[gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Michał Górny]

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Hello, everyone.

Since the nominees for the new Council aren't eager to publish
manifestos, and nobody seems to be asking questions (yet some people are
leaving hostile half-comments), I'd like to start a thread dedicated to
asking the nominees (who accepted) questions related to their views of
the upcoming term.  At the same time, I'd like to ask all nominees to
answer all the questions provided by community members.

I have started a more detailed page about nominees [1], and I will be
adding answers to the questions there.  Please note that I will try to
summarize them to shortly fit into the table.  If someone doesn't like
my summary, please let me know what to put there.  That said, if someone
thinks there's another kind of useful metadata to add to the table, I'd
appreciate that as well.

To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
myself ;-).

Also, please keep the nominees in CC, in case they don't subscribe to
gentoo-project.

[1]:https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:MGorny/Council_elections_2018

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Michał Górny]

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W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
napisał:
> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> myself ;-).
> 

And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Christopher Díaz Riveros]

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El mar, 26-06-2018 a las 09:11 +0200, Michał Górny escribió:
> Hello, everyone.
> 
> Since the nominees for the new Council aren't eager to publish
> manifestos, and nobody seems to be asking questions (yet some people are
> leaving hostile half-comments), I'd like to start a thread dedicated to
> asking the nominees (who accepted) questions related to their views of
> the upcoming term.  At the same time, I'd like to ask all nominees to
> answer all the questions provided by community members.
> 
> I have started a more detailed page about nominees [1], and I will be
> adding answers to the questions there.  Please note that I will try to
> summarize them to shortly fit into the table.  If someone doesn't like
> my summary, please let me know what to put there.  That said, if someone
> thinks there's another kind of useful metadata to add to the table, I'd
> appreciate that as well.
> 
> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> myself ;-).
> 
> Also, please keep the nominees in CC, in case they don't subscribe to
> gentoo-project.
> 
> [1]:https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:MGorny/Council_elections_2018
> 
Sounds like a good idea, here are my questions:

What do council-nominees think about the current lack of manpower in Gentoo as a
whole, and how do you propose to confront this situation, with facts?

In the same line that previous question, what global decisions do you consider
necessary in order to solve the manpower issue?

Finally, and this is just a personal opinion, right now I see many devs trying
to pull Gentoo to different sides, but what I can't see is a set of common
beliefs that join us all in the same vision of what Gentoo should be or do in
the near future... how could you address this issue?

And if you don't consider this an issue, because of being a community-driven
project etc, how else do you explain the lack of public information about what
Gentoo has done to improve the issues it had 8~10 years ago? If you search
Gentoo in google, besides our official pages, there are a bunch of articles
addressing Gentoo issues that seem to be old but are not "solved" properly
anywhere. Right now I have to go to work, but I'll try to add some references
later today or when requested.

Best regards,
-- 
Christopher Díaz Riveros
Gentoo Linux Developer
GPG Fingerprint: E517 5ECB 8152 98E4 FEBC  2BAA 4DBB D10F 0FDD 2547

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 06/26/2018 09:12 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> napisał:
>> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
>> myself ;-).
>>
> 
> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
> the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?
> 

The Trustees should make sure the bills are paid and affairs are in
order so that the light are on for the distribution, of which the
Council handles.

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
fpr:94CB AFDD 3034 5109 5618 35AA 0B7F 8B60 E3ED FAE3


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 06/26/2018 04:37 PM, Christopher Díaz Riveros wrote:
> What do council-nominees think about the current lack of manpower in Gentoo as a
> whole, and how do you propose to confront this situation, with facts?

Gentoo reputation needs improvement in order to attract new developers
and contributors; which is being done by being visible at events and in
media. For geographical reasons my focus is mostly on [FOSDEM] and
promoting sides of Gentoo that focuses on it as a serious distribution
and not just a kid's toy as it is often misunderstood for, e.g by
creating a [flyer] with company testimonials.

Additionally training new developers is more costly than existing
developers increasing their current contributions, which was ultimately
the reason I accepted joining comrel.

> 
> In the same line that previous question, what global decisions do you consider
> necessary in order to solve the manpower issue?

I don't believe there are specific global decisions that can be made to
do that, but we need to be more visible in a positive way. In this
context the [AMA] that prometheanfire arranged for was rather successful.

> 
> Finally, and this is just a personal opinion, right now I see many devs trying
> to pull Gentoo to different sides, but what I can't see is a set of common
> beliefs that join us all in the same vision of what Gentoo should be or do in
> the near future... how could you address this issue?

I don't necessarily see Gentoo being pulled more to different sides than
it has historically, but the common believes should be Libre Software
more than anything. Given Gentoo is about choice I don't see how we can
avoid having differences in opinions, but that is ultimately a good
thing as long as they can be discussed in a fruitful way. That said;
this  is why we have a council to begin with, to provide decisions when
different groups are disagreeing on the way forward.

> 
> And if you don't consider this an issue, because of being a community-driven
> project etc, how else do you explain the lack of public information about what
> Gentoo has done to improve the issues it had 8~10 years ago?
> If you search
> Gentoo in google, besides our official pages, there are a bunch of articles
> addressing Gentoo issues that seem to be old but are not "solved" properly
> anywhere. Right now I have to go to work, but I'll try to add some references
> later today or when requested.

Gentoo today is very different than it was 8-10 years ago, so indeed
would be more useful to get specific examples of what you're thinking of.


References:
[FOSDEM]
https://blog.sumptuouscapital.com/2018/02/gentoo-at-fosdem-2018/

[flyer]
https://dev.gentoo.org/~k_f/fosdem-2018-flyer.pdf

[AMA]
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/8nsdj0/we_are_gentoo_developers_ama/
-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Matthew Thode]

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On 18-06-26 18:27:14, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> On 06/26/2018 09:12 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> > W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> > napisał:
> >> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> >> myself ;-).
> >>
> > 
> > And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
> > the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?
> > 
> 
> The Trustees should make sure the bills are paid and affairs are in
> order so that the light are on for the distribution, of which the
> Council handles.
> 

What about ensuring that the following situation does not happen.

Lawsuit is filed against the foundation because of inaction or
inappropriate action by members of the distro.  Who is responsible for
remediating that situation?  It involves both the foundation and the
'distro'.  Further, who is responsible for ensuring the situation does
not occur in the first place?

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Michał Górny]

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W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 11∶54 -0500, użytkownik Matthew Thode
napisał:
> On 18-06-26 18:27:14, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> > On 06/26/2018 09:12 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> > > W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> > > napisał:
> > > > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> > > > myself ;-).
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
> > > the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?
> > > 
> > 
> > The Trustees should make sure the bills are paid and affairs are in
> > order so that the light are on for the distribution, of which the
> > Council handles.
> > 
> 
> What about ensuring that the following situation does not happen.
> 
> Lawsuit is filed against the foundation because of inaction or
> inappropriate action by members of the distro.  Who is responsible for
> remediating that situation?  It involves both the foundation and the
> 'distro'.  Further, who is responsible for ensuring the situation does
> not occur in the first place?
> 

Could you please support this with specific examples?  That would make
it easier for us to understand the situation.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 06/26/2018 06:54 PM, Matthew Thode wrote:
> On 18-06-26 18:27:14, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
>> On 06/26/2018 09:12 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
>>> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
>>> napisał:
>>>> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
>>>> myself ;-).
>>>>
>>>
>>> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
>>> the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?
>>>
>>
>> The Trustees should make sure the bills are paid and affairs are in
>> order so that the light are on for the distribution, of which the
>> Council handles.
>>
> 
> What about ensuring that the following situation does not happen.
> 
> Lawsuit is filed against the foundation because of inaction or
> inappropriate action by members of the distro.  Who is responsible for
> remediating that situation?  It involves both the foundation and the
> 'distro'.  Further, who is responsible for ensuring the situation does
> not occur in the first place?
> 

I don't see where inaction can be relevant for distro per se, that is
mainly an issue for trustees that have a fiduciary duty to the
stakeholders. There are also very few cases where "inappropriate action"
by a distro developer has any legal ramification for the foundation, as
there is no employment contract to constitute HR relevant matters, but
that is why there is ComRel.

The first thing that should be done to ensure it doesn't happen is of
course for Trustees to start doing _anything_ in order to fix the
outstanding matters.

