is a tool for developers to track progress, not for
>> third-party distributions to track progress. You've forked the tree.
>> That's fine. The license allows that. But it doesn't obligate us to
>> adapt our tools to fit your purpose.
> 
> I've done lots of version bump bugs over the years. my reasons for
> doing so may have changed. But the general process has not. Does it
> matter if I've forked? doesn't the package still need an update?

I think a lot (most?) of us agree that bugs shouldn't be closed until fixes hit
the main tree. But it indeed does not matter that you've forked, so you
shouldn't even have brought it up on the bug report. Bugs aren't a good way to
keep in touch with developers, that's what irc is for.

>> Your behavior on bug 260582 was clearly unacceptable. You
>> seem to think that we owe you something. Please re-examine your
>> premises. Donnie already told you he was working on it. Our job is not
>> to support your distribution. It is to make the best distro for
>> ourselves. In the case of xorg-server, that means getting something
>> into the tree that works. A masked ebuild will in this case be more
>> bother than it's worth because the mask would have to encompass a
>> bunch of other packages. Which leads me on to the next paragraph...
> 
> this and all the cases given are examples, and perhaps my behavior was
> unacceptable. But I think the response to my bug was too. No gentoo
> doesn't owe me or regen2, a thing. It might, however, owe users
> something. I agree on committing ebuilds that work, that doesn't mean
> I don't have the right to open a bug and watch for progress reports.

No, you don't have that right. It's just how it usually works and how it should
work IMO, but that doesn't entitle you to it.

>> In many cases that's true, but on average, the QA of the tree is much
>> better than overlays.
> 
> I couldn't say... I suppose I agree yes on most overlays, but a few
> are supposed to be more 'exceptional'. the biggest problem is the bugs
> that result between ebuilds in the tree and those of overlays. like
> one I filed on virtual/perl-Mime-Base64. or like how inkscape won't
> build against 5.10, except with patches already in bugzilla, but both
> cases seemed to be one of 'perl 5.10 isn't in the tree so we won't
> fix' I think they should put it in before 5.10 is in the tree. put
> that's just me.

And they probably will, but as perl-5.10 isn't in the tree, there is no rush.
Either way, it's the perl team's decision to go with the patch in bugzilla or
some other option and when they do it, whether they make that decision
consciously or are forced into it due to real life time-constraints.

>> We Need Git. It would really ease the workflow of accepting user
>> contributions if users could just set up their own overlay and sent me
>> an email asking to merge their changesets.
> 
> git's great. but I've actually found 'merging' changesets to be a bad
> idea from people. It can lead to some really sloppy commits, and
> merging is a less stringent review than cherry-picking patches.

I've found that git's patches aren't really what we want in the case of bumping.
 For bug reports we usually ask for a patch against the last ebuild in the tree.
Is there perhaps a way to make git do that automatically?

>> You could
>> have made thousands of commits already, fixing a substantial amount of
>> the problems you've raised.
> 
> thousands seem like a high number. I think I've been pushing an
> average one 1 patch per day since january to the tree (my tree).
> *laughing* I'm still the #1 contributor of git patches to funtoo.

It's great that people are doing their own thing, but to get it into OUR tree it
will need to be comitted to OUR tree by someone who has access to OUR tree.
Patches are great, but commits are better.

>> This isn't a quick fix.
> 
>> You'll have to work with people and
>> that can sometimes be frustrating.
> 
> I already have to 'work' with these people, the difference would be
> what? how much respect I get? in gentoo land having @gentoo.org seems
> to mean something... if you don't have that, you seem to
> auto-magically get less respect, than you would if you did have it.

Your demands because of your feelings of entitlement are what are costing you
respect.

>> But you'll get to be part of the
>> development process and you'll get to work with the things you care
>> about.
> 
> you mean I'll be part of 'a' development process and work on some of
> the things I care about. Obviously stepping on other developers toes
> seems to be a taboo.

Yes, it's extremely frowned upon to step on another developers toes; Gentoo is
not a one-man show. Would you like ME to stomp all over your tree? Didn't think so.

Just so we're clear. I really hope you change your attitude and take Peter
Alfredsen (loki_val) up on his generous offer.

Marijn

- --
Sarcasm puts the iron in irony, cynicism the steel.

Marijn Schouten (hkBst), Gentoo Lisp project, Gentoo ML
<http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-{lisp,ml} on FreeNode
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Alistair Bush]

Caleb Cushing wrote:
> I'd like to start with, I'm not trying to stir up trouble but since
> questions were asked i'll answer them.
> 
>> If you think neither should exist why do you have an opinion about this at all?
> 
> I merged the java-overlay into regen2 a couple of weeks ago. as of
> right now I've no plans to support java-experimental.
> 

Please don't. Until less than a month ago, it was a qa nightmare ( even 
java-overlay was).  Im sure both overlays probably still have 
unresolvable dependencies.  And yes they are an example of piss poor qa 
standards.  Even now im sure there is stuff in java-overlay that is be 
just plain broken.  I would hate to think about what java-experimental 
is like.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Caleb Cushing]

> I've found that git's patches aren't really what we want in the case of bumping.
>  For bug reports we usually ask for a patch against the last ebuild in the tree.
> Is there perhaps a way to make git do that automatically?

well, git has copy detection, you can tell if a file is merely a copy
of the previous (if git format-patch is done right) you can also just
do a diff on it? you could probably put it in a hook. or write a
script... or numerous other ways. once the work is done, getting any
amount of varying diffs is easy.

the problem with git right now, is all the things that gentoo does for
cvs and rsync. git doesn't need as much manifesting, it doesn't need
the cvs headers, or ChangeLog files, all this stuff just clutters
things with git. but this is a 'right now' problem, that I'm working
to solve, most of it leads right back to manifests.

> It's great that people are doing their own thing, but to get it into OUR tree it
> will need to be comitted to OUR tree by someone who has access to OUR tree.
> Patches are great, but commits are better.

yes but your commit process is made more complicated by your tools. I
for the most part require that the entire commit be ready to go.

> Your demands because of your feelings of entitlement are what are costing you
> respect.

why do people keep telling me what I feel? anyone else ever notice
feelings don't convey well over text.

> Yes, it's extremely frowned upon to step on another developers toes; Gentoo is
> not a one-man show. Would you like ME to stomp all over your tree? Didn't think so.

that depends on what you mean by 'stomp' if by stomp you mean fix
problems for users, stomp away. if by stomp you mean break stuff, then
no. I don't care if you change something I changed if it's better,
it's better.

