[gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Ivan Sakhalin]

Dear friends and fellow Gentooists,

	I apologize for intruding onto your mailinglist, but what I wish to say is of
great enough importance to me. My contributions are not much to speak of, and
I've been silent for a long time. So I guess, like many before me, I will be
stoned as a heretic instead of being listened to - that, my friends, is your
prerogative as freethinking humans, but I must ask you to hear me out and
think about what I say, not what I am.

	Now, our memories of the past are not always as thruthful as we would like
them to be, selective memory is what makes some large things small and some
small things large. So let us not idealize the past as if it had no problems,
but let us try to keep a perspective on how things have changed, evolved
maybe, into what they are now and what they may become.

	Many good people, having all attained the rank of full developer, have
retired, with a noticeable increase in the last trimester or so. Some have
retired to avoid all the political tomfoolery that kept them from enjoying
their work, some left as they found something else to fill that special place
in their heart. Some, sadly, did not feel they could contribute enough as
real life took its toll - may they find some time in the future. And a very
selected few, regrettably, were retired against their will.
	These removals even went outside the ranks of developers - the hostile
takeover of some IRC channels has caused unneeded tension between groups that
should cooperate. It is a sad day when the appearance of a gentoo developer
may be the first sign that your channel will now be censored and people
removed that have dissenting opinions.

	While the politics around these cases make rational discussion quite difficult
	it is obvious even to outsiders that this is not in the spirit of the
original Gentoo Metadistribution - it even violates many of those so-called
rules that were created to help the interaction between people from wildly
divergent backgrounds.
	Devrel, as it stands, has always been controversial as everyone saw a
different use for the rather unneeded concentration of power in the hands of
a few people. But when people are denied an appeal and devrel unilaterally
decides, ignoring policies and common sense, what is one supposed to think?

	So then, while that part is hard to discuss, I point at another issue:
Everything that is not official (for certain undefined values of official -
objectivity seems to be lost on many humans) is attacked, torn apart and
insulted. A great example of that is the Sunrise Overlay, which has become
quite a success, with a few of the community members becoming devs - at the
same time I see with sadness that at least one dev has retired because of
Sunrise. What madness there is when people leave such a great project because
they can't let other people live in peace. It is this meddling in all affairs
that crushes the spirit of freedom with a heavy boot - but as you all are
volunteers it is hard to understand how you can treat each other like that.
Tolerance, my friends, doesn't cost you much and will bring you much good
karma.

	Now, you that have read this far may wonder, what is my point? Quite simple,
comrades. It is a warning I bring you, and I ask you to stop for a moment and
reflect upon the situation we have right now. It seems that a small group of
developers have ursurped power, leaving any checks and balances behind them
to shape Gentoo in the image they see, not caring for any losses they cause.
It can not be in the interest of a community to be ruled by such a group -
even among devs equality is hard to find as som just have to be better than
others.
	I ask you not to redo the errors of the past and remember the lessons
learned - there is so much that needs to be done, but no single person has
the strength to do them. Cooperate you must, my friends. Only when you leave
the infighting and bureaucracy behind can you aspire to true greatness.
Beware though, as I do not claim to have all the answers you want. Not a
single person, but only a group can find a solution to such a comples
interwoven technical, social and political problem.

	What is there to be done? I give you a few ideas in the hope of catalysing a
solution, but it is not I who will be able to apply any changes.

	- Review of the organization and distribution of power
        - Reduce the rules so that things can be done without a week of
discussion for every small idea
        - When a group can decide arbitrarily without needing the support of
any democratic counterweight, what is the point of any voting? Make sure that
noone has too much power.
	- Analyse the fluctuations in developers
        - how many retire because of political reasons?
        - how many are recruited?
        - how can the environment be improved so that people can enjoy their
work and not care about silly problems?
- Ignore the existing problems, fork and pray that you can do better

	It is here that I must interject with another problem - some groups complain
that they are understaffed, but reject candidates just because; some groups
obviously can't manage on their own but deceive themselves into believing
they are doing fine and refuse any help. Some groups are not doing what their
group should be and attack people that try to do what they refuse to do.
	There are good parts, of course, but when such a "let it go" starts affecting
central services is intolerable.  If the IT staff at a company were to fail
like this at keeping important parts of the infrastructure up and running
they'd be sanctioned, reprimanded and maybe even removed - but in gentooland
criticism is criticized as unpatriotic. After about 10 months finally
bugzilla got moved, an amazing feat that should not have taken that long,
especially  seeing that people tried to help and were refused.