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Matthew Thode]

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On 18-06-26 18:56:25, Michał Górny wrote:
> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 11∶54 -0500, użytkownik Matthew Thode
> napisał:
> > On 18-06-26 18:27:14, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> > > On 06/26/2018 09:12 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> > > > W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> > > > napisał:
> > > > > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> > > > > myself ;-).
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
> > > > the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > The Trustees should make sure the bills are paid and affairs are in
> > > order so that the light are on for the distribution, of which the
> > > Council handles.
> > > 
> > 
> > What about ensuring that the following situation does not happen.
> > 
> > Lawsuit is filed against the foundation because of inaction or
> > inappropriate action by members of the distro.  Who is responsible for
> > remediating that situation?  It involves both the foundation and the
> > 'distro'.  Further, who is responsible for ensuring the situation does
> > not occur in the first place?
> > 
> 
> Could you please support this with specific examples?  That would make
> it easier for us to understand the situation.
> 

First I'll explain my worry.  I feel that the Foundation is overexposed
to actions taken by the 'distro'.  While those in the council can be
sued individually, the foundation is typically the one threatened (at
least twice in the last two years, but no followthrough).  I will not
provide details of the actual threats (as a matter of policy).  My worry
stems from not having control over the exposure we recieve from the
distro.  Personally I am more exposed due to being a trustee, I am risk
adverse :P

A specific example is that 'HR' (comrel atm) lets something slide that
they should not have and we are sued over it.  There is a perception
that comrel allows things to slide more than they should (whether that
perception is valid or invalid is up for debate in another topic).

I've proposed various solutions to this (the last one having a monthly
report of actions taken by comrel (HR) sent to the trustees (and council
could make sense), but they've all been shot down.  I'd like to know
what solutions potential councilers see for this situation.

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Matthew Thode]

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On 18-06-26 19:00:01, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> On 06/26/2018 06:54 PM, Matthew Thode wrote:
> > On 18-06-26 18:27:14, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> >> On 06/26/2018 09:12 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> >>> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> >>> napisał:
> >>>> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> >>>> myself ;-).
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
> >>> the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?
> >>>
> >>
> >> The Trustees should make sure the bills are paid and affairs are in
> >> order so that the light are on for the distribution, of which the
> >> Council handles.
> >>
> > 
> > What about ensuring that the following situation does not happen.
> > 
> > Lawsuit is filed against the foundation because of inaction or
> > inappropriate action by members of the distro.  Who is responsible for
> > remediating that situation?  It involves both the foundation and the
> > 'distro'.  Further, who is responsible for ensuring the situation does
> > not occur in the first place?
> > 
> 
> I don't see where inaction can be relevant for distro per se, that is
> mainly an issue for trustees that have a fiduciary duty to the
> stakeholders. There are also very few cases where "inappropriate action"
> by a distro developer has any legal ramification for the foundation, as
> there is no employment contract to constitute HR relevant matters, but
> that is why there is ComRel.
> 

I think it's more that we are easier to sue that makes us a bigger
target then the perpetrator or those that enable them (which people
could think the foundation does).

> The first thing that should be done to ensure it doesn't happen is of
> course for Trustees to start doing _anything_ in order to fix the
> outstanding matters.
> 

Can you be specific?  I consider this to be an outstanding matter.

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 06/26/2018 07:20 PM, Matthew Thode wrote:
> I think it's more that we are easier to sue that makes us a bigger
> target then the perpetrator or those that enable them (which people
> could think the foundation does).

Anyone can sue anyone, that doesn't necessarily mean there is any
standing for it.

> 
>> The first thing that should be done to ensure it doesn't happen is of
>> course for Trustees to start doing _anything_ in order to fix the
>> outstanding matters.
>>
> Can you be specific?  I consider this to be an outstanding matter.

I'm mostly interested in that there is no actual movement on IRS
matters, but reading through the trustee meeting logs are generally
disappointing due to lack of professional behavior and lack of
followthrough.

What you feel about being sued for inappropriate actions by distro
members should be left for a comrel complaint about the behavior you're
referring to.

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Matthew Thode]

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On 18-06-26 19:29:37, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> On 06/26/2018 07:20 PM, Matthew Thode wrote:
> > I think it's more that we are easier to sue that makes us a bigger
> > target then the perpetrator or those that enable them (which people
> > could think the foundation does).
> 
> Anyone can sue anyone, that doesn't necessarily mean there is any
> standing for it.
> 

True, but that doesn't mean we should not limit our exposure.

> > 
> >> The first thing that should be done to ensure it doesn't happen is of
> >> course for Trustees to start doing _anything_ in order to fix the
> >> outstanding matters.
> >>
> > Can you be specific?  I consider this to be an outstanding matter.
> 
> I'm mostly interested in that there is no actual movement on IRS
> matters, but reading through the trustee meeting logs are generally
> disappointing due to lack of professional behavior and lack of
> followthrough.
> 

Yes, progress has been much slower than I'd hoped.  Next meeting we are
expecting to vote on publishing the RFP though, so progress is still
happening, but slowly.

I'm not sure what you mean by lack of professional behavior though,
could you be more specific?

> What you feel about being sued for inappropriate actions by distro
> members should be left for a comrel complaint about the behavior you're
> referring to.

I am fine with leaving comrel in their current role, my concern is
inaction (as mentioned before) and lack of reporting (so as to not be
blindsided).  Not having reporting is willful blindness from what I can
see.

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Aaron Bauman]

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On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 3:11:11 AM EDT Michał Górny wrote:
> Hello, everyone.
> 
> Since the nominees for the new Council aren't eager to publish
> manifestos, and nobody seems to be asking questions (yet some people are
> leaving hostile half-comments), I'd like to start a thread dedicated to
> asking the nominees (who accepted) questions related to their views of
> the upcoming term.  At the same time, I'd like to ask all nominees to
> answer all the questions provided by community members.
> 
> I have started a more detailed page about nominees [1], and I will be
> adding answers to the questions there.  Please note that I will try to
> summarize them to shortly fit into the table.  If someone doesn't like
> my summary, please let me know what to put there.  That said, if someone
> thinks there's another kind of useful metadata to add to the table, I'd
> appreciate that as well.
> 
> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> myself ;-).
> 
> Also, please keep the nominees in CC, in case they don't subscribe to
> gentoo-project.
> 
> [1]:https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:MGorny/Council_elections_2018

I am not sure what your metric is for determining our eagerness to publish a 
manifesto or even what requirement there is to do so.  In lieu of that, I 
actually find your idea for a public Q&A quite intriguing despite the premise.

Considering I truly like this method better, I have decided to *not* publish a 
manifesto as is traditionally done.  Instead, I will rely on the dev community 
writ large to ask questions that are *important* to *them*.

-Aaron

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 06/27/2018 12:17 AM, Aaron Bauman wrote:
> Also, please keep the nominees in CC, in case they don't subscribe to
> gentoo-project.

Just to add a comment to this, I've explicitly removed nominees from the
other postings as I expect them to follow -project.

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 06/27/2018 12:25 AM, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> On 06/27/2018 12:17 AM, Aaron Bauman wrote:
>> Also, please keep the nominees in CC, in case they don't subscribe to
>> gentoo-project.
> 
> Just to add a comment to this, I've explicitly removed nominees from the
> other postings as I expect them to follow -project.
> 

Ehrm, wrong citation; supposed to be

On 06/26/2018 09:11 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> Also, please keep the nominees in CC, in case they don't subscribe to
> gentoo-project.

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
fpr:94CB AFDD 3034 5109 5618 35AA 0B7F 8B60 E3ED FAE3


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Aaron Bauman]

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On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 3:12:49 AM EDT Michał Górny wrote:
> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> 
> napisał:
> > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> > myself ;-).
> 
> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
> the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?

The Gentoo Council is responsible for the technical direction of the 
distribution.  This can be viewed as ambiguous by the term "global" being used 
to define what the council is, but I would offer that this is speaking to 
global issues within the scope of projects and the reorganization that occured 
within GLEP 39.  It did not intend to infringe upon the responsibilities nor 
role of the Gentoo Foundation.

The Gentoo Foundation, including the officers and trustees which comprise it, 
are legally and financially responsible to the distribution.  As noted in the 
by-laws, the Foundation is held liable from a legal perspective for matters 
occuring within the distribution.  This is seen not only in the by-laws within 
the rights to indemnifcation, but is driven by American law of incorporated 
entities. As such, I find it most important to consider why we ought to ensure 
these responsibilities are delineated appropriately.

As current officers of the Foundation and council members have expressed, it may 
be wise to dissolve the foundation as it exists today in the form an 
incorporation within the state of New Mexico.  This would be done in favor of 
something such as SPI (Software in the Public interest) or another 
organization willing to legally and financially represent Gentoo as a 
distribution.  This does not *absolve* the distribution from any current 
responsibilities now though.  We must organize and communicate our intention 
as a distribution to deal with all legal and financial matters.

My opinion is to dissolve the Foundation as it exists today in favor of an 
organization that specializes in the types of matters we do not.  This is 
*not* targeting any current officers or trustees within the Foundation, but 
factually stating that they do not contain the required credentials or 
expertise to handle such matters.  Staffing such positions from a demographic of 
computer scientists, programmers, etc is not a wise choice.  I want to clarify 
that this is not targeting the aptitude of such individuals to excel given 
time and task constraints were removed. 