> Just so we're clear. I really hope you change your attitude and take Peter
> Alfredsen (loki_val) up on his generous offer.

and my attitude is? what is it that you think I think?

I may take him up. but I'm also considering the possible conflict of
interest, as well as the additional time requirement. I hope you
understand. even if I do I have a commitment to what I've already
started.
-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Marijn Schouten (hkBst)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Caleb Cushing wrote:
>> Your demands because of your feelings of entitlement are what are costing you
>> respect.
> 
> why do people keep telling me what I feel? anyone else ever notice
> feelings don't convey well over text.

Well, you spoke of "owing users", and "the right to open a bug and watch for
progress reports" combined with this:

"right now you are the kind of person that thinks being a volunteer is a
privilege and not a responsibility. You think that because you don't get paid
that you don't have to do it. I assure you that if you look at most non foss
volunteer jobs you either have to do your job or quit. it is the same in open
source. perhaps I'm judging you wrongly." --
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=260582#c6

It seems like you want to tell us how to do our jobs. It seems like you think
you have the right to tell us what to do. Now, I'm happy to be wrong about those
views, but that's what it looks like to me.

>> Yes, it's extremely frowned upon to step on another developers toes; Gentoo is
>> not a one-man show. Would you like ME to stomp all over your tree? Didn't think so.
> 
> that depends on what you mean by 'stomp' if by stomp you mean fix
> problems for users, stomp away. if by stomp you mean break stuff, then
> no. I don't care if you change something I changed if it's better,
> it's better.

The point is that you don't know whether someone else has a good judgement of
better. People that have been taking care of certain parts of the tree may just
know something you don't. This is why we encourage people to talk to maintainers
when they touch their packages but also encourage maintainers not to feel too
possessive.

>> Just so we're clear. I really hope you change your attitude and take Peter
>> Alfredsen (loki_val) up on his generous offer.
> 
> and my attitude is? what is it that you think I think?

I've answered that above.

> I may take him up. but I'm also considering the possible conflict of
> interest, as well as the additional time requirement. I hope you
> understand. even if I do I have a commitment to what I've already
> started.

On your blog[1] you imply that if you decide to not, that you wouldn't be able
to "to talk to people to understand something". I just want to stress that this
is not so. Many of us are available on #gentoo-dev-help and this mailing list
for technical questions.

Marijn

[1]:http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com/2009/03/to-gentoo-dev-or-not-to-gentoo-dev.html

- --
Sarcasm puts the iron in irony, cynicism the steel.

Marijn Schouten (hkBst), Gentoo Lisp project, Gentoo ML
<http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-{lisp,ml} on FreeNode
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Caleb Cushing]

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 7:12 AM, Marijn Schouten (hkBst)
<hkBst@gentoo.org> wrote:
> "right now you are the kind of person that thinks being a volunteer is a
> privilege and not a responsibility. You think that because you don't get paid
> that you don't have to do it. I assure you that if you look at most non foss
> volunteer jobs you either have to do your job or quit. it is the same in open
> source. perhaps I'm judging you wrongly." --
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=260582#c6
>
> It seems like you want to tell us how to do our jobs. It seems like you think
> you have the right to tell us what to do. Now, I'm happy to be wrong about those
> views, but that's what it looks like to me.

and what's your perspective? who gets to tell you what to do? it's not
that I get to. but what I said I do believe, is common among foss
developers. they don't take volunteering as a responsibility. They
don't think of it as their other job. I think they should. It's also a
pet peeve of mine so I kinda flew off the handle.

question is do you understand what I've written? given your statement
below on my blogpost on what you think I've implied (I'll respond
directly) you might be wrong about this to.

this is also the reason that I have to carefully consider being a
gentoo dev. if I do, I have a responsibility to the users of my
packages.

> The point is that you don't know whether someone else has a good judgement of
> better. People that have been taking care of certain parts of the tree may just
> know something you don't. This is why we encourage people to talk to maintainers
> when they touch their packages but also encourage maintainers not to feel too
> possessive.

sometimes it's just a difference of opinion. it depends on your
opinion of "what's right" and "what's better". but sometimes even the
smartest person is wrong. I do not claim to be always right, and I'm
most certainly not.

but I don't think I'm wrong when I say it's wrong not to version bump
a package when all it takes is the copy of a previous ebuild. I don't
think I'm wrong when a bug is put on hold due to other bugs, (for 6+
months) but the maintainer never answers what other bugs.

> On your blog[1] you imply that if you decide to not, that you wouldn't be able
> to "to talk to people to understand something". I just want to stress that this
> is not so. Many of us are available on #gentoo-dev-help and this mailing list
> for technical questions.

no that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that it's easier to
get help if you got 1 or more specific mentor's  to help you. asking
for help on irc, forums, mailing lists, is often a crap shoot at best.
given I get help more often than not. but sometimes you still don't
get any (for various reasons, don't know, don't care, not around,
don't understand). You read an implication that I didn't actually say.
-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Marijn Schouten (hkBst)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Caleb Cushing wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 7:12 AM, Marijn Schouten (hkBst)
> <hkBst@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> "right now you are the kind of person that thinks being a volunteer is a
>> privilege and not a responsibility. You think that because you don't get paid
>> that you don't have to do it. I assure you that if you look at most non foss
>> volunteer jobs you either have to do your job or quit. it is the same in open
>> source. perhaps I'm judging you wrongly." --
>> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=260582#c6
>>
>> It seems like you want to tell us how to do our jobs. It seems like you think
>> you have the right to tell us what to do. Now, I'm happy to be wrong about those
>> views, but that's what it looks like to me.
> 
> and what's your perspective? who gets to tell you what to do? it's not
> that I get to. but what I said I do believe, is common among foss
> developers. they don't take volunteering as a responsibility. They
> don't think of it as their other job. I think they should. It's also a
> pet peeve of mine so I kinda flew off the handle.

Why do you think they should?

> question is do you understand what I've written? given your statement
> below on my blogpost on what you think I've implied (I'll respond
> directly) you might be wrong about this to.
> 
> this is also the reason that I have to carefully consider being a
> gentoo dev. if I do, I have a responsibility to the users of my
> packages.
> 
>> The point is that you don't know whether someone else has a good judgement of
>> better. People that have been taking care of certain parts of the tree may just
>> know something you don't. This is why we encourage people to talk to maintainers
>> when they touch their packages but also encourage maintainers not to feel too
>> possessive.
> 
> sometimes it's just a difference of opinion. it depends on your
> opinion of "what's right" and "what's better". but sometimes even the
> smartest person is wrong. I do not claim to be always right, and I'm
> most certainly not.
> 
> but I don't think I'm wrong when I say it's wrong not to version bump
> a package when all it takes is the copy of a previous ebuild. I don't
> think I'm wrong when a bug is put on hold due to other bugs, (for 6+
> months) but the maintainer never answers what other bugs.

