[gentoo-dev] Re: Missing: Universal-CD - Gentoo discriminates shell and networkless users

["Duncan" <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Kari Hazzard <karimarie@mail.rit.edu> posted
200610090740.54261.karimarie@mail.rit.edu, excerpted below, on  Mon, 09
Oct 2006 07:40:53 -0400:

> On Thursday 05 October 2006 10:48 am, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
>> What about *our* choice to not waste time building things we don't want?
> 
> So what about those of us who DO want that? Forcing us into an installer
> is more constricting and gives us less freedom--That's not the Gentoo way.

What many often forget is that the Gentoo devs are all volunteers. 
Forcing a volunteer to do /anything/ is... problematic.  If they don't
want to do it, they simply quit volunteering.

By the same token, if it's volunteers that are doing it, they are
obviously interested in what they are doing.  Gentoo's reasonably open
(some would say /too/ open) to developers starting their own projects,
contributing to Gentoo whatever it is they are interested in, and also
quite open to folks becoming developers if they put their mind and effort
into it. If enough users want something the volunteer devs aren't doing,
one way or another, /someone/ will pick it up and run with it.  That's
what the FLOSS community is all about, really, the ability/empowerment to
take code and form it into what /you/ want, if you don't like the way the
existing project is managing things.  If enough users want it, it /will/
happen, because either some of them will become devs and volunteer the
time to /make/ it happen, or they'll become devs and fork Gentoo if
necessary to make it happen, or in the event none of them are skilled
enough to do it personally, they'll invest as necessary to ensure someone
else does it.  A single user might not be able to do it without the
skills if he likewise lacks funds, but a group of users working together
certainly could.  After all, if this wasn't possible, none of what
presently exists in the community /would/ presently exist.  It'd all
still be a dream in a few guys' heads.

Additionally, as already mentioned by others, Gentoo even empowers you to
do it yourself by providing the same tools that Gentoo itself uses,
catalyst and the like, so you don't even have to start from scratch to do
it.  Use the minimal and catalyst and roll your own.  While Gentoo can't
be all things to all people -- that can't be what choice in this context
means, as it's impossible -- it /can/ and /does/ provide the tools, as a
metadistribution, that allow you to roll your own variation on the theme,
if you find that more convenient than using the choices Gentoo /does/
provide.

-- 
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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