Let the experts handle such matters and let us focus on making a spectacular 
distribution.

-Aaron

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[M. J. Everitt]

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On 27/06/18 00:02, Aaron Bauman wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 3:12:49 AM EDT Michał Górny wrote:
>> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
>>
>> napisał:
>>> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
>>> myself ;-).
>> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
>> the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?
> The Gentoo Council is responsible for the technical direction of the 
> distribution.  This can be viewed as ambiguous by the term "global" being used 
> to define what the council is, but I would offer that this is speaking to 
> global issues within the scope of projects and the reorganization that occured 
> within GLEP 39.  It did not intend to infringe upon the responsibilities nor 
> role of the Gentoo Foundation.
>
> The Gentoo Foundation, including the officers and trustees which comprise it, 
> are legally and financially responsible to the distribution.  As noted in the 
> by-laws, the Foundation is held liable from a legal perspective for matters 
> occuring within the distribution.  This is seen not only in the by-laws within 
> the rights to indemnifcation, but is driven by American law of incorporated 
> entities. As such, I find it most important to consider why we ought to ensure 
> these responsibilities are delineated appropriately.
>
> As current officers of the Foundation and council members have expressed, it may 
> be wise to dissolve the foundation as it exists today in the form an 
> incorporation within the state of New Mexico.  This would be done in favor of 
> something such as SPI (Software in the Public interest) or another 
> organization willing to legally and financially represent Gentoo as a 
> distribution.  This does not *absolve* the distribution from any current 
> responsibilities now though.  We must organize and communicate our intention 
> as a distribution to deal with all legal and financial matters.
>
> My opinion is to dissolve the Foundation as it exists today in favor of an 
> organization that specializes in the types of matters we do not.  This is 
> *not* targeting any current officers or trustees within the Foundation, but 
> factually stating that they do not contain the required credentials or 
> expertise to handle such matters.  Staffing such positions from a demographic of 
> computer scientists, programmers, etc is not a wise choice.  I want to clarify 
> that this is not targeting the aptitude of such individuals to excel given 
> time and task constraints were removed. 
>
> Let the experts handle such matters and let us focus on making a spectacular 
> distribution.
>
> -Aaron
+1 well put !

:]


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Aaron Bauman]

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On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 10:37:00 AM EDT Christopher Díaz Riveros wrote:
> El mar, 26-06-2018 a las 09:11 +0200, Michał Górny escribió:
> > Hello, everyone.
> > 
> > Since the nominees for the new Council aren't eager to publish
> > manifestos, and nobody seems to be asking questions (yet some people are
> > leaving hostile half-comments), I'd like to start a thread dedicated to
> > asking the nominees (who accepted) questions related to their views of
> > the upcoming term.  At the same time, I'd like to ask all nominees to
> > answer all the questions provided by community members.
> > 
> > I have started a more detailed page about nominees [1], and I will be
> > adding answers to the questions there.  Please note that I will try to
> > summarize them to shortly fit into the table.  If someone doesn't like
> > my summary, please let me know what to put there.  That said, if someone
> > thinks there's another kind of useful metadata to add to the table, I'd
> > appreciate that as well.
> > 
> > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> > myself ;-).
> > 
> > Also, please keep the nominees in CC, in case they don't subscribe to
> > gentoo-project.
> > 
> > [1]:https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:MGorny/Council_elections_2018
> 
> Sounds like a good idea, here are my questions:
> 
> What do council-nominees think about the current lack of manpower in Gentoo
> as a whole, and how do you propose to confront this situation, with facts?
> 

I cannot speak historically (>3 years) of what may or may not have been a lack 
of manpower, but in recent years I would agree that there is a lack of 
manpower.

I do believe there are efforts to address this coming from our own developers.  

One such example is Michał's (mgorny) efforts with Github as the conduit.  His 
automation, CI bot, and personal involvement has shown fruit in the form of 
new developers (sbraz as an example).  Such avenues like this can be exploited 
to bridge the gap of "getting involved" within Gentoo.  The ease of 
contribution, abiity to review, and ultimately incorporate the changes offered 
by users is conducive to public satisfaction and positive PR.

Furthermore, I have had the opportunity to see some of the flyers and other 
"swag" given out at such events as FOSDEM.  This is a traditional approach, 
but highly effective.  It also lends to estabilishing the personal aspect of 
meeting other's who share a similair interest.  My intent is to begin this 
same effort in the United States (mostly my area) as I do not believe it is as 
prevalent as Europe.  I do not have anything empirical to validate this so it 
is pure perception.

> In the same line that previous question, what global decisions do you
> consider necessary in order to solve the manpower issue?
> 

I discussed it prior to this question, but I think that ultimately the current 
efforts scaled properly would address these concerns.

> Finally, and this is just a personal opinion, right now I see many devs
> trying to pull Gentoo to different sides, but what I can't see is a set of
> common beliefs that join us all in the same vision of what Gentoo should be
> or do in the near future... how could you address this issue?
> 

I understand how you would perceive that the distribution is being pulled in 
many different directions, but I would offer that many of our developers are 
passionate in their commitment to the distribution.  This leads to their 
passion sometimes lending to heated discussions and very opinionated 
conversation.  I view it as a sign of health.  It is not simply a hobby for 
them to develop within Gentoo, but their contributions become an investment.

For those contributing from their place of work (we have many "paid" 
developers within Gentoo) Gentoo should be a solid investment.  As such, I 
believe it would be noble of us as a council and distribution to set forth 
clear goals ensuring the health of the distribution.

Some things that come to mind:

Ensuring the recruitment of new developers is a priority.  This would include 
reviewing not only our PR efforts, but also ensuring a modern and effective 
approach is made to screen them.  Some have expressed that the developer quiz 
is an antiquated process.  While I believe this has merit, I do not believe it 
can be entirely exempted.  I do believe we could rely on "letting the code do 
the talking" more.  Especially with platforms allowing individuals to 
contribute and have reviews done.  This also does not absolve simple reviews 
such as the purpose of mailing lists etc.  Good developers are not only 
technically savvy, but also socially pleasant.

> And if you don't consider this an issue, because of being a community-driven
> project etc, how else do you explain the lack of public information about
> what Gentoo has done to improve the issues it had 8~10 years ago? If you
> search Gentoo in google, besides our official pages, there are a bunch of
> articles addressing Gentoo issues that seem to be old but are not "solved"
> properly anywhere. Right now I have to go to work, but I'll try to add some
> references later today or when requested.
> 
> Best regards,

Yes, please reply with some references.  I have an idea of the type of 
articles you are probably reading.  If those are similair, I would offer that 
many can be biased or simply not important factors.  Gentoo has had it's ups 
an down over the years just as any distro has.  I have been a user for nearly 
15 years and experienced this from afar in most cases.  Bootstrapping from 
stage 1's and all sorts of fun.

-Aaron

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Georgy Yakovlev]

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On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 4:31:01 PM PDT Aaron Bauman wrote:
> [...]
> I do believe there are efforts to address this coming from our own
> developers.
> 
> One such example is Michał's (mgorny) efforts with Github as the conduit. 
> His automation, CI bot, and personal involvement has shown fruit in the
> form of new developers (sbraz as an example).  Such avenues like this can
> be exploited to bridge the gap of "getting involved" within Gentoo.  The
> ease of contribution, abiity to review, and ultimately incorporate the
> changes offered by users is conducive to public satisfaction and positive
> PR.
> [...]
> -Aaron

I strongly agree. That's how I became a dev recently =)
And I we have another batch of solid contributors going thru recruitment and 
doing quizzes right now, most started as github<->proxy-maint collaborators.

Canonical (bugzilla) way of contributing ebuilds works as well, but is clunky 
and less visible, and some contributions are ignored for years and years.

proxy-maint team is pretty strict, but friendly and it usually takes not more 
than a week to get a new ebuild accepted given it's decent quality but needs 
some polish. Sometimes it takes longer, but hey.
Simple or important bumps can be merged within hours, especially if the 
contributor is on IRC and knows when and how to ping the right people.

Even if people contribute to non-proxied ebuilds, members of proxy-maint know 
how to communicate it to the right people who are less exposed to github and 
the contributions are not ignored and get acknowledged and merged.

Also, contributors learn A LOT while following the review process, both 
technical and political details of gentoo.

This is a really good way of attracting and educating `fresh blood`.
Source: fresh blood.

-- 
Best regards,
Georgy Yakovlev

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Tue, 26 Jun 2018, Christopher Michał Górny wrote:

> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think
> should be the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?

As I understand it, the Foundation with its board of Trustees manages
the financial assets. It also holds the Gentoo trademarks and
copyrights (though it is not entirely clear what copyright e.g. of
the Gentoo repo remains with the Foundation nowadays).