No, you are not wrong, but it does not follow that the people who are already
investing time towards similar issues are slackers. It's a manpower issue. Even
trivial bumps have to be tested and bugzilla is there such that it can help each
developer work more efficiently.

>> On your blog[1] you imply that if you decide to not, that you wouldn't be able
>> to "to talk to people to understand something". I just want to stress that this
>> is not so. Many of us are available on #gentoo-dev-help and this mailing list
>> for technical questions.
> 
> no that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that it's easier to
> get help if you got 1 or more specific mentor's  to help you. asking
> for help on irc, forums, mailing lists, is often a crap shoot at best.
> given I get help more often than not. but sometimes you still don't
> get any (for various reasons, don't know, don't care, not around,
> don't understand). You read an implication that I didn't actually say.

I just wanted to make my point. It isn't really material whether you implied
what I said you did or not.

Marijn

- --
Sarcasm puts the iron in irony, cynicism the steel.

Marijn Schouten (hkBst), Gentoo Lisp project, Gentoo ML
<http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-{lisp,ml} on FreeNode
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Caleb Cushing]

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Marijn Schouten (hkBst)
<hkBst@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Why do you think they should?

you must have not read what I said on that bugtracker because I'm
thought I was pretty clear, that when you work as a volunteer it's
still a job. Don't believe me, go volunteer for community service or
something. Then try saying I don't have to I'm a volunteer. They might
just ask you to leave on that note.

-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Marijn Schouten (hkBst)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Caleb Cushing wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Marijn Schouten (hkBst)
> <hkBst@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> Why do you think they should?
> 
> you must have not read what I said on that bugtracker because I'm
> thought I was pretty clear, that when you work as a volunteer it's
> still a job. Don't believe me, go volunteer for community service or
> something. Then try saying I don't have to I'm a volunteer. They might
> just ask you to leave on that note.

You don't even know how much time these people spend on Gentoo. If you make them
leave it will stretch the other developers more and decrease the number of
manhours spent on Gentoo. In what universe is this useful? It certainly won't
get xorg-server bumped faster or ghc or some java packages. Don't you get that?

Marijn

- --
Sarcasm puts the iron in irony, cynicism the steel.

Marijn Schouten (hkBst), Gentoo Lisp project, Gentoo ML
<http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-{lisp,ml} on FreeNode
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Caleb Cushing]

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Marijn Schouten (hkBst)
<hkBst@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Don't you get that?

the janitor gets hit by a car and no ones around to clean the
bathrooms. You can't fire him because of contract, his job has to be
waiting for him when he gets back in 2 months. what do you do?

the answer is you get someone else to do it.

If you had really been prepared you already had 2 or more janitors.

the answer is not to fire people, but not to be as reliant on single
points of failure. if you make it more than 1 persons job then when 1
person can't do it there's another there to pick up the slack, who's
just as competent.
-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Rémi Cardona]

Le 07/03/2009 09:10, Caleb Cushing a écrit :
> If you had really been prepared you already had 2 or more janitors.

While I really appreciate you comparing us to janitors, ...

> the answer is not to fire people, but not to be as reliant on single
> points of failure. if you make it more than 1 persons job then when 1
> person can't do it there's another there to pick up the slack, who's
> just as competent.

... I would say you're both right and wrong on that point.

I happen to believe we've been pretty good at reducing our global "bus 
factor". There's more communication between teams and a lot of devs 
belong to multiple teams.

We could do better, sure, but we're much better than a year or two ago.

And to close off, I'll say a few things about your attitude back in bug 
260582.

#1 : I closed that bug because we already know about bumps. Polluting 
our bug list with stuff we're _already_ working on is both useless for 
you and annoying for us.

#2 : One of the point of the X11 overlay is to literally shove stuff 
that is too broken/untested to hit portage. So by all means, nothing in 
this overlay is supported (in the traditional Gentoo sense).

#3 : When we feel xorg 1.6 is ready for portage, we'll just push it 
there. By the time we go back to bugzilla to close the bug, you'll 
already know about it.

#4 : I work on Gentoo because I like it and I do take the responsibility 
very seriously. I don't need you or anyone else to tell me that I "need 
to do my job". That's just condescending and downright rude.

So, I'll leave this bug open because I definitely don't want to start a 
flamewar over this, but do know that you've red-flagged yourself.

I do hope though we can go all go back to fixing bugs and making Gentoo 
better.

Cheers

Rémi

[gentoo-dev] Re: Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Duncan]

Rémi Cardona <remi@gentoo.org> posted 49B25553.5020302@gentoo.org,
excerpted below, on  Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:06:59 +0100:

> And to close off, I'll say a few things about your attitude back in bug
> 260582.
> 
> #1 : I closed that bug because we already know about bumps. Polluting
> our bug list with stuff we're _already_ working on is both useless for
> you and annoying for us.

Not to step in the middle of that whole thing, but as a general rule, if 
someone files a bump bug, it probably does make sense to comment on it 
with the status, then leave it open until the ebuild hits the tree and 
preferably hits ~arch.  Among other useful things it:

* Let's any other user wanting to know about status that someone from 
Gentoo does indeed know about it and is taking care of it, with whatever 
detail the suggested comment provides.  This simply makes sense as it can 
avoid multiple people asking about it repeatedly, thus saving YOU time 
and bother.

* Related to that, it (ideally) keeps anyone else from filing a similar 
bug, as they see the still-open bug.  For a bump bug especially, people 
who might file a dup are even LESS likely to check closed bugs before 
filing their dup, because they won't expect the bug to be closed because 
after all, there's nothing in the tree yet.  Again, this saves YOU time 
and bother, as well as giving anyone look a hint of what's going on.

One possible exception might be for versions that you don't intend to put 
in the tree anyway.  Those bugs could be closed if desired, but given the 
above, it may make sense to leave them open at least until the next 
version is out, simply to decrease the possible dup hassle factor as much 
as possible.

The bug in discussion is a case in point.  I might not have filed a bug 
on it, but I was certainly wondering about it, and finding that bug both 
gave me some sort of tentative target to look forward to and avoided my 
asking, either in bug form or on say the desktop list (more likely since 
I know some folks don't like those bump bugs), what the plan was.  There 
are or likely will be others...

