* [gentoo-dev] Re: Portage QOS
@ 2014-01-11 1:28 99% ` Duncan
0 siblings, 0 replies; 1+ results
From: Duncan @ 2014-01-11 1:28 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-dev
heroxbd posted on Sat, 11 Jan 2014 07:36:57 +0900 as excerpted:
> Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> writes:
>
>> Meanwhile, you might try googling Zynot. That was one early, perhaps
>> the first, Gentoo fork.
>>
>> I remember back in early 2004
>
> Wow... What a history! I am educated. Thanks for sharing.
>
> I've always been interested in my distro's history. The information
> scatters here and there. It'll be nice if some senior/retired developers
> write up a Gentoo history on wiki.g.o :)
FWIW, I did my research and ended up on gentoo after the split was
basically done, tho zynot was still around at the time. As such, I don't
have a lot of personal experience with it, but it was still close enough
that most of the gentoo devs of the time did have personal experience.
What I do know is that it was a very bitter experience for many, and most
that lived thru it, like many survivors of a lot of particularly man-made
tragedies, considered the experience something that they and gentoo had
survived, and were /extremely/ glad it was over, but weren't much for
talking about it.
At a safe historic distance of a decade in the past, perhaps some might
talk about it now, but I'd guess for many, it's just not worth reliving,
except, $deity forbid, should there be a danger of something similar
occurring again. Too many bitter recriminations. Too many previous
friends lost to the split...
But I was close enough time-wise to appreciate the seriousness and
tragedy of the event, while not being part of it myself, so I don't have
those old wounds to rip back open by talking about it. Apologies to the
long-time devs still here for whom I'm doing just that, but it /is/
history now, and as the saying goes, those who don't know history are
bound to repeat it, something I'm absolutely sure NOBODY involved would
want, so...
From what I understand, this guy /had/ been effectively drobbins' right-
hand-man for a time. He had business connections and had been
instrumental in parlaying some of them into gentoo sponsorships at a time
when it was much younger and needed them, and he was a good PR guy. The
gentoo dev community was smaller and closer knit at the time, and many
had considered this guy and the devs that ultimately left with him
personal friends. That made the hurt /much/ worse. =:^(
What I've always wondered is what the devs who went with him thought; how
he persuaded them, /their/ side of the story. I knew /his/ side of the
story from reading his essays attacking gentoo and drobbins, and I knew
at least enough about the gentoo side to be convinced that the gentoo
side was where I should be, but coming in shortly after as I did, I never
had any contact with or read anything from any of the devs that left with
him, and I obviously didn't know them previously, so their side of the
story, why he convinced them to go zynot (other than the obvious, that
any persuasive argument must have /some/ element of truth), I'll never
know. Meanwhile, I'm /quite/ aware that my own view and recounting of
the history I know is quite colored by my own position, and definitely
/must/ suffer to some degree from the "victor rewriting history"
phenomenon. I'm sure if I had a better view of the picture as the devs
who left for zynot saw it, that "people who left" view would be rather
different, and regardless of whether I agreed with it or not, it would
certainly color my own view and thus recounting of the facts as I am
aware of them. Worth keeping in mind...
Meanwhile, that /some/ bit of truth, AFAIK, revolved around the fact that
while gentoo had settled on the GPLv2 for code and similarly free general
documentation licenses, drobbins was apparently asking for copyright
rights, with a policy of copyright everything gentoo, which drobbins held
the rights to, with the ownership rights becoming the core of the fight.