Otherwise, the developer community is self-governing and handles all
aspects of the distro (except for the ones listed above) itself.
By our metastructure model defined in GLEP 39, it elects a Council to
decide on global issues, which includes being an appeals instance for
teams like ComRel and QA.

Ulrich

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Michał Górny]

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W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 18∶17 -0400, użytkownik Aaron Bauman
napisał:
> On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 3:11:11 AM EDT Michał Górny wrote:
> > Hello, everyone.
> > 
> > Since the nominees for the new Council aren't eager to publish
> > manifestos, and nobody seems to be asking questions (yet some people are
> > leaving hostile half-comments), I'd like to start a thread dedicated to
> > asking the nominees (who accepted) questions related to their views of
> > the upcoming term.  At the same time, I'd like to ask all nominees to
> > answer all the questions provided by community members.
> > 
> > I have started a more detailed page about nominees [1], and I will be
> > adding answers to the questions there.  Please note that I will try to
> > summarize them to shortly fit into the table.  If someone doesn't like
> > my summary, please let me know what to put there.  That said, if someone
> > thinks there's another kind of useful metadata to add to the table, I'd
> > appreciate that as well.
> > 
> > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> > myself ;-).
> > 
> > Also, please keep the nominees in CC, in case they don't subscribe to
> > gentoo-project.
> > 
> > [1]:https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:MGorny/Council_elections_2018
> 
> I am not sure what your metric is for determining our eagerness to publish a 
> manifesto or even what requirement there is to do so.  In lieu of that, I 
> actually find your idea for a public Q&A quite intriguing despite the premise.
> 
> Considering I truly like this method better, I have decided to *not* publish a 
> manifesto as is traditionally done.  Instead, I will rely on the dev community 
> writ large to ask questions that are *important* to *them*.
> 

You can put answers to those questions in your manifesto.  I suppose
that will be easier for people to check and compare.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Michał Górny]

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(CC-ing the remaining people to remind them to be subscribed to -project
and read archives)

W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
napisał:
> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> myself ;-).

Three more questions from me:


1. Do you believe that Council members should respect the requests of
the developer community even if they disagree with them?  Or should
Council members decide based on their own judgment of arguments
presented?

Example: there's a heated debate, and the majority of respondents
request that X is implemented.  However, after reading all the arguments
you don't think that X is a good idea but you haven't managed to
convince others.  Would you vote for X (as your electorate demands)
or against it (as you believe is better for the distro)?


2. Do you believe that the Council should proactively research the state
of affairs and make decisions whenever they believe the direction
of the distribution needs to be adjusted?  Or should it be passive
and avoid involvement unless developers explicitly request Council's
intervention?


3. Do you believe the developer community should hold the power
to veto or dissolve the Council at any point?  Provided there's a global
developer vote agreeing on that.


-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Aaron Bauman]

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On Wednesday, June 27, 2018 4:25:07 AM EDT Michał Górny wrote:
> (CC-ing the remaining people to remind them to be subscribed to -project
> and read archives)
> 
> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> 
> napisał:
> > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> > myself ;-).
> 
> Three more questions from me:
> 
> 
> 1. Do you believe that Council members should respect the requests of
> the developer community even if they disagree with them?  Or should
> Council members decide based on their own judgment of arguments
> presented?
> 

Absolutely, they should represent the developer community even if they 
disagree with them.  This is of course a very politically charged question 
though and I am glad you asked it.  If any elected member fails to represent 
their constituents (the larger developer community) then they have either 
failed to understand their requests, perpetrated a lie during the election 
with falsehoods, or a numerous amount of other scenarios.  

I am not running for the council in order to elevate my own agenda or advocate 
that somehow I am superior in my own thinking, judgement, or other 
characteristics than another developer.  What I am running for is to 
*represent* the ideas, wishes, and concerns that the larger developer 
community has.  This is of critical importance to me.  While probably not 
liked due to the corporation affiliation, Steve Jobs once said:

“it doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire 
smart people so they can tell us what to do.” [1]

I am not proposing that this is a company or by any means that we hire 
individuals.  What I am proposing is that the council is representing a 
collective group of developers who are very smart and technically savvy at 
what they do.  It would be *ignorant* of me to believe that somehow i can make 
a proper decision without seeking the advice of the very talented individuals 
we have within Gentoo.

With those ideals in mind, it would be incomplete of me to say that 
disagreements will not happen.  Surely, I have and will continue to have 
disagreements with other developers on a certain way in which to address 
something.  However, if a majority of developers are saying something 
collectively and I am completely disregarding it then I need a self-checkup.

This also brings to light that civil discourse is important.  As I have 
mentioend before, we (developers) tend to be a very opinionated and charged 
group of individuals.  Civil discourse allows us to achieve a better outcome 
and leverage the ingenuity of those around us.

> Example: there's a heated debate, and the majority of respondents
> request that X is implemented.  However, after reading all the arguments
> you don't think that X is a good idea but you haven't managed to
> convince others.  Would you vote for X (as your electorate demands)
> or against it (as you believe is better for the distro)?
> 
> 
> 2. Do you believe that the Council should proactively research the state
> of affairs and make decisions whenever they believe the direction
> of the distribution needs to be adjusted?  Or should it be passive
> and avoid involvement unless developers explicitly request Council's
> intervention?
> 

I do believe there is value in the council being proactive, but smartly 
addressing these issues should they impact developers.  This is most effective 
especially at quelling any potential risks or interference for developers.  
One of the goals and responsibilities of the council should be to remain 
proactive and ensure developers can do their work unobstructed.

We often elect individuals to positions so they may take care of such tasks 
and "let us be" to do what we find most important.  Again, I cannot stress 
enough that competent council members should know when to ensure the larger 
community is kept abreast of impacting changes.  This does *not* give the 
council a free ticket to do what they want.

> 
> 3. Do you believe the developer community should hold the power
> to veto or dissolve the Council at any point?  Provided there's a global
> developer vote agreeing on that.

Absolutely.  I have mentioned this on IRC before.  As I have previously 
mentioned in this email, the council *represents* the developer community.  If 
the council is failing to to meet what their constituents are most concerned 
with then there should be a path to removal.

Of course, just like the previously mentioned disagreements, it should be done 
smartly and no room for malice or ill intent.  As you mentioned, a majority 
vote or something similair would be a consideration.

-Aaron

[1]: http://fortune.com/2015/06/09/shahrzad-rafati-keeping-your-best-employees/

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Thomas Deutschmann]

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Hi,

here's my semi-manifesto and my answers (note: I started to write
something before I got the questions... I didn't rewrite to
integrate questions):

My vision of the Gentoo council:
The Gentoo Council should not be a committee that makes decisions for the
community based on the Council members' own opinion. Of course I have my
own opinion but I don’t feel special that my opinion should count more
than the opinion of anyone else just because I got elected. So from my
point of the view the council should act more like an administrative
council and keep track of the opinion/arguments within the community and
vote for the opinion of the majority after all arguments are shared and
no new points of views are getting added.

If you are looking for someone who should do the research for you, make
decisions for you and knows everything better than you and can be blamed
for decisions you don’t like then please don’t vote for me.

However, if you have your own opinion you want to share, want to
contribute on topics you are an expert in and just looking for someone
who will represent the opinion of the majority after the community has
finished discussion, I would be very happy to get your vote!



> What do council-nominees think about the current lack of manpower in
> Gentoo as a whole, and how do you propose to confront this situation,
> with facts?

Lack of manpower is always a problem. But I don't think it is the
council's job to change this. Job is maybe the wrong word but if you
would hope for a new council which will create a PR campaign for Gentoo
then please don't vote for me. Like I don't think that any government in
this world can create jobs on their own, I don’t believe that a single
committee in Gentoo alone can lead to interested persons becoming
developers.
For me, it is the project itself which must be interesting enough. But a
closed or toxic community would scare away anyone interested in the
project. However, it is not the council's job to make sure these
requirements are met. It is the responsibility of every single member of
the Gentoo community to keep this project interesting and make sure that
people want to join and stay in the community. So it is the community
which must define and live the rules. And the council will only act only
by majority decision of the community.


> In the same line that previous question, what global decisions do you
> consider necessary in order to solve the manpower issue?

From my personal point of view, I would immediately start a discussion in
the community to reconsider to reopen Gentoo for everyone. For me it is
unacceptable to restrict access just because less than 10 individuals are
misbehaving/trolling. If the majority is unable to ignore those trolling
people or are concerned about Gentoo’s public image if we wouldn't
respond to any false claims we should find different ways and use
existing projects like ComRel to handle them. But it is unacceptable
allowing fewer than 10 trolls with bad behaviors to make us to close
Gentoo for the public.
BUT: Like said I wouldn’t act on this as council member. I would just
start a new discussion in the community like anyone else can do all the
time and once all arguments are shared the council would check if the
majority of Gentoo developers has changed their mind or not. And only if
the majority of Gentoo developers would want to open up the community
again I would vote with YES.