So yeah, a bump bug might be a bother, but it's worth taking the 
pragmatic view and believing that the first one may well prevent others, 
if it's dealt with properly.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Caleb Cushing]

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 6:06 AM, Rémi Cardona <remi@gentoo.org> wrote:
> While I really appreciate you comparing us to janitors, ...

it's an analogy, get over it. I could have called you a secretary or a
school teacher, or bus driver, or basically any other job where a
replacement has to be found if the regular can't be around. maybe I
should have called it 'custodial services expert' or some other 3 word
title.

> So, I'll leave this bug open because I definitely don't want to start a flamewar over this, but do know > that you've red-flagged yourself.

thank you for that. I'm glad to know you've taken this personally. it
means I really hit home.
-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Caleb Cushing]

and now I'm going to walk away from this thread before I sink myself
to even lower pointless comments.
-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support )

[Marijn Schouten (hkBst)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Caleb Cushing wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Marijn Schouten (hkBst)
> <hkBst@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> Don't you get that?
> 
> the janitor gets hit by a car and no ones around to clean the
> bathrooms. You can't fire him because of contract, his job has to be
> waiting for him when he gets back in 2 months. what do you do?

We make do. That means that someone else might drop (some of) their tasks to
step in. In the end, less total work will get done.

> the answer is you get someone else to do it.

Aha, so this is what the community service project is gonna do after they chase
away their volunteers! They hire professionals instead. Good thing they are
never short on cash. Fortunately we have a never-ending supply of Gentoo-credits
and they are just as good as real money. We can even give all current developers
a 10% raise while we're spending money anyway.

Marijn

- --
Sarcasm puts the iron in irony, cynicism the steel.

Marijn Schouten (hkBst), Gentoo Lisp project, Gentoo ML
<http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-{lisp,ml} on FreeNode
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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Thilo Bangert]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 491 bytes --]


> Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what
> irc is for.

while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in 
contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close 
to never.

the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via 
IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize 
more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.

kind regards
Thilo

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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Fabian Groffen]

On 10-03-2009 13:15:36 +0100, Thilo Bangert wrote:
> > Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what
> > irc is for.
> 
> while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in 
> contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close 
> to never.
> 
> the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via 
> IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize 
> more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.

+1


-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo on a different level

Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Markos Chandras]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 872 bytes --]

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote:
> > Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what
> > irc is for.
>
> while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in
> contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close
> to never.
>
> the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via
> IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize
> more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.
>
> kind regards
> Thilo

	To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is quite helpful 
to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before they hit  more users. 
This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs that hit bugzilla. 
-- 
Markos Chandras (hwoarang)
Gentoo Linux Developer
Qt/KDE/Sound/Sunrise

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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Lukasz Damentko]

2009/3/10 Markos Chandras <hwoarang@gentoo.org>:
> Gentoo as a project could realize
> more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.

Yes. Let's integrate them by introducing IRC to them.

Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[AllenJB]

Markos Chandras wrote:
> On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote:
>>> Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what
>>> irc is for.
>> while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in
>> contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close
>> to never.
>>
>> the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via
>> IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize
>> more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.
>>
>> kind regards
>> Thilo
> 
> 	To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is quite helpful 
> to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before they hit  more users. 
> This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs that hit bugzilla. 

While IRC is undoubtedly a useful communication medium, it is pretty 
much a "here and now" thing. I believe that Gentoo would benefit quite a 
lot if teams started using more permanent forms of communication such as 
blogs, wikis or websites. Not only would this allow the current set of 
developers within a team to know what one another are up to and what 
needs to be done, but it would also allow those who are not so 
intimately involved (both other devs, contributors and users) to keep up 
to date and contribute as well as leaving something for future 
developers to be able to look back on and see what options / 
improvements / etc were considered / done in the past.

I recently wrote a blog post that went somewhat along these lines:
http://allenjb.me.uk/blog/why-only-think-about-projects-for-gsoc

As someone who's very interested in getting involved in Gentoo 
Development, I often find it hard to gather information on what projects 
/ people are up to, what's currently going on and what the plans for the 
future are.


AllenJB

Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[AllenJB]

AllenJB wrote:
> Markos Chandras wrote:
>> On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote:
>>>> Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what
>>>> irc is for.
>>> while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in
>>> contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am 
>>> close
>>> to never.
>>>
>>> the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via
>>> IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize
>>> more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.
>>>
>>> kind regards
>>> Thilo
>>
>>     To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is 
>> quite helpful to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before 
>> they hit  more users. This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs 
>> that hit bugzilla. 
> 
> While IRC is undoubtedly a useful communication medium, it is pretty 
> much a "here and now" thing. I believe that Gentoo would benefit quite a 
> lot if teams started using more permanent forms of communication such as 
> blogs, wikis or websites. Not only would this allow the current set of 
> developers within a team to know what one another are up to and what 
> needs to be done, but it would also allow those who are not so 
> intimately involved (both other devs, contributors and users) to keep up 
> to date and contribute as well as leaving something for future 
> developers to be able to look back on and see what options / 
> improvements / etc were considered / done in the past.
> 
> I recently wrote a blog post that went somewhat along these lines:
> http://allenjb.me.uk/blog/why-only-think-about-projects-for-gsoc
> 
> As someone who's very interested in getting involved in Gentoo 
> Development, I often find it hard to gather information on what projects 
> / people are up to, what's currently going on and what the plans for the 
> future are.
> 
> 
> AllenJB
> 

Just wanted to quickly add mailing lists to the explicitly mentioned 
venues for improved communication.

As a quick example, I'm interested in the PR / Newsletter side of 
Gentoo, but I find it very hard to keep up-to-date. I recently learned 
that there's a new blog-like version of the newsletter in development 
but I've heard nothing else about it and searching hasn't turned up 
anything.

While I am on the gmn irc channel, I don't have time to read through all 
the backlogs for relvent information. I am also on the gentoo-pr mailing 
list (among many others, as well as checking on the lists via gmane) and 
it's basically completely silent. I'm currently waiting to catch one of 
two devs who might be able to give me more information on IRC.

To all eyes looking from the outside in, unless they happen across the 
one forum thread I did, the newsletter is dead and nothing is being done 
about it, which gives a poor view of the state of affairs within Gentoo 
Development.

To take the bus analogy to this, if these 2 developers are hit by a bus, 
then who knows what's currently going on with the newsletter and where 
all the resources are?