So, with that being said, I hope that things change for the better.
	 Good day to you all.

Sincerly yours,
Y.Sakhalin
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Hans-Werner Hilse]

Hi,

On Sun, 7 Jan 2007 22:14:26 +0100
"Ivan Sakhalin" <ivan.sakhal1n@gmail.com> wrote:

> [...]
> 	Now, you that have read this far may wonder, what is my point? Quite simple,
> comrades. It is a warning I bring you, and I ask you to stop for a moment and
> reflect upon the situation we have right now. It seems that a small group of
> developers have ursurped power, leaving any checks and balances behind them
> to shape Gentoo in the image they see, not caring for any losses they cause.
> It can not be in the interest of a community to be ruled by such a group -
> even among devs equality is hard to find as som just have to be better than
> others.

_I_ am not ruled by that group and you're possibly neither. What might
be ruled by those "ursurpators", which might or might not exist (names,
dude, more facts...), is just Gentoo.

> [...] Cooperate you must, my friends. [...]

Fear is the path to the dark side! Fear leads to anger, anger leads to
hate - and hate leads to - suffering. (SCNR... That's Yoda, of course)

> Only when you leave the infighting and bureaucracy behind can you aspire
> to true greatness.

But *I*, as a user (this is -user, after all!) don't feel bothered by
any kind of bureaucracy. Please explain first why I should take action
at all at the moment. And why I shouldn't just go and take the next
distro that fits my needs best (brrrr, Slackware :-)?

I don't want to say your points aren't valid. But they are not very
substantiated (don't expect me to read back the last few months of
gentoo-dev, bring examples!) and not focused on my context as a
_user_...

-hwh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Dale]

b.n. wrote:
> As a user -not a dev, both because I have not the required knowledge
> nor the sparing time- these are my answers:
>
> < snip >
>>     These removals even went outside the ranks of developers - the
>> hostile
>> takeover of some IRC channels has caused unneeded tension between
>> groups that
>> should cooperate. It is a sad day when the appearance of a gentoo
>> developer
>> may be the first sign that your channel will now be censored and people
>> removed that have dissenting opinions.
>
> I don't know nothing about this, nor I care about inner fights between
> you all. What I care about are sane code, a stable and up-to-date
> system, and clever planning. I don't mind if you're doing it by biting
> each other to death in a thunderdome or if you are all holding your
> hands beneath a rainbow.
>
> Not because I'm cynic. Because I can do *plain nothing* to avoid this
> -I'm not a dev, nor I can be in the near future. So what? Post this to
> the devel mailing list.

He did post this to the dev list.  He posted it there first, well, I got
it there first.  I guess he could have sent it to both at the same time.
> < snip >
> Me too, but I'm really unsure you're really helping.
>
> m.

Dale

:-)  :-)  :-)

-- 
www.myspace.com/dalek1967

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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Markus Schönhaber]

Ivan Sakhalin wrote:

> 	I apologize for intruding onto your mailinglist, but what I wish to say is
> of great enough importance to me.

Just my thoughts: if you think you have something important to say, why don't 
you simply say it but instead start with thoughts about life, universe and 
everything? After reading the first 237 words of your post, I still had no 
idea what the heck you are talking about.

Regards
  mks
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[gentoo-user] Re: [gentoo-dev] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Bryan Østergaard]

On Sun, Jan 07, 2007 at 10:14:26PM +0100, Ivan Sakhalin wrote:
> Dear friends and fellow Gentooists,
> 
<snip lots of text>
>
> 	While the politics around these cases make rational discussion quite 
> 	difficult
> 	it is obvious even to outsiders that this is not in the spirit of the
> original Gentoo Metadistribution - it even violates many of those so-called
> rules that were created to help the interaction between people from wildly
> divergent backgrounds.
> 	Devrel, as it stands, has always been controversial as everyone saw a
> different use for the rather unneeded concentration of power in the hands of
> a few people. But when people are denied an appeal and devrel unilaterally
> decides, ignoring policies and common sense, what is one supposed to think?
>
Developer Relations haven't denied any appeals at all. You'll have to
back this statement up with facts if you want to change any developers
mind about this I'm afraid.