> Finally, and this is just a personal opinion, right now I see many devs
> trying to pull Gentoo to different sides, but what I can't see is a set
> of common beliefs that join us all in the same vision of what Gentoo
> should be or do in the near future... how could you address this issue?

We have to differentiate: If we talk about projects, than there's not
much we can or should do. Every developer is free to create their own
project within Gentoo. As long as their project doesn’t conflict with
another project, there won’t be any problems. If their project affects
other projects they have to arrange with the other project. But it is
unacceptable if a project or committee with power like QA project our
council would abuse their given power to force Gentoo in a direction
against the will of the majority of the community. In this case, if a
person/project is pulling Gentoo into a direction against the will of
the majority of the community, council would have to ask this
person/project to stop or solve the issues with the community. If the
person/project don’t want or can’t solve the problem with the community
but keep pulling Gentoo in a direction against the will of the majority
of the Gentoo community, it would be ComRel’s job to force them to stop
as last resort to protect the community (after a council decision based
on a previous community discussion).


> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should
> be the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?

I share same opinion like Kristian and Aaron on this topic. I'd like to
add that I especially like the idea to dissolve current foundation in
favor of something such as SPI. But it is too early for me to make a
clear decision on that yet given that we don’t know all
details/consequences yet.
But again: Even if I would personally want something such as SPI, if the
majority of the community would want to keep current model or something
different but not SPI, I would follow the community because that's my
understanding of my role in council (to represent community but don't
make my opinion the opinion of the community by voting like I want) if
I should get elected.


> 1. Do you believe that Council members should respect the requests of
> the developer community even if they disagree with them?  Or should
> Council members decide based on their own judgment of arguments
> presented?

Please see "my vision" from my introduction. In short:

In the perfect world we all agree after arguments were presented.
If we don't agree, Council member should follow the majority.


> Example: there's a heated debate, and the majority of respondents
> request that X is implemented.  However, after reading all the arguments
> you don't think that X is a good idea but you haven't managed to
> convince others.  Would you vote for X (as your electorate demands)
> or against it (as you believe is better for the distro)?

I would follow majority. If this will be against my fundamentals and
cannot support the opinion of the majority, I'll have to resign. Please
see my "Final note" for additional details which I had written before the
last 3 questions arrived.


> 2. Do you believe that the Council should proactively research the state
> of affairs and make decisions whenever they believe the direction
> of the distribution needs to be adjusted?  Or should it be passive
> and avoid involvement unless developers explicitly request Council's
> intervention? 

Council should be passive and avoid involvement unless developers
explicitly request Council's intervention.


> 3. Do you believe the developer community should hold the power
> to veto or dissolve the Council at any point?  Provided there's a global
> developer vote agreeing on that.

No, when all council members will share my vision. :)

Yes, if the community is looking for a committee which will decide for
them, a Council which knows everything better or a Council which will act
proactively.


Final note: When I say "vote for me if you want someone who represents
the majority of the community" because "I would vote for the opinion of
the majority of the community" I have to admit that there's a limit or
red line I will not cross: In this case I would abstain or even consider
to resign from council. To give you an example: For me, the worst
decision in the past 12 months was the decision to close Gentoo for
public contribution via mailing lists. This was such a bad signal to the
world I am really ashamed of. I especially accepted nomination because I
think that the majority of the community didn't feel represented by
council's decision on that matter. If I would have to vote on this as
council member and the majority of the community would want something I
really can't support because it is against my fundamentals, I would
resign because I would not be able to represent the community anymore.


-- 
Regards,
Thomas Deutschmann / Gentoo Linux Developer
C4DD 695F A713 8F24 2AA1 5638 5849 7EE5 1D5D 74A5


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 06/27/2018 10:25 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> (CC-ing the remaining people to remind them to be subscribed to -project
> and read archives)
> 
> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> napisał:
>> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
>> myself ;-).
> 
> Three more questions from me:
> 
> 
> 1. Do you believe that Council members should respect the requests of
> the developer community even if they disagree with them?  Or should
> Council members decide based on their own judgment of arguments
> presented?

Respect and agree are two different things. As with any board position,
once elected the duty of the individual is to what is perceived as the
best of the organization, despite any short term noise. One issue is of
course that some of the people complaining the most are actually in a
minority. With terms as short as 1 year and 7 voting members there
shouldn't really be much conflict here in any case.

> 
> Example: there's a heated debate, and the majority of respondents
> request that X is implemented.  However, after reading all the arguments
> you don't think that X is a good idea but you haven't managed to
> convince others.  Would you vote for X (as your electorate demands)
> or against it (as you believe is better for the distro)?
> 

against

> 
> 2. Do you believe that the Council should proactively research the state
> of affairs and make decisions whenever they believe the direction
> of the distribution needs to be adjusted?  Or should it be passive
> and avoid involvement unless developers explicitly request Council's
> intervention?
> 

I actually think that individual council members to a great extent are
doing this already, by being involved in the various projects.
Ironically this has resulted in complaints by some about "conflicts of
interest", that is demonstrating a certain lack of understanding of
concepts.

> 
> 3. Do you believe the developer community should hold the power
> to veto or dissolve the Council at any point?  Provided there's a global
> developer vote agreeing on that.
>

They already have that every year during elections, so I'm not sure if
adding additional layers of complexity is really worthwhile. But lets
see the proposal similar to the debian general resolution and discuss it
on its merits.

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Wed, 27 Jun 2018, Michał Górny wrote:

> Three more questions from me:

> 1. Do you believe that Council members should respect the requests
> of the developer community even if they disagree with them?
> Or should Council members decide based on their own judgment of
> arguments presented?

> Example: there's a heated debate, and the majority of respondents
> request that X is implemented.  However, after reading all the
> arguments you don't think that X is a good idea but you haven't
> managed to convince others.  Would you vote for X (as your
> electorate demands) or against it (as you believe is better for
> the distro)?

Things are usually not as clear cut as in your constructed example.
If there is consensus in a discussion (which doesn't exclude that
there could be single dissenting voices) then generally the council
should go with that. However, if there's consensus then normally
there's no reason for the council to get involved.

OTOH, if there is disagreement then the council may be asked to
resolve the issue. That's the reason why the council exists in the
first place, namely to have a procedure for deciding global issues,
without the need to have an all-devs vote for everything.

In short, I would not vote against developer consensus, but in case of
an unresolved controversy my vote would be based on my judgement what
will be best for the distro.

> 2. Do you believe that the Council should proactively research the
> state of affairs and make decisions whenever they believe the
> direction of the distribution needs to be adjusted?  Or should it
> be passive and avoid involvement unless developers explicitly
> request Council's intervention?

How would you even measure "proactivity", and how would you
distinguish between "the Council" and its members acting as
individuals? If I look at the number of agenda items for the past
term (excluding unfinished business and open bugs), then about 75% of
the items were submitted by council members, 20% by other developers,
and 5% by users. Then again, are council members simply submitting so
much because they at the same time are very active devs, or in their
capacity as council members?

> 3. Do you believe the developer community should hold the power
> to veto or dissolve the Council at any point?  Provided there's
> a global developer vote agreeing on that.

Presumably, I would not oppose a voting system similar to Debian's
"general resolution" (as suggested in [1]), if it has reasonably high
thresholds (because dissolving the Council every other month won't
help us either).

OTOH, I am a friend of the KISS principle [2], and we should be very
careful not to unnecessarily complicate our processes by adding too
many layers.

Ulrich

[1] https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20180408-summary.txt
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[William Hubbs]

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On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 09:12:49AM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> napisał:
> > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> > myself ;-).
> > 
> 
> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
> the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?

The Gentoo Foundation charter defines the role of the foundation. In my
own words, though, its purpose is to protect the trademark, logo,
protect the Gentoo software w/ copyrights, and provide financial services
such as handling donations etc. The trustees are the leaders of the
foundation.

The Council is supposed to make cross-project technical decisions and
handle disciplinary and qa appeals.

I see the council *and* trustees as the complete leadership team of Gentoo.
They perform different functions.

The only thing I'll say about moving to an umbrella organization is I
think a move like that should be thoroughly thought out before it
happens.

William


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Eray Aslan]

Re-sending to gentoo-project

On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 09:11:11AM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> Since the nominees for the new Council aren't eager to publish
> manifestos, and nobody seems to be asking questions (yet some people are
> leaving hostile half-comments), I'd like to start a thread dedicated to
> asking the nominees (who accepted) questions related to their views of
> the upcoming term.  At the same time, I'd like to ask all nominees to
> answer all the questions provided by community members.

Just a few sentences on the questions below would be nice.

1/ What do you think of closing gentoo-dev ML to the general public?

2/ Where do you think Gentoo stands in the Linux ecosystem?  Who do you
think are its users?

