Re: [gentoo-dev] Is Gentoo a Phoenix?

[Richard Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On 04/03/2010 06:19 AM, Tobias Scherbaum wrote:
>> And still, when someone tries to fix things in such an understaffed herd
>> people go all territorial and are like "omg u touched my package".
>> Right now I'm quite confused what our project strategy seems to be, as
>> far as I can tell there's one group aiming for an aesthetical optimum
>> and the other group just wants to get things fixed. And they are not
>> cooperating well ...
>
> I for one can't say I had any territorial problems when touching
> packages belonging to other devs or herds - it's just a problem if you
> screw up.
>

Agreed - if you ping the herd in advance, and get an OK (or at least no 
reply for a few days), and then you make some simple fixes to their 
packages, it is very unlikely that you're going to have any complaints.

If you send the the proposed patch in advance and let them review it, 
and you get no complaints, you're even more clearly in the right.

If you don't notify them at all, or you notify them and do a cvs commit 
3 minutes later, or if you completely redesign their ebuilds in addition 
to fixing a 1-line problem, then you're going to get complaints.

Nobody minds help.  People do mind when somebody drops by to help them 
for 5 minutes and they're stuck with the aftermath.  We don't "own" our 
packages, but existing maintainers have at least shown a long-term 
commitment to them (however strong) and that should at least be respected.

On other topics in this thread:

I agree wholeheartedly that whenever possible "just do it" is a good 
approach - especially when you're talking about documentation and 
external websites/etc.  Modifications to things that already exist are 
less amenable to "just do it."

I really think that the Gentoo recruitment process needs improvement. 
Right now it seems like a LOT of effort is required both to become a 
Gentoo dev and to help somebody become a Gentoo dev.  That means we have 
great people, but not many of them.

I think the problem is that our recruitment process uses the ability to 
answer complex technical and organizational questions as a way to assess 
maturity.  I think that maturity is far more important than technical 
skill in a distro - a mature person will recognize their own limitations 
and exercise due diligence when stepping outside of them.  Instead of 
playing 20 questions and going back and forth with recruits, maybe a 
better approach would be to cut down the questions dramatically (or more 
clearly put their answers in the documentation), and then use other 
approaches like references and interviews.  A new recruit might be given 
the names of 5 devs that they will need to interview with for 30-60 
minutes by phone or IRC (preference on phone), and they will need to 
submit references, who will be contacted.  When we hire people at work 
we don't play trivial pursuit with them, we use an interview to get a 
feel for what they're like and how they handle situations, and we screen 
resumes and references to determine experience.  I'm sure any of the 
professional linux distros would work in the same way, but perhaps 
somebody should ask around and see how it is done elsewhere.

So, now instead of a recruiter having to spend hours helping somebody 
through quizzes without giving them answers, instead they just send them 
a list of interviewers, and collate the results.  Any interviewer will 
just need to spend 30 minutes on an interview and 10 minutes on a 
writeup.  Plus, the whole process will make Gentoo a bit more human.

Rich