Regards,
Bryan Østergaard
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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Dale]

b.n. wrote:
> Dale ha scritto:
>
>> He did post this to the dev list.  He posted it there first, well, I got
>> it there first.  I guess he could have sent it to both at the same time.
>>> < snip >
>
> Yes, but why inflaming us?
>
>>> Me too, but I'm really unsure you're really helping.
>>>
>>> m.
>
> Oh, I just bit the flamebait :)
>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)  :-)
>>
>

I dunno.  Maybe he will explain that to us later on.  Maybe he is seeing
something that the rest of us are missing.  Lots of possibilities I guess.

I to have seen some people leave instead of continuing with the way
things are.  Gentoo is not perfect, nothing is really, but it is as
close as it gets to me.  It sure beats windoze.  ;-)

I'd like to help myself but I find it hard to do research and do much of
anything because of this crappy dial-up I am on.  Add in that I can't
sit at this thing for very long because of arthritis and it sort of
messes me up with what I would like to do.  I need to get me a laptop. 
Maybe when I get this divorce behind me and get my finances back in
order I can get one.  She sort of did a number on my credit.  Tried to
do more but I'm disabled, not stupid.

Maybe he will reply in a bit when he checks the replies he has gotten so
far, if he doesn't feel he is jumping in a huge flame pit. 

Let's be nice now.  :D

Dale

:-)  :-)  :-)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[b.n.]

As a user -not a dev, both because I have not the required knowledge nor 
the sparing time- these are my answers:

>     I apologize for intruding onto your mailinglist, but what I wish to 
> say is of
> great enough importance to me. 

You don't "intrude onto my mailing list" with people for something 
that's of importance to you. You should intrude for something that's of 
importance to *us*.
This is a mutual help ML, not a confessional.

> My contributions are not much to speak 
> of, and
> I've been silent for a long time. So I guess, like many before me, I 
> will be
> stoned as a heretic instead of being listened to - that, my friends, is 
> your
> prerogative as freethinking humans, but I must ask you to hear me out and
> think about what I say, not what I am.

I'm not stoning you as heretic or what. I simply think you're writing to 
the wrong place.

>     Many good people, having all attained the rank of full developer, have
> retired, with a noticeable increase in the last trimester or so. Some have
> retired to avoid all the political tomfoolery that kept them from enjoying
> their work, some left as they found something else to fill that special 
> place
> in their heart. Some, sadly, did not feel they could contribute enough as
> real life took its toll - may they find some time in the future. And a very
> selected few, regrettably, were retired against their will.

This is sad, but Gentoo is a voluntary project, and I figure out people 
can come and go as freely as they like. So, no news here.

>     These removals even went outside the ranks of developers - the hostile
> takeover of some IRC channels has caused unneeded tension between groups 
> that
> should cooperate. It is a sad day when the appearance of a gentoo developer
> may be the first sign that your channel will now be censored and people
> removed that have dissenting opinions.

I don't know nothing about this, nor I care about inner fights between 
you all. What I care about are sane code, a stable and up-to-date 
system, and clever planning. I don't mind if you're doing it by biting 
each other to death in a thunderdome or if you are all holding your 
hands beneath a rainbow.

Not because I'm cynic. Because I can do *plain nothing* to avoid this 
-I'm not a dev, nor I can be in the near future. So what? Post this to 
the devel mailing list.

>     While the politics around these cases make rational discussion quite 
> difficult
>     it is obvious even to outsiders that this is not in the spirit of the
> original Gentoo Metadistribution - it even violates many of those so-called
> rules that were created to help the interaction between people from wildly
> divergent backgrounds.

So denounce the violation of these rules to competent people.

>     Devrel, as it stands, has always been controversial as everyone saw a
> different use for the rather unneeded concentration of power in the 
> hands of
> a few people. But when people are denied an appeal and devrel unilaterally
> decides, ignoring policies and common sense, what is one supposed to think?

I don't know. I even don't know what devrel is. I suspect it's some 
high-level devel committee.
Problem is, unilateral decisions AFAIK are needed for almost any sane 
free software project. Good OSS projects are, often (not always), 
projects with good Benevolent Dictators For Life: linux kernel = Linus 
Torvalds. perl = Larry Wall. python = Guido Van Rossum. openbsd = Theo 
de Raadt. ubuntu = Mark Shuttleworth, etc.

Of course it is not always so, and Gentoo was apparently one of the 
happy exceptions. Problem is, democracy doesn't work so well in many of 
these cases -see the NetBSD vs OpenBSD forking, or the current sad state 
of Debian, that literally got on its knees by its intestine political 
fights.