I have said it before and I will say it again, yes the newsletter may be 
a current weak point for Gentoo, but it's a very obvious one because 
it's the one that's visible to everyone in the community. I still think 
my points are valid for any area of Gentoo development tho.

AllenJB

Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Steev Klimaszewski]

memoserv

Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[AllenJB]

Steev Klimaszewski wrote:
> memoserv
> 

Did you not read a single word of what I just said? memoserv only allows 
1-1 communication. I'm talking about methods which allow for 1:many or 
many:many. memoserv also doesn't solve the bus issue or really provide 
any permanent record of communication (AFAIK there's no SLA on memoserv, 
which means if Freeserve decides to delete all your memos tomorrow, they 
are gone for good).

Websites and mailing lists don't have these issues because they get 
archived and mirrored everywhere (gmane, google, archive.org) - a fact 
which made itself very apparent when Gentoo Wiki went down last year 
(where virtually all the old content was recovered from google cache and 
mirrored, as well as being available 6 months later on archive.org).

<Stops before he repeats even more of what he just said>

AllenJB

Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Thilo Bangert]

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Markos Chandras <hwoarang@gentoo.org> said:
> On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote:
> > > Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's
> > > what irc is for.
> >
> > while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in
> > contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am
> > close to never.
> >
> > the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available
> > via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could
> > realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont
> > do IRC.
> >
> > kind regards
> > Thilo
>
> 	To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is quite
> helpful to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before they hit 
> more users. This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs that hit
> bugzilla.

my complaint isn't about people using IRC. i object to the way that much 
of our knowledge, discussion and decision making process appear to have 
been moved into the temporal black hole that is IRC.

realtime communication is an valuable tool, but IRC has drawbacks as well. 
this is alienating a lot of people who dont happen to be on IRC at the 
right moment/timezone or who dont have the time to be always on.

it looks like many projects within Gentoo have resorted to a communication 
process which uses IRC exclusivly. this is unfortunate...

kind regards
Thilo

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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Maciej Mrozowski]

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On Wednesday 11 of March 2009 19:06:33 Thilo Bangert wrote:
> my complaint isn't about people using IRC. i object to the way that much
> of our knowledge, discussion and decision making process appear to have
> been moved into the temporal black hole that is IRC.

> realtime communication is an valuable tool, but IRC has drawbacks as well.
> this is alienating a lot of people who dont happen to be on IRC at the
> right moment/timezone or who dont have the time to be always on.

> it looks like many projects within Gentoo have resorted to a communication
> process which uses IRC exclusivly. this is unfortunate...

Hard to disagree with this.
I observed it myself - when I started maintaining ebuilds in overlay, 
consequently I started to use IRC to be in touch with the rest of KDE Gentoo 
team. Unfortunately it has some drawbacks like less my availability on forums 
(and I used it much more often) - to the point that I forgot to update whole 
4.2 release announcement in Desktop Environment (in that sticky "Read before 
posting" thread).
IRC is black hole definitely and from developers point of view everything looks 
just, as they actively communicating with each other - unfortunately being 
somewhat isolated from the rest of the world.
This may increase that feeling from typical user point of view - that 
developers are somewhere there cooking something, and there's no way to get to 
them (unless they find about IRC).
This is the problem as most users used to sweep forums first as it's "medium" 
available for them out of the box - just google for some problem and there you 
are.

Now, important.
While I don't propose for developers to visit forums - it may be another 
*solution*.
Developers - they (we/you) already chosen IRC as best/fastest/favourite medium 
for communication apart from mailing list that is - it could stay that way.

Why not integrate more users by creating *Support* *staff* role?
They could be recruited as typical staff (like moderators) - using staff quiz.
Their "job" would be to:
- wander on forums answering user questions
- poke developers on IRC with some issues (maybe proposed patches)
- filling bugzilla bugs (they'd need some *basic* bugzilla knowledge - just to 
be able to find whether are such issues already and to properly, descriptively 
create new bug) - not full bugwrangling with assigning and such
- provide living evidence that "Gentoo is not dying" whatever and has support

They could be given @gentoo.org aliases to make them motivated.
It would be easier for those alike to become developers later.

There's thread related to user contribution on forums - as reference:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-702248.html

(this should rather be discussed on gentoo-project I guess, but nm)

-- 
regards
MM

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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Markos Chandras]

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On Wednesday 11 March 2009 20:06:33 Thilo Bangert wrote:
> Markos Chandras <hwoarang@gentoo.org> said:
> > On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote:
> > > > Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's
> > > > what irc is for.
> > >
> > > while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in
> > > contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am
> > > close to never.
> > >
> > > the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available
> > > via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could
> > > realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont
> > > do IRC.
> > >
> > > kind regards
> > > Thilo
> >
> > 	To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is quite
> > helpful to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before they hit
> > more users. This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs that hit
> > bugzilla.
>
> my complaint isn't about people using IRC. i object to the way that much
> of our knowledge, discussion and decision making process appear to have
> been moved into the temporal black hole that is IRC.
>
> realtime communication is an valuable tool, but IRC has drawbacks as well.
> this is alienating a lot of people who dont happen to be on IRC at the
> right moment/timezone or who dont have the time to be always on.
>
> it looks like many projects within Gentoo have resorted to a communication
> process which uses IRC exclusivly. this is unfortunate...
>
> kind regards
> Thilo
	I would prefer it if devs were using team emails ( sound@gentoo.org, 
kde@gentoo.org etc ) more often than IRC communication. At least, important 
discussions, or decisions etc should at least announced on such mailing lists. 
If this is not possible, an e-mail with the irc logs about an important 
discussion would be a good idea. Of course this is not necessary in occasions 
were teams are composed by 1-2 members or when all developers of the team are 
available on irc. 
-- 
Markos Chandras (hwoarang)
Gentoo Linux Developer
Qt/KDE/Sound/Sunrise

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[gentoo-dev] Re: devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Duncan]

Thilo Bangert <bangert@gentoo.org> posted
200903101315.52142.bangert@gentoo.org, excerpted below, on  Tue, 10 Mar
2009 13:15:36 +0100:

> the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via
> IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize
> more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.

This has bothered me too.  Some people simply don't do well in 
"immediate" (textual) communication mode.  They much prefer the minute-
resolution mode of email/web-form/newsgroup to the second-resolution mode 
of IRC/IM.  I'm one such person.[1]  As a result, I have experienced a 
high barrier to getting further involved with Gentoo, toward becoming an 
AT or dev.