Thank you
-- 
Eray

Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Mart Raudsepp]

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Ühel kenal päeval, R, 29.06.2018 kell 08:15, kirjutas Eray Aslan:
> Just a few sentences on the questions below would be nice.
> 
> 1/ What do you think of closing gentoo-dev ML to the general public?

It is not closed to the general public, only limited posting. This is
the same as various other mediums have been, except for gentoo-dev this
is a change of status quo.
If I would have been part of council at the time of the votes, I would
have likely voted against closing general public posting, but in
practice serving on the council would have meant more pondering and
serious thinking of it and I might have reached to the same conclusion
of having to do this for the time being, until a better solution
emerges.
I hope we can try a different solution at some point soon, as the
underlying mailing list infrastructure gets upgraded (e.g. to better
support different forms of moderation). I don't think we should change
the current status quo yet again without a potential different solution
to try out for the underlying problem that triggered this change.

> 2/ Where do you think Gentoo stands in the Linux ecosystem?  Who do
> you
> think are its users?

It's for the power users that care what and how exactly they have
installed, administrators that make that decision for many, or those
that want to learn how these things work. Also for people that learned
the ways and are now simply using Gentoo as their home distributions,
while actually not tweaking or configuring it much at all - only when
needed, knowing that power is there. Regarding that, I believe we are
sometimes too much forcing users to make a choice on things, failing to
give the choice of not making a choice themselves (e.g. REQUIRED_USE
setups that often end up requiring configuration choices in
package.use).

In a broader sense it's a meta-distribution for other things to be
based on (ChromeOS, derivatives, etc) - unfortunately I don't think we
cater towards this use case very well ourselves.

We should work towards improving our strengths to regain more of our
standing in the Linux ecosystem, and drive it home with appropriate PR
work. But this needs volunteers to do the work, but I believe leaders
in the community can encourage such volunteers to step up and empower
them to get things done. I believe council members should act as such
leaders.


Mart

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 06/29/2018 07:15 AM, Eray Aslan wrote:
> Re-sending to gentoo-project
> 
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 09:11:11AM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
>> Since the nominees for the new Council aren't eager to publish
>> manifestos, and nobody seems to be asking questions (yet some people are
>> leaving hostile half-comments), I'd like to start a thread dedicated to
>> asking the nominees (who accepted) questions related to their views of
>> the upcoming term.  At the same time, I'd like to ask all nominees to
>> answer all the questions provided by community members.
> 
> Just a few sentences on the questions below would be nice.
> 
> 1/ What do you think of closing gentoo-dev ML to the general public?

-dev is not closed to general public, but the posting is restricted to
users having someone watching them similar to other aspects of gentoo
infrastructure, including, but not limited to , editbugs in b.g.o

If you read the previous council decisions and rationale for split of
-dev vs -project restricting posting access to non-devs was already part
of the intention, so the current implementation is already more lenient
than that.

> 
> 2/ Where do you think Gentoo stands in the Linux ecosystem?  Who do you
> think are its users?
> 

It is a distribution for power-users, and we should focus on flexibility
and performance in addition to providing a stable runtime and upgrade path.

> Thank you
> 


-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
fpr:94CB AFDD 3034 5109 5618 35AA 0B7F 8B60 E3ED FAE3


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[William Hubbs]

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On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 08:15:25AM +0300, Eray Aslan wrote:
> Re-sending to gentoo-project
> 
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 09:11:11AM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> > Since the nominees for the new Council aren't eager to publish
> > manifestos, and nobody seems to be asking questions (yet some people are
> > leaving hostile half-comments), I'd like to start a thread dedicated to
> > asking the nominees (who accepted) questions related to their views of
> > the upcoming term.  At the same time, I'd like to ask all nominees to
> > answer all the questions provided by community members.
> 
> Just a few sentences on the questions below would be nice.
> 
> 1/ What do you think of closing gentoo-dev ML to the general public?

I am 100% against the decision to close gentoo-dev to the general
public. I feel that this is one of the worst things the council has done
recently.

> 2/ Where do you think Gentoo stands in the Linux ecosystem?  Who do you
> think are its users?

Gentoo is probably the most customizable Linux distro out there. I tend
to see it as a power user distro. You can accept the default settings we
provide if you want, but its real strength is the ability to customize.
If you want a distro that you can customize very heavily, Gentoo is the
one for you.

William

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Michał Górny]

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W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
napisał:
> To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> myself ;-).

Next question from me, given the recent affairs.

- How do you feel about Gentoo's use of GitHub?  Do you support Gentoo
providing resources for our users on GitHub?  Or are you opposed to
using GitHub at all?

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Aaron Bauman]

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On Sunday, July 1, 2018 3:37:56 PM EDT Michał Górny wrote:
> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> 
> napisał:
> > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> > myself ;-).
> 
> Next question from me, given the recent affairs.
> 
> - How do you feel about Gentoo's use of GitHub?  Do you support Gentoo
> providing resources for our users on GitHub?  Or are you opposed to
> using GitHub at all?

As stated in previous emails, I absolutely support our use of Github as a 
mirror only and allowing our users a familiar and easy way to contribute.  
This has beared fruit in the form of new developers as well.  I cannot 
empirically prove it, but I would suggest that the current uptick in new 
developers is due to Github providing a platform for them to contribute.

Regarding the events that occured, I think this is a lesson learned.  While 
embarrasing for our distro it was not impacting at a code level due to the 
deployment model (mirror only).  Many individuals have begun addressing the 
areas that could be improved to ensure it does not happen again.

-Aaron

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Aaron Bauman]

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On Friday, June 29, 2018 1:15:25 AM EDT Eray Aslan wrote:
> Re-sending to gentoo-project
> 
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 09:11:11AM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> > Since the nominees for the new Council aren't eager to publish
> > manifestos, and nobody seems to be asking questions (yet some people are
> > leaving hostile half-comments), I'd like to start a thread dedicated to
> > asking the nominees (who accepted) questions related to their views of
> > the upcoming term.  At the same time, I'd like to ask all nominees to
> > answer all the questions provided by community members.
> 
> Just a few sentences on the questions below would be nice.
> 
> 1/ What do you think of closing gentoo-dev ML to the general public?
> 
> 2/ Where do you think Gentoo stands in the Linux ecosystem?  Who do you
> think are its users?
> 
> Thank you

1. I believe the council faced a very tough decision regarding this matter.  I 
saw individuals voicing their opinion about "closing" the mailing list, but I 
also saw very many continue on with no opinion.  I believe we ought to define 
what "closed" means with regard to this matter as well.

Anyone legitimately wanting to contribute can continue to do so by having 
their address whitelisted.   We have seen several do so and contribute without 
the noise.  Those wishing to dominate the mailing list and generate noise 
cannot do so anymore.

I have not seen an opposed developer sponsor those individuals responsible for 
the abruptions either.  If concerns were so principled then those resenting 
"closure" would have sponsored anyone and everyone seeking such.

Furthermore, the council decision was difficult due to the technologies 
available to our infra to manage the mailing list.  To whitelist or blacklist?  
A blacklist is easy to manuever around.  Spam filters would require serious 
tuning to be effective and could create more issues.  I don't intend to 
discuss every possible scenario, but I believe the council reached a 
reasonable decision.  In the future, we can implement different technologies 
to "open" it up more.  The idea here being that an individual does not need to 
request a sponsor.

I also think that the General Resolution GLEP is important here.  If 
individuals are truly upset with the decision they can gather enough votes to 
nullify such a decision.

2. I believe Gentoo fits into many areas of the Linux ecosystem due to its 
adaptability, configurability, and community.  If I had to choose a particular 
area where we excel it would probably be within server infrastructure.  Of 
course, I would be remiss to not mention that anyone with a ChromeBook is 
benefitting from Gentoo.  So while Gentoo, in it's purest form, may not exist 
as many of us run it/see it there are many aspects comprising many 
technologies out there.

There are many other examples you will find such as major gaming companies and 
warehouses using Portage.  Gentoo is truly unique and serves the needs of 
users that want to understand their OS, control it, and adapt it to their 
needs.  So, those seeking these things are likely our users.  Of course, many 
run Gentoo as a desktop OS as well.

-Aaron

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Matthias Maier]

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Hello everyone,

this is my Council manifesto in form of a detailed answer to all
questions that were currently raised. Michał, if I missed a question,
please tell me :-)



On Sun, Jul  1, 2018, at 14:37 CDT, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:

> - How do you feel about Gentoo's use of GitHub?  Do you support Gentoo
>   providing resources for our users on GitHub?  Or are you opposed to
>   using GitHub at all?

I think that reaching out to a wider audience of contributors via Github
is a good idea. Github is a good platform for that because it simply has
by far the largest number of users that could potentially readily
contribute.

