Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld <joost@antarean.org>]

On Thursday, September 08, 2011 06:55:32 PM Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> >> I htink almost everyone understand this. Regards.
> > 
> > I think you are one of *very* few that understands this.
> > 
> > This reminds me of a old joke.  One in four people have a mental issue.
> >  Check three friends and if they are OK, you are it.  Again, it is a
> > joke
> > but my point is, very few people are liking this.  That alone should say
> > a lot.
> 
> I know, but Open Source has never been a democracy. It is a
> meritocracy. No matter how many get upset by a change, the opinions
> that matter are from those writing the code.

I don't agree. There are people with opinions that matter even though they 
don't write the code. There are plenty of Open Source projects where the 
opinions and comments from users also matter. And if those users actually put 
time and effort into the documentation/support side they get listened to more 
often.

> > This is a very few people forcing a change that no one wants.
> 
> That's a contradiction, isn't it? The "few people" forcing the change
> want it, I hope.

Ok, lets do it by numbers.
People forcing it: 5 (maybe? not that many more)
People liking it (including the above 5): 10 (maybe?)
total number of users: 1,000,000 (pulled out of my head)

Percentage of users liking it of all the users: 10 / 1,000,000 = 0.0001 %.
That's a very low number that in most cases would be rounded to 0. Eg. noone.

> > You seem to fail to understand that.
> 
> I don't agree with the "few people" and the "no one wants" parts. I
> understand that this change is upseting some people, but I don't think
> you (nor I) can say for sure if it's even a majority of Gentoo users,

I think the majority of Gentoo users will happily continue the way they have 
been working with their systems. Then, when this change gets forced upon them, 
they will all start complaining loudly because all their systems no longer 
boot.

> and even if it were, again, Open Source is not a democracy.

Actually, it is. People tend to vote with their feet (ok, downloads) and if 
they don't like something, they walk away.

> > Personally, if I'm going to have to start running my Gentoo box like a
> > binary based distro, I may as well use a binary based distro.  If others
> > feel like I do, then Gentoo may start losing users.  I got away from
> > Mandrake for reasons such as this.
> 
> That's your prerrogative. And that's why I'm saying my word in the
> list: I'm pretty sure many users in the list (which are not all the
> Gentoo users) are not really upset with this change. The other POV has
> to be heard.

I haven't gone through the whole thread, but it seems to me there are several 
people against this change and only one who is for.

I kept quiet as my arguments were already being raised and I dislike "+1" 
postings. But in this case, I feel an exception is needed.

> > I'm going back to my garden.  You have fun promoting this mess that is
> > being created.  You seem to enjoy it a lot.
> 
> I'm not promoting anything. Just want to get into the record that some
> users don't mind this change, and some of us even welcome it.

Why would anyone welcome a change where an initramfs (or whatever it's called 
these days) is necessary just to boot your system?
This also needs to keep getting updated whenever a needed piece of software is 
updated. I tend to update the software more often then the kernel. Now, I'll 
have to rebuild my kernel more regularly. Even though, from my point of view, 
nothing will have changed.

--
Joost