There have been and there are also thriving democratic projects, of 
course, and there are examples of the opposite (XFree86), but if Gentoo 
is not one of these, my own €0.02 is: get a benevolent dictator and 
follow him.

>     So then, while that part is hard to discuss, I point at another issue:
> Everything that is not official (for certain undefined values of official -
> objectivity seems to be lost on many humans) is attacked, torn apart and
> insulted. A great example of that is the Sunrise Overlay, which has become
> quite a success, with a few of the community members becoming devs - at the
> same time I see with sadness that at least one dev has retired because of
> Sunrise. What madness there is when people leave such a great project 
> because
> they can't let other people live in peace. It is this meddling in all 
> affairs
> that crushes the spirit of freedom with a heavy boot - but as you all are
> volunteers it is hard to understand how you can treat each other like that.
> Tolerance, my friends, doesn't cost you much and will bring you much good
> karma.

Can you point me at the relevant threads and IRC logs? Despite masked 
with redundant prose and so on, your talking just looks like plain 
(masked) bitching to me. However I could be wrong. So, threads and IRC 
logs, please.

>     Now, you that have read this far may wonder, what is my point? Quite 
> simple,
> comrades. It is a warning I bring you, and I ask you to stop for a 
> moment and
> reflect upon the situation we have right now. It seems that a small 
> group of
> developers have ursurped power, leaving any checks and balances behind them
> to shape Gentoo in the image they see, not caring for any losses they 
> cause.

OMG THE GENTOO PINOCHETS ARE ARRIVING LOL!!!1!!111!!!sen(90)!!!

Well, so it's time to fork? To change distro? My god! What horror! But, 
wasn't free software beautiful for just these reasons? So that each one 
could build on his own philosophy?
Of course it's sad to see forks and the like, and it harms community (at 
least in the short term, but it depends on the fork. Forking xfree86 to 
have xorg, or debian to have ubuntu, have both been wonderful decisions 
IMHO). But it is something you have to solve yourself -or, if you want 
users support, just show damn FACTS. Logs. Mails on public mailing 
lists. Blog posts. Written documents that agree with your claims.

Otherwise you're just doing mischievous "hey we're in danger I'm the 
messiah to save ya all" blah-blah. You're trolling to have manpower in 
your own political fight. Not good, for someone that wants tolerance and 
"karma".

Note that I don't f***ing care for "usurpation of power", as long as it 
builds on a good, free operating system. Ubuntu has enormous power 
concentration, both political and economical, in the hands of a single 
individual, but it's a damn good product for its niche.

> It can not be in the interest of a community to be ruled by such a group -
> even among devs equality is hard to find as som just have to be better than
> others.

Why is equality needed? People are *not* equal -face it.

>     I ask you not to redo the errors of the past and remember the lessons
> learned - there is so much that needs to be done, but no single person has
> the strength to do them. Cooperate you must, my friends. Only when you 
> leave
> the infighting and bureaucracy behind can you aspire to true greatness.

So, stop bitching and work. Really. Squash some bug, and greatness will 
arrive.

> Beware though, as I do not claim to have all the answers you want. Not a
> single person, but only a group can find a solution to such a comples
> interwoven technical, social and political problem.

As I've pointed out before, often it's quite the contrary.
Not that I want some kind of totalitarian dictatorship. Just someone 
having a direction and ideas, with the help of the community, but 
actually deciding instead on crystallize on endless discussions.

>        - Reduce the rules so that things can be done without a week of
> discussion for every small idea

Maybe good, maybe bad. Rules are needed, otherwise open the repositories 
to anonymous access and let everyone patch the portage tree -who cares, 
it's free software after all, isn't it?
However, I understand that too much rules are a problem too. So, 
remembering that I'm just talking to you because I'm curious, but not 
because I can or want to do something (it's NOT my work/hobby) about it, 
can you give us FACTS that support your hypothesis? I'm sorry, but I'm a 
scientist in my real life. I want to see facts, usually.

>        - When a group can decide arbitrarily without needing the support of
> any democratic counterweight, what is the point of any voting? Make sure 
> that
> noone has too much power.

So that things get to a grinding halt when there's no consensus. 
Wonderful...

>     - Analyse the fluctuations in developers
>        - how many retire because of political reasons?
>        - how many are recruited?
>        - how can the environment be improved so that people can enjoy their
> work and not care about silly problems?

This is a good thing to do, sure. Self-analysis cannot harm.