In my opinion we should take some additional precautions, though:
Because github is a closed-source and for-profit third party we must
ensure that

 - github is not used for bug tracking (i.e., close all repository issue
   trackers)

 - we should encourage projects to use our own gitolite infrastructure
   for overlays (mirrored to github.com/gentoo-mirrors)

The current incident - as unfortunate as it is - has not much to do with
Github. (Meaning, if we would have used Gitlab, or another platform then
that one would have been compromised.) Some lessons learned:

 - We should educate on rsync/tree validation (currently working on that with
   fellow developers)

 - Do not use passwords for authentication if possible (i.e. use ssh
   pubkeys, or gpg auth/signatures for authentication). If passwords are
   unavoidable, we should enforce two-factor authentication (at minimum
   for admins).



On Fri, Jun 29, 2018, at 00:15 CDT, Eray Aslan <eras@gentoo.org> wrote:

> 1/ What do you think of closing gentoo-dev ML to the general public?

We restricted posting on the gentoo-dev ML to whitelisted users for the
time being to ensure that the mailing list communication channel is
remains unobstructed (similar to, e.g., +v/+o in #gentoo-dev). I think
that this step was necessary to stop individuals from abusing the
mailing list for their personal agenda and to stop persistent trolls.

We are currently working on reviving a moderator team for the gentoo-dev
ML. With a moderator team in place (that ensures on-topic discussion
with hopefully minimal intervention) the mailing list can be reopened
again for posting for the general public. Hopefully in a timely manner.



> 2/ Where do you think Gentoo stands in the Linux ecosystem?  Who do you
> think are its users?

Gentoo has a fairly niche standing in the Linux ecosystem as being one
of the only entirely source-based Linux distributions. As such a number
of our user base consists of people that need that level of
customization - examples range from scientific software ecosystems to
using Gentoo as a meta distribution for an in-house distribution in
larger data centers. Or users that like to have that level of
control. All in all, I would say we have a pretty fine and knowledgeable
user base.



On Wed, Jun 27, 2018, at 03:25 CDT, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:

> 1. Do you believe that Council members should respect the requests of
> the developer community even if they disagree with them?  Or should
> Council members decide based on their own judgment of arguments
> presented?
>
> Example: there's a heated debate, and the majority of respondents
> request that X is implemented.  However, after reading all the arguments
> you don't think that X is a good idea but you haven't managed to
> convince others.  Would you vote for X (as your electorate demands)
> or against it (as you believe is better for the distro)?

The council is merely an elected body of developers to make the process
of finding formal decisions more streamlined. The Gentoo project itself
is entirely defined and shaped by its members/developers. I think that 
the current form of annual council elections creates a bit of a
disconnect between the council and the developer base. Because of that I
support the introduction of a "general resolution" voting mechanism
for more basic democratic control [1,2].



> 2. Do you believe that the Council should proactively research the state
> of affairs and make decisions whenever they believe the direction
> of the distribution needs to be adjusted?  Or should it be passive
> and avoid involvement unless developers explicitly request Council's
> intervention?

I think that the overall "state of affairs" and decision making
regarding the project as a whole should lie within the developer body as
a whole. As such, the Council should be careful with such decisions. If
necessary, there is always the possibility to initiate an "all dev"
vote [1].



> 3. Do you believe the developer community should hold the power
> to veto or dissolve the Council at any point?  Provided there's a global
> developer vote agreeing on that.

Yes.



> What do council-nominees think about the current lack of manpower in Gentoo as a
> whole, and how do you propose to confront this situation, with facts?

> In the same line that previous question, what global decisions do you consider
> necessary in order to solve the manpower issue?

The "current lack of manpower" situation is a never ending story, isn't
it? We have maintained a more or less constant number of active
developers over the years :-)

 - I have seen quite a few of our active github contributors becoming
   developrs in relatively short time. So streamlining the contribution
   process (pull request instead of bug report + attaching patches) has
   played out nicely, I would say.

 - The situation with maintainer-needed and maintainer-wanted improved
   quite a bit as well. Overall I think we are slowly catching up on
   portage tree cleaning (EAPI 0 - 4 removal, etc).

 - I think that due to the fact that we are a rolling release
   distribution we lack "visibility" a bit due to the absence of regular
   release announcements. Thus, maintaining special occasion live-cd
   releases and similar events is a good thing.

 - Finally, reducing the need for manpower is also an important point, I
   should mention here. For example, we have significantly smaller arch
   teams nowadays but the more streamlined and more automated
   stabilization process balances that.

   On the other hand, I wish sometimes that fellow developers would be
   a bit more conscious when it comes to introducing maintenance
   burden (USE=libressl is such an example...)



> Finally, and this is just a personal opinion, right now I see many devs trying
> to pull Gentoo to different sides, but what I can't see is a set of common
> beliefs that join us all in the same vision of what Gentoo should be or do in
> the near future... how could you address this issue?

Being a meta distribution that provides solutions for a very diverse set
of needs I don't exactly see a problem in diverse agendas. I think the
current process of GLEPs, PMS, RFCs and council decisions provide a good
mechanism to find a common ground and solutions that helps everybody.

Given the very diverse background of personal agends, it is actually an
amazing display of self-organization that we all stick together to make
Gentoo a better platform for all of us. I think that, the unfortunate
noisy discussion we have at times, hide this little fact a bit and
people tend to forget how peaceful coexistence looks like :-)



On Tue, Jun 26, 2018, at 02:12 CDT, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:

> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
> the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?

  [3] As already stated publicy otherwise:

  """
  We request that the Board of Trustees of the Gentoo Foundation and the
  Gentoo Council affirm Gentoo's metastructure GLEP 39 as the governing  
  principle of the Gentoo Linux developer community. In particular, both
  acknowledge the intended (non-exclusive) split between
      - the Gentoo Developer community, currently lead by the Gentoo Council,
        which is responsible for the developer community, its user base and
        all technical development decisions,
      - and the Gentoo Foundation, whose role is to hold Gentoo's assets
        (such as trademarks and server infrastructure) and support the
        developer and user community. Although the Board of Trustees
        exercises its own independent judgment on every decision, it
        generally carries out requests from the community.
  """



Best,
Matthias



[1] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/973be0a662b3cc74aa118a1128dcac9e
[2] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/dffe725b064bf240834d5fe4ae78a83d
[3] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-nfp/message/a7c1b4e8df8690c8829d8854f767856f

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Matthias Maier]

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Manifesto in textform:

  https://dev.gentoo.org/~tamiko/tamiko-council-manifesto-2018.txt
  
Best,
Matthias

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Mart Raudsepp]

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Ühel kenal päeval, P, 01.07.2018 kell 21:37, kirjutas Michał Górny:
> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał
> Górny
> napisał:
> > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply
> > to
> > myself ;-).
> 
> Next question from me, given the recent affairs.
> 
> - How do you feel about Gentoo's use of GitHub?  Do you support
> Gentoo
> providing resources for our users on GitHub?  Or are you opposed to
> using GitHub at all?

I support being where our potential contributors are. GitHub just
happens to be a network where many are using, do their work and know
the workflow.
I think we are big enough to not have to rely on it, to cater to
everyone, including those that refuse to use it on principle, but I
don't see anything wrong in making use of it for those that want to.

Though that requires volunteers to handle it. Fortunately we appear to
have such people right now. And ways to cater to those that don't use
GH well (e.g. automatic notifications not getting seen like for me) or
refuse to do so.


Some people are suggesting things like GitLab. I think that would be
great to look into and review suitability. But as something that would
replace our existing infrastructure - bugzilla, gitolite, CI hooks,
etc.
Otherwise it would be another place where users are - e.g. the
gitlab.com hosted service, just like github.com; place where existing
users already have accounts, are used to doing it via there.
There might be some value setting it up for purely Merge Request
purposes as own instance, but without full switch, I don't see the pain
worth the gain. But if someone does the work and will manage it like GH
is now... sure.


Mart

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[M. J. Everitt]

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A couple of passing thoughts:-

1) What is/are your own current use cases for using Gentoo? Server?
Desktop? Cluster? Embedded? on what platforms/arches? And why Gentoo?

2) What improvements to the distro (ignoring all structural discussions)
would you like to see, to enhance your experience of using Gentoo vs
something else?

Cheers.


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[William Hubbs]

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On Wed, Jun 27, 2018 at 10:25:07AM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> Three more questions from me:
> 
> 
> 1. Do you believe that Council members should respect the requests of
> the developer community even if they disagree with them?  Or should
> Council members decide based on their own judgment of arguments
> presented?
> 
> Example: there's a heated debate, and the majority of respondents
> request that X is implemented.  However, after reading all the arguments
> you don't think that X is a good idea but you haven't managed to
> convince others.  Would you vote for X (as your electorate demands)
> or against it (as you believe is better for the distro)?
 