That may be simply the way things must be (after all, to take an extreme 
example, who could reasonably argue that snail mail contributions could 
even work at all for more than the one-off, for something like Gentoo), 
but I can't say I see it that way.  Even in instances where the second-
resolution of IRC really does work better, say meetings, a mixed-mode 
approach much as the council has recently taken, with most of the 
discussion via minute/hour resolution mailing list leaving the official 
IRC meetings as ideally little more than formalizing the vote, arguably 
works far better.

---
[1] I like to be able to type up my message, look at it, revise a bit 
where necessary, then send, on second-resolution media such as IRC/IM, 
that's hardly possible as it looks like "dead air" from the other end 
when there's 2-3 participants and the discussion has usually long moved 
on by the time the submission is ready, in larger groups.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

[gentoo-dev] Re: devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Christian Faulhammer]

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Hi,

Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>:

> Thilo Bangert <bangert@gentoo.org> posted
> 200903101315.52142.bangert@gentoo.org, excerpted below, on  Tue, 10
> Mar 2009 13:15:36 +0100:
> 
> > the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available
> > via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could
> > realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont
> > do IRC.
> 
> This has bothered me too.  Some people simply don't do well in 
> "immediate" (textual) communication mode.  They much prefer the
> minute- resolution mode of email/web-form/newsgroup to the
> second-resolution mode of IRC/IM.  I'm one such person.[1]  As a
> result, I have experienced a high barrier to getting further involved
> with Gentoo, toward becoming an AT or dev.

 I am a dev with sparse internet connectivity and seldomly found on
IRC...and even as an AT I chose to stay away from IRC.  So I see few
problems there.

V-Li

-- 
Christian Faulhammer, Gentoo Lisp project
<URL:http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-lisp on FreeNode

<URL:http://www.faulhammer.org/>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Thomas Anderson]

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 03:37:28PM +0000, Duncan wrote:
> Thilo Bangert <bangert@gentoo.org> posted
> 200903101315.52142.bangert@gentoo.org, excerpted below, on  Tue, 10 Mar
> 2009 13:15:36 +0100:
> 
> > the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via
> > IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize
> > more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.
> 
> This has bothered me too.  Some people simply don't do well in 
> "immediate" (textual) communication mode.  They much prefer the minute-
> resolution mode of email/web-form/newsgroup to the second-resolution mode 
> of IRC/IM.  I'm one such person.[1]  As a result, I have experienced a 
> high barrier to getting further involved with Gentoo, toward becoming an 
> AT or dev.

There are many devs who rarely venture on IRC, yet do a lot of good
work. As far as ATs go, it's not a necessity to be on IRC; pretty much
the only communication that occurs in #-amd64-dev is coordination of
stabilization efforts and goofing off(and the occasional xfce dev talks
:p).
-- 
---------
Thomas Anderson
Gentoo Developer
/////////
Areas of responsibility:
AMD64, Secretary to the Gentoo Council
---------

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 15:37 Fri 13 Mar     , Duncan wrote:
> Thilo Bangert <bangert@gentoo.org> posted
> 200903101315.52142.bangert@gentoo.org, excerpted below, on  Tue, 10 Mar
> 2009 13:15:36 +0100:
> 
> > the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via
> > IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize
> > more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.
> 
> This has bothered me too.  Some people simply don't do well in 
> "immediate" (textual) communication mode.  They much prefer the minute-
> resolution mode of email/web-form/newsgroup to the second-resolution mode 
> of IRC/IM.  I'm one such person.[1]  As a result, I have experienced a 
> high barrier to getting further involved with Gentoo, toward becoming an 
> AT or dev.

One nice thing about IRC is that people get equal talking time. It's 
very hard to overwhelm anyone with text.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar     , Thilo Bangert wrote:
> > > the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available 
> > > via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project 
> > > could realize more of its potential by better integrating people 
> > > who dont do IRC.

I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of 
this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, 
the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on 
the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique 
that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with 
the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[AllenJB]

Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar     , Thilo Bangert wrote:
>>>> the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available 
>>>> via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project 
>>>> could realize more of its potential by better integrating people 
>>>> who dont do IRC.
> 
> I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of 
> this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, 
> the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on 
> the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique 
> that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with 
> the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer.
> 

While it may be tight nit, there's the danger that it's so tight no one 
else can get in, so to speak.

I don't think anyone's saying anything like "no more IRC". What I at 
least am advocating is that what goes on on IRC gets summarized 
somewhere in addition. As I said before, this not only helps keep a 
"log" of what goes on for "future generations", but also allows others 
(users and devs who don't have time to follow everything) to look in and 
follow what the devs are doing more easily.

I think that this would ultimately help make Gentoo development more 
visible and more accessible, ultimately leading to an increased 
conversion of users to contributors, if not users to devs.

AllenJB

Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Alec Warner]

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 11:24 AM, AllenJB <gentoo-lists@allenjb.me.uk> wrote:
> Donnie Berkholz wrote:
>>
>> On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar     , Thilo Bangert wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via
>>>>> IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more
>>>>> of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.
>>
>> I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of
>> this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, the
>> more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on the other
>> end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique that
>> militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with the
>> Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer.
>>
>
> While it may be tight nit, there's the danger that it's so tight no one else
> can get in, so to speak.
>
> I don't think anyone's saying anything like "no more IRC". What I at least
> am advocating is that what goes on on IRC gets summarized somewhere in
> addition. As I said before, this not only helps keep a "log" of what goes on
> for "future generations", but also allows others (users and devs who don't
> have time to follow everything) to look in and follow what the devs are
> doing more easily.

I think that summarizing "IRC" is insane.  Remember we barely got
summaries of council meetings (which are at a fixed time and date)
until we got a secretary devoted explicitly to that task.  Maybe more
teams should take up the meeting model; that way non-IRC folks can
either be on IRC for meeting times only, or peruse the meeting notes
afterwards if they are interested in what happened.