There had been some talk of some sort of a gaming distro (I'm fuzzy on
the details), apparently drobbins' big idea, and as a base for embedded,
this guy's big idea and ultimately zynot's target for funding, etc. This
guy accused drobbins of intending to do the gaming thing then take
everything private. As I wasn't there and am not drobbins, I can't say
for sure what drobbins ultimate idea and motives were, but as I read this
guy's essays, I kept shouting at the monitor, "But if he intended to go
private and deprive other contributors of their just due, why GPLv2, not
MIT/BSD, which would make that so much easier?" Of course as we know
from the MySQL/Sun/Oracle events, with all rights a company can still go
private, using the GPL to maintain an unfair advantage over others who
can't take it private because they don't have the copyrights, only the GPL
version. But even so, again as the MySQL/Oracle/MariaDB events, and the
Sun/Oracle/OpenOffice/LibreOffice events as well demonstrate, if that's
against the wishes of an already active and developed community, that
community can and will take the free version it still has rights to use
and run with it!
Meanwhile, from all I could see then and to the extent that I know
anything of zynot to this day, that's EXACTLY what zynot tried to do,
take advantage of the free-licensed gentoo work and extend it with their
proprietary product. Clear as anything else I've ever seen, it was the
soot-covered pot looking in the mirror and believing it sees a kettle to
call black!
That's enough old wounds I'm sure I've torn open for some, sorry. But
knowing that history explains QUITE A BIT of gentoo's internal politics
to this day, so it's VERY worth knowing about for new devs who had no
idea that was in gentoo's history. Among other things, that definitely
plays a part in why people are now encouraged to mark their work
copyright gentoo if they have no strong feelings about it, but gentoo
doesn't DEMAND it. (Another factor is as greg-kh points out, due to
employment contracts a lot of gentoo devs wouldn't be able to contribute
and would have to resign, were a firm copyright rights assignment policy
established.
It plays and even *STRONGER* role in gentoo's governing structure, both
because drobbins took quite some care and personal legal expense to
ensure a separate gentoo foundation with the assets, but *NOT* technical
control, and in the very loose government structure, with little central
control and individual devs having lots of rights that are rather
difficult to strip, except by what ultimately amounts to overwhelming
(but not necessarily unanimous) agreement (which does and has occurred
when necessary, as some former devs who still follow this list can surely
attest), should a case be appealed all the way thru council, etc.
And even tho there has been enough turnover that I don't believe the
original devs have anything like enough power to directly maintain those
rules, the original themes were strong enough to have set in motion a
VERY strong culture of little central power and lots of individual dev
independence, such that succeeding generations have continued to inherit
that from their mentors and other devs that came before them. Those
original devs tended to attract others of like mind, and train them in
the way, and that generation in turn did the same, such that while few
newer devs really understand the history behind it, that comparatively
weak central power and strong individual dev rights continue to this day.
And of course that same theme is playing in this thread. Gentoo culture
has an extremely strong emphasis on individual rights, including the
right to choose one's own distribution, such that most gentoo devs (and
users) will find the very idea of somehow deliberately closing off
avenues of choice, restricting distro choice and the ability of users to
leave if they feel so inclined, EXTREMELY repulsive. Yes, to some extent
the majority of the FLOSS community has a similar culture, but self-
evidently the typical dev in a typical corporate-sponsored distro isn't
as likely to have the extreme, gut-level revulsion to centralized or
corporate control of the distro, or to dev and user choice, that your
typical gentooer dev is likely to have.
And actually, I'm glad this discussion has come up, since writing about
it has given me new insights into things as well. I obviously had all
the factoids and history available before, but this has forced me to
realize connections that I hadn't previously considered.
Wow! I had thought that was just the way gentoo's culture was. Now I
understand a bit more about how its history shapes that, and /why/
gentoo's culture is the way it is.
--
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
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2014-01-09 7:24 [gentoo-dev] Portage QOS LTHR
2014-01-09 8:12 ` Alec Warner
2014-01-09 12:44 ` Igor
2014-01-09 17:59 ` [gentoo-dev] " Duncan
2014-01-09 20:42 ` Igor
2014-01-09 21:08 ` Chris Reffett
2014-01-10 19:38 ` Duncan
2014-01-10 22:36 ` heroxbd
2014-01-11 1:28 99% ` Duncan
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