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

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

Peter Weber <peterle@hottemptation.org> posted
1160688721.26585.13.camel@party.homenetwork, excerpted below, on  Thu, 12
Oct 2006 23:32:01 +0200:

> You seem to think that the discussion is around you, and your work :-)
> 
> It is about Gentoo, please keep this in mind. Nobody says YOU have to
> make the work, or that you are doing sth. wrong. You could do the job,
> but you don't must do anything/everything alone. You want that Gentoo
> "needs" a internet-connection, and their should be now way to install
> Gentoo without access to the web?

But it /is/ around him and his work.  Check the release engineering
(releng) project page -- Chris G is project lead.  Thus, if you are
discussing Gentoo releases, you are by definition discussing his work.

Sure, he doesn't do it alone, but he's the project lead, and as such takes
the responsibility for the decisions and the bugs.  He's saying there were
too many bugs the old way and it's not coming back, he and the others are
volunteering, you aren't going to make him make them come back, as long as
that remains the case, because volunteers can't be forced to do
anything... they just quit volunteering if it comes to that.

Now you /can/ do several things to change that, if you don't like it. 
One, it's free software.  The tools are there.  You can build your own
(more on that below).  Two, if you are good at building such things (and
working with other volunteers), you can become a Gentoo developer and one
of those volunteers yourself, thereby ensuring the solution you want is
available to others by being part of it.   Three, in the event you aren't
skilled enough to do the second or even the first, you still have the
option of sponsoring someone who /does/ have those skills.  If you are
paying the bills, you call the shots.  It's no longer a volunteer
situation (tho of course someone can choose to contract for you or not,
but if you have the money, you can almost always find someone to work for
it).

> On Question: Is their a howto, a script or a offical guidline how you or
> other gentoo-devs build the Universal-Disc's, what must be included an
> so on? I found for Gentoo-2005 an unoffical Universal-Disc for x86, but
> it presents itselft as Minimal-CD a things like that. So it seems not to
> be a good example for me.

/Now/ we're getting somewhere. Participation is a /good/ thing, and
certainly possible even if you don't choose the commitment of being a
developer. =8^)

This isn't my area, but you'd start by merging catalyst and looking at
its documentation, since that's what Gentoo releng uses to build its own
release stages and CDs.  The releng project page has a bit more info
including a list of developers on the project, and links to the catalyst
subproject, with further links to the catalyst FAQ and reference manuals. 
Checking the IRC page, there's a gentoo-releng channel tho I don't see a
catalyst specific channel listed.  On the mailing list page there are
lists for both releng and catalyst listed.  That's what I found in about
five minutes browsing the Gentoo site, but I knew already where to look as
I already knew the general layout of the site and that catalyst was the
tool and releng the top level project, from hanging out here for a couple
years.

-- 
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@gentoo.org mailing list