>
> I think that this would ultimately help make Gentoo development more visible
> and more accessible, ultimately leading to an increased conversion of users
> to contributors, if not users to devs.
>
> AllenJB
>
>

Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Thilo Bangert]

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Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> said:
> On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar     , Thilo Bangert wrote:
> > > > the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be
> > > > available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a
> > > > project could realize more of its potential by better integrating
> > > > people who dont do IRC.
>
> I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because
> of this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a
> community, the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the
> folks on the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a
> technique that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy,
> except with the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to
> grow closer.

so you say, that presumption is ok? i agree 100% with what you say, but it 
doesnt (at least directly) address my concern. i think IRC is an excellent 
medium - the problems i see, though, are related to the fact that IRC 
requires all stakeholders to be available at the time of discussion. for a 
multitude of reasons this can almost never be guaranteed. also, even if we 
did have IRC logs, the signal to noise ratio on IRC is devastating (at 
least in my experience).

for those reasons, i would like to see more bridge-building between the 
worlds. i didnt want to give examples, as i dont like pointing fingers, 
but here it is: relengs discussion to switch to weekly autobuilds. 
presumably there hast been one, but i cant find it in the list archives. 
not on gentoo-dev@g.o and not on gentoo-releng@g.o - where else should i 
look? IRC perhaps - well, where are the logs? interestingly, the 
announcement of the switch has a pointer to the releng project page, which 
does not even mention the IRC channel.

from looking at the releng mailing list one gets the impression that 
releng in gentoo is dead. its not - i know and am greatful for the hard 
work everybody in releng puts in - but it makes the releng project much 
less accessible. to follow, or contribute.

thanks for listening
kind regards
Thilo


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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Tomáš Chvátal]

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Dne pátek 13 Březen 2009 19:52:59 Alec Warner napsal(a):
>
> I think that summarizing "IRC" is insane.  Remember we barely got
> summaries of council meetings (which are at a fixed time and date)
> until we got a secretary devoted explicitly to that task.  Maybe more
> teams should take up the meeting model; that way non-IRC folks can
> either be on IRC for meeting times only, or peruse the meeting notes
> afterwards if they are interested in what happened.
>

Well we are quite able to handle it on kde meetings, so users get what are we 
working on (or at least the big parts). :]
But i am pretty sure that it would be nice to have some tool where we put 
major stuff we are on so others can see :]

Tomas

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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Thilo Bangert]

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>
> I think that summarizing "IRC" is insane. 

and there is no need for it either. as stated elsewhere much of what is 
going on on IRC is 'goofing off' - for which IRC is excellent. (heck - i 
should goof off more often :-)

i dont mind the day-to-day work stuff going on on IRC exclusively - but 
when discussions about the future directions of a project and the decision 
making process are held on IRC exclusively, then that is not helpful in 
attracting new blood. for one because there is no history but also because 
they may not use IRC that much.

> Remember we barely got
> summaries of council meetings (which are at a fixed time and date)
> until we got a secretary devoted explicitly to that task.  

> Maybe more
> teams should take up the meeting model; that way non-IRC folks can
> either be on IRC for meeting times only, or peruse the meeting notes
> afterwards if they are interested in what happened.

yeah - the kde team is leading the way here. granted - this model may not 
work for everybody...

regards
Thilo



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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Michael Higgins]

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:09:04 -0700
Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar     , Thilo Bangert wrote:
> > > > the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be
> > > > available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a
> > > > project could realize more of its potential by better
> > > > integrating people who dont do IRC.
> 
> I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because
> of this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a
> community, the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see
> the folks on the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much
> like a technique that militaries use during wars to de-personalize
> the enemy, except with the Internet, we start that way and have to
> apply effort to grow closer.
> 

This is an interesting point you raise, though I don't think it applies in this case.

I believe, rather, that the issue is the 'community' appears more like a 'cabal' when the discussions take place on #IRC and therefore aren't available in public archives.

Even if they are, an IRC log is a *terrible* way to document an issue.

Since the discussion is Re: '*DEVS* on IRC', I think the problem should be clear:

You all get more closely knit, perhaps, yet appear to do more *in secret*. There is *no way* to find out what is going on, without becoming part of the problem... by asking, or lurking, on IRC. This is bad.

Example? After months of searching for a reason, after seeing many apparently random updates to a previously stable tree of perl modules, I happen to keep an IRC session log which shows with this FSCKING USEFUL TIDBIT:

"... no motivated developers. the perl team completely vanished."

Anyone considering using Gentoo should KNOW that, if they use perl in any substantive way. Wouldn't you agree?

Now, why isn't there a discussion about this on the gentoo-perl mailing list? Not even a post from some DEV with a cry for HELP? If there's a problem, *who* is doing *what* to address it, and *where*? 

Oh, right, there's *some* discussion on IRC... 

Anyway, it's just one example. In this case, I'd be glad to see *some* documentation of the (apparent total) collapse of the 'perl team' and what is being proposed to fix the problem, *without* having to become part of the cabal.

Since there is a mailing list dedicated for discussions of perl and gentoo, that seems the most logical place to air the dirty laundry and announce/discuss the plan for moving forward. IMO.

Cheers,

-- 
 |\  /|        |   |          ~ ~  
 | \/ |        |---|          `|` ?
 |    |ichael  |   |iggins    \^ / 
 michael.higgins[at]evolone[dot]org

[gentoo-dev] Re: devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Duncan]

Michael Higgins <linux@evolone.org> posted
20090313140558.048bbfa2@lappy.evolone.org, excerpted below, on  Fri, 13
Mar 2009 14:05:58 -0700:

> Example? After months of searching for a reason, after seeing many
> apparently random updates to a previously stable tree of perl modules, I
> happen to keep an IRC session log which shows with this FSCKING USEFUL
> TIDBIT:
> 
> "... no motivated developers. the perl team completely vanished."
> 
> Anyone considering using Gentoo should KNOW that, if they use perl in
> any substantive way. Wouldn't you agree?

Indeed.

> Anyway, it's just one example. In this case, I'd be glad to see *some*
> documentation of the (apparent total) collapse of the 'perl team' and
> what is being proposed to fix the problem, *without* having to become
> part of the cabal.

And thanks for providing a bit of that documentation here.  That is in 
fact one of the reasons I follow this list, and it has in fact forewarned 
me of several issues some time before I had to deal with them.  I'm thus 
very happy to have this list to follow. =:^)

But I had seen absolutely nothing on the above, the perl team basically 
disappearing, until your documentation of it in your post.  It would have 
been nice to have seen a bit on the list about it previously, ideally 
from a dev noting the problem and asking what we can do about it.  But 
given nothing from them (except apparently on IRC), I'll take what I can 
get, from a user, sometime *after* I should have known about it, as a 
Gentoo user concerned enough to actually follow the dev list to *get* 
such information. =:^(

So thanks. Dev or nodev, I'm glad there are folks like you around!  =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 14:05 Fri 13 Mar     , Michael Higgins wrote:
> I believe, rather, that the issue is the 'community' appears more like 
> a 'cabal' when the discussions take place on #IRC and therefore aren't 
> available in public archives.