In my experience, most of the time, things are not as clear-cut as
this; there can be many things to consider.

For example, suppose that the people demanding x are not part of the
team that maintains the packages that would make x happen, and suppose
that making x happen requires custom patches which get rejected by
upstream developers.  In this case, is it really better to force
maintainers to do custom work or vote against x?

I think this type of decision should be made on a case-by-case basis.

> 2. Do you believe that the Council should proactively research the state
> of affairs and make decisions whenever they believe the direction
> of the distribution needs to be adjusted?  Or should it be passive
> and avoid involvement unless developers explicitly request Council's
> intervention?
 
 I feel that most of the time the council should intervene only at the
 request of developers. The developers know their packages better than
 we do, and I think we should trust them. Innovation tends to come from
 the developers, not the council.

> 3. Do you believe the developer community should hold the power
> to veto or dissolve the Council at any point?  Provided there's a global
> developer vote agreeing on that.
 
 Yes, the developers already have the ability to disband the council if
 they want to do this. They could replace glep 39 at any point.

Also, I am not opposed to the idea of a general resolution.

William


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[William Hubbs]

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On Sun, Jul 01, 2018 at 09:37:56PM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> W dniu wto, 26.06.2018 o godzinie 09∶11 +0200, użytkownik Michał Górny
> napisał:
> > To improve readability of the thread, I'll ask my question in reply to
> > myself ;-).
> 
> Next question from me, given the recent affairs.
> 
> - How do you feel about Gentoo's use of GitHub?  Do you support Gentoo
> providing resources for our users on GitHub?  Or are you opposed to
> using GitHub at all?

I'm not opposed to github being used as an optional mirror if it brings
in more developers.

Thanks,

William


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Aaron Bauman]

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On Sunday, July 1, 2018 11:48:05 PM EDT M. J. Everitt wrote:
> A couple of passing thoughts:-
> 
> 1) What is/are your own current use cases for using Gentoo? Server?
> Desktop? Cluster? Embedded? on what platforms/arches? And why Gentoo?
> 

I use Gentoo on my server (NextCloud instance) and I also use it as my desktop 
OS (laptops).  All of those systems are amd64 with the server running stable 
and my laptop running ~arch.

I began using Gentoo many years ago as a young teenager.  I had begun 
tinkering with my computer systems after attending an HTML summer camp and 
being intrigued.  My first system ran Slackware and then I began trying all the 
various flavors out there.  Eventually, I found Gentoo and spent countless days 
bootstrapping, compiling, and tinkering some more.  My interest was largely 
the ability to easily customize and "dig in" the OS.  I felt empowered and 
grew my understanding of Linux as a whole.  

Into adulthood I was exposed more to enterprise environments heavily reliant 
on Windows systems with the occasional Linux box for particular things.  I 
have always remained partial to Linux and Gentoo in particular.  I still 
checkout the latest releases of other distros, but nothing compares to Gentoo 
in my opinion.  We offer (see my previous emails) a unique ability to 
customize and control.  That is what has always kept me with Gentoo.

> 2) What improvements to the distro (ignoring all structural discussions)
> would you like to see, to enhance your experience of using Gentoo vs
> something else?
> 
> Cheers.

I see your point about ignoring structural discussions, but I believe some 
structural modifications are required in order to enhance the various aspects 
of Gentoo.  Given the recent discussions (c.f. GLEP63, Generel Resolution, 
etc), we need to begin *enforcing* standards.  An example, GLEP63 is 
important, but developers offer dissident views and refuse to comply.  Of 
course, enforcing these standards can cause turmoil and so recourse is 
important.  Thus, passing the general resolution is needed to ensure such 
avenues are available.

If these are addressed I believe the community can address concerns such as 
security.  This is important to me as a member of the security team and is not 
limited to the auditing of package vulnerabilities and ebuilds.  It extends to 
the entirety of the Gentoo infrastructure and the individual security of our 
members.  So, in this case, I would like to see the enforcement of GLEP63 not 
only for the health of Gentoo, but for the security of our developers.

-Aaron

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Mart Raudsepp]

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Ühel kenal päeval, E, 02.07.2018 kell 04:48, kirjutas M. J. Everitt:
> A couple of passing thoughts:-
> 
> 1) What is/are your own current use cases for using Gentoo? Server?
> Desktop? Cluster? Embedded? on what platforms/arches? And why Gentoo?

I basically just have Gentoo everywhere but my phones, usually ~amd64.
Including a mips netbook, arm64 board and some arm boards; these are
usually for tinkering with gentoo on them, not in daily use.
Now also a server running stable amd64.

In the past I've done some minimal images work for fitting things in
64MB flash (I think it ended up quite comfy below 40MB without trying
much, but it was a long time ago).

For arches that's then amd64, arm64, arm, mips and x86 in the past.
For arm64 I formed arch project some time ago, could use more help...

Gentoo offers me familiarity and being in power of things and
understanding what is what.

> 2) What improvements to the distro (ignoring all structural
> discussions)
> would you like to see, to enhance your experience of using Gentoo vs
> something else?

I would like to be able to care less about choices from time to time,
when my choice is to let that be done by the maintainers, who know the
per-package choice best, so I don't have to research. An example of
that is REQUIRED_USE usage in ebuilds that force to make a choice,
instead of having a maintainer selected priority when a choice is not
made by user. Though it's not actually that much of an issue in
practice (this specific example), but I mean in general such things.

The package manager could use some speedups and improvements. Getting a
@world upgrade list in 25 minutes without some special non-default
flags on a dual-core APU with spinning disk is not OK.

And I'd like to see more innovation happening within Gentoo. Clear
Linux, Fedora and such things shouldn't be taking the cake here; we
have potential and often easier to implement (don't have to force it on
everyone from binary packages for testing, etc) opportunities too..


Mart

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Mart Raudsepp]

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Ühel kenal päeval, K, 27.06.2018 kell 10:25, kirjutas Michał Górny:
> 1. Do you believe that Council members should respect the requests of
> the developer community even if they disagree with them?  Or should
> Council members decide based on their own judgment of arguments
> presented?

Council members should decide based on their own judgment, after having
put in sufficient thought, research and opinions of the developer
community.

This is how such election based bodies generally work, really, as K_F
has already expressed.
You vote for someone you believe to have similar views and trust them
to make thought out decisions, while advocating for what you want when
you feel strongly towards it, but not having to worry about it
otherwise, as there's someone you voted to do it for you.

Example: there's a heated debate, and the majority of respondents
> request that X is implemented.  However, after reading all the
> arguments
> you don't think that X is a good idea but you haven't managed to
> convince others.  Would you vote for X (as your electorate demands)
> or against it (as you believe is better for the distro)?

Just following requests from developer community leads to issues like
rubber stamping vocal minority, voting without research and thought. An
elected persons job is to serve the electorate that voted for him/her.
The election is anonymous, so you should assume you got voted in by
people who believe your judgment is good for their views and for the
elected body as a whole. Not a potential vocal minority, spur of the
moment topics and so on.

If this is truly a high majority that wants the decision to be
implement, then a simple majority of council members will almost surely
think the same.
If not, there will be the option to adjust your votes distribution next
time.
In many other places the terms are much longer than a year (e.g. 4-7
years in democratic politics), and in the grand scheme of things,
things work. 1 year is much less. I don't see how just rubber stamping
a _perceived_ majority does us any good.


> 
> 2. Do you believe that the Council should proactively research the
> state
> of affairs and make decisions whenever they believe the direction
> of the distribution needs to be adjusted?  Or should it be passive
> and avoid involvement unless developers explicitly request Council's
> intervention?

As I've expressed in my last years manifesto as well[1], I believe the
council members should be leaders in Gentoo, individually. That means
being proactive, finding global issues, describing them, empowering
people to fix it, etc. This isn't something that needs one to be a
member of the council, but I think it's the kind of people we need on
the council.
However council as a whole (in particular its voting) should be a
backup when consensus seeking fails, or really global matters need the
technical review decision (e.g. EAPIs).

> 3. Do you believe the developer community should hold the power
> to veto or dissolve the Council at any point?  Provided there's a
> global
> developer vote agreeing on that.

Given the 1 year only term and the potential for the next council to
overturn things, I'm not sure it's something very important. However if
such a thing is done, it should not be based on a majority of those who
voted, but either a majority of eligible voters or a super-majority
(66%, 75%, something like that) of who vote.

We don't want to end up with every decision questioned and a general
developer vote called for all of them. Gentoo developers want to spend
their scarce free time improving Gentoo, not cast votes.

Regarding a general vote, I think there are places for it, e.g. the
council itself decides it needs global input from all developers to
make a decision that isn't otherwise clear (especially cases where
opinion matters a lot, while being a rather important decision to make
overall too).


[1] https://dev.gentoo.org/~leio/council/manifesto-2017.txt


Mart

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