This is kind of like saying: "I don't read the Gentoo forums, so 
everything that happens on the forums is a cabal." When you specifically 
choose not to participate in an entire method of communication, it's 
your choice to leave yourself out. A cabal is totally different -- it 
doesn't give you that choice by never even telling you there is a place 
where discussions happen.

> Even if they are, an IRC log is a *terrible* way to document an issue.

I agree. So is a mailing-list archive that is also never summarized. 
It's not the location that makes it a problem, it's the volume of 
information and the lack of a summary of important decisions or long, 
important discussions.

> You all get more closely knit, perhaps, yet appear to do more *in 
> secret*. There is *no way* to find out what is going on, without 
> becoming part of the problem... by asking, or lurking, on IRC. This is 
> bad.

I can't agree with your assertion that IRC is secretive, is a problem or 
is bad. I think completely the opposite in all cases. Secretive would be 
a closed IRC network that we didn't tell non-developers about or didn't 
allow them to join.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 19:56 Fri 13 Mar     , Thilo Bangert wrote:
> Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> said:
> > On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar     , Thilo Bangert wrote:
> > > > > the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be 
> > > > > available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as 
> > > > > a project could realize more of its potential by better 
> > > > > integrating people who dont do IRC.
> >
> > I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, 
> > because of this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are 
> > as a community, the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't 
> > see the folks on the other end of the big tube as real people. It's 
> > much like a technique that militaries use during wars to 
> > de-personalize the enemy, except with the Internet, we start that 
> > way and have to apply effort to grow closer.
> 
> so you say, that presumption is ok?

Honestly, yes. Gentoo development (and users too!) is a very 
IRC-centered community, and I think IRC is one of the reasons it is a 
strong development community. Parts of the forums are similarly critical 
to building a strong user community (Gentoo Chat, Off the Wall), as is 
the Gentoo Universe for developers.

IRC is a lot like this mailing list in some ways. Even as developers, 
you can choose not to participate, and consequently you have to deal 
with the decisions you chose not to be part of making when you hear 
about them after the fact on -dev-announce.

> i agree 100% with what you say, but it doesnt (at least directly) 
> address my concern. i think IRC is an excellent medium - the problems 
> i see, though, are related to the fact that IRC requires all 
> stakeholders to be available at the time of discussion. for a 
> multitude of reasons this can almost never be guaranteed. also, even 
> if we did have IRC logs, the signal to noise ratio on IRC is 
> devastating (at least in my experience).

I agree that all stakeholders (to use your term) ought to participate 
before a decision, but even on IRC this doesn't mean they all have to be 
present simultaneously. In my experience, a few stakeholders are around 
at a time, and they're able to have a lot of very fast real-time 
discussion that would be vastly slowed down by a mailing list. Then a 
few hours later, maybe a couple of the same people will be around and a 
couple new stakeholders. The new ones catch up and have some more fast 
back-and-forth.

> for those reasons, i would like to see more bridge-building between 
> the worlds. i didnt want to give examples, as i dont like pointing 
> fingers, but here it is: relengs discussion to switch to weekly 
> autobuilds. presumably there hast been one, but i cant find it in the 
> list archives. not on gentoo-dev@g.o and not on gentoo-releng@g.o - 
> where else should i look? IRC perhaps - well, where are the logs? 
> interestingly, the announcement of the switch has a pointer to the 
> releng project page, which does not even mention the IRC channel.

I agree that important decisions deserve summaries instead of hiding out 
anywhere, whether it's buried in IRC discussions or archived 
mailing-list threads!

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))

[Richard Freeman]

Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> On 14:05 Fri 13 Mar     , Michael Higgins wrote:
>> Even if they are, an IRC log is a *terrible* way to document an issue.
> 
> I agree. So is a mailing-list archive that is also never summarized. 
> It's not the location that makes it a problem, it's the volume of 
> information and the lack of a summary of important decisions or long, 
> important discussions.
> 

I certainly don't consider the use of IRC harmful per-se or consider it 
a "cabal," but I can't consider IRC and an unsummarized mailing list 
equivalent communication mediums.

If I want to know what is going on in IRC I need to leave a client 
connected 24x7 (and if my connection goes down for whatever reason I 
just miss whatever happens).  Then I need to read through thousands of 
lines of banter to see what is going on.

If I want to know what is going on in a mailing list I launch my 
threaded email client.  If a computer goes down SMTP, IMAP, and various 
redundant servers will eventually get the messages to me.  The 
discussion is threaded and categorized by topic, so I can mercilessly 
hit delete and not have much risk of missing something I'm interested 
in.  Essentially even an "unsummarized" mailing list is fairly well 
summarized compared to IRC.

Don't get me wrong - I like the team-building aspects of IRC.  However, 
it is not a good communication medium when you're dealing with 
volunteers that might only spend a few hours per week total working on 
Gentoo (or maybe only a few hours per month), spread across 24 time 
zones.  It is perfect for realtime collaboration on solving specific 
problems.  It is also great for brainstorming ideas, and just having 
fun.  Unfortunately, it also shares certain drawbacks with the phone - 
for starters it tends to prioritize tasks by urgency rather than by 
importance.  It also encourages "shooting from the hip" - just like 
having meetings without an agenda, pre-discussion, and general 
preparation.  No problem for trivial tasks, but not a good idea when 
making final decisions of strategic importance.

However, if certain work takes place exclusively on IRC then you're 
going to exclude some people.  Many of those people could be strong 
contributors but they might not like working in "realtime."  This might 
not be because of communication skills/etc - maybe they have a family 
and they'd rather see what needs to be done and take care of it here and 
there without being given an assignment and having 10 other people 
bugging them about whether it is done yet when they have 14 other things 
to do.  Sure, such a dev is probably not a good candidate to be leading 
a major Gentoo project, but that doesn't mean that they have little to 
contribute.  For example, I typed this email in one sitting but I could 
have just as conveniently taken 3 days to piece it together in 5 minute 
bursts.

I'd consider the current council format a good example of how IRC can be 
used in conjunction with mailing lists, agendas, and scheduled meeting 
times.  IRC can be used to finalize thinking and make decisions.  It can 
also be used for informal discussion anytime before a meeting.  Much of 
the serious contribution is captured on mailing lists, however, and when 
decisions are made it is based upon the widely-gathered input. 
Everybody knows what decisions are going to be made in advance and can 
show up if desired.  If they can't show up they can at least contact 
council members in advance (and the world at large) to state their 
opinions.  This certainly doesn't need to be used for every tiny Gentoo 
decision - but it is a great model for how to handle things of importance.