> - Ignore the existing problems, fork and pray that you can do better

Maybe.

>     It is here that I must interject with another problem - some groups 
> complain
> that they are understaffed, but reject candidates just because; some groups
> obviously can't manage on their own but deceive themselves into believing
> they are doing fine and refuse any help. Some groups are not doing what 
> their
> group should be and attack people that try to do what they refuse to do.

Huh? First you want less rules and more democray, then you attack groups 
that "are not doing what their group should be"?
You're a very confused fellow.


> So, with that being said, I hope that things change for the better.

Me too, but I'm really unsure you're really helping.

m.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Justin Findlay]

On AD 2007 January 07 Sunday 11:51:59 PM +0100, Hans-Werner Hilse wrote:
> But *I*, as a user (this is -user, after all!) don't feel bothered by
> any kind of bureaucracy. Please explain first why I should take action
> at all at the moment. And why I shouldn't just go and take the next
> distro that fits my needs best (brrrr, Slackware :-)?

You won't be bothered by bureacuracy untill the day you discover that
that package you want has been left months ago to fall into ignominious
forgottenness among the thicket of bugzilla ebuild requests or the day
you discover your favorite package hasn't been updated in 2 years and
the herd responsible won't (or can't?) respond to email inquiries.  You
will care that day when you realize many things that are wrong with
gentoo may be the result of corruption or inefficiency.

You should care because not even Free Software or gentoo is free.  As in
politics apathy will only get you what you want or keep the affairs of
state safely insulated in the bureaucracy as long as somebody favorable
or benign is in power.  You may be satisfied with gentoo now but what
will you do when emerge --sync stops working because somebody stopped
caring?  I don't claim that everybody should contribute the same effort
or work or any work at all, but rather that you ought to at least care.

Go ahead and pick up a copy of the next distro when gentoo crumbles to
the ground but at least reflect then that each distro out there is made
great by the work of lots of talented developers, volunteers most of
them, because they care because they love hacking software.

This isn't meant to chasten anyone into a state of open source piety,
but rather is offered as a somewhat incoherent argument for why caring
matters, because in the end free software is a human endeavor.


Justin
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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 920 bytes --]

On Sun, 7 Jan 2007 17:15:43 -0700, Justin Findlay wrote:

> You won't be bothered by bureacuracy untill the day you discover that
> that package you want has been left months ago to fall into ignominious
> forgottenness among the thicket of bugzilla ebuild requests or the day
> you discover your favorite package hasn't been updated in 2 years and
> the herd responsible won't (or can't?) respond to email inquiries.

That's not bureaucracy, it's lack of interest or time. Gentoo devs are
all volunteers, they work on whatever they have the desire and time to
work on. If they don't have time or inclination to work on your favourite
project, help them.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both
plants and animals.  When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis;
and when the lights go out, they turn into animals.  But then again,
don't we all?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[b.n.]

Dale ha scritto:

> He did post this to the dev list.  He posted it there first, well, I got
> it there first.  I guess he could have sent it to both at the same time.
>> < snip >

Yes, but why inflaming us?

>> Me too, but I'm really unsure you're really helping.
>>
>> m.

Oh, I just bit the flamebait :)

> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-)  :-)
> 

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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[b.n.]

Justin Findlay ha scritto:
> I don't claim that everybody should contribute the same effort
> or work or any work at all, but rather that you ought to at least care.

Since I am not nor I can be a dev, can you explain me (1)how could I 
care (2)what kind of effort could I contribute?
Contributing no work at all is not caring, is simply being unnecessarily 
sad for something I can't influence.

I'm sorry but it seems plain nonsense to me.

Not that, if I could do something, I wouldn't do, but this requires me 
(1)to understand what's really happening, instead of getting on the side 
of someone sending me emotion-loaded but zero-informational political 
spam (2)to understand what can I actively do, if a problem exists indeed.

m.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Martin Pittle]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Justin Findlay wrote:
> On AD 2007 January 07 Sunday 11:51:59 PM +0100, Hans-Werner Hilse wrote:
>> But *I*, as a user (this is -user, after all!) don't feel bothered by
>> any kind of bureaucracy. Please explain first why I should take action
>> at all at the moment. And why I shouldn't just go and take the next
>> distro that fits my needs best (brrrr, Slackware :-)?
> 
> You won't be bothered by bureacuracy untill the day you discover that
> that package you want has been left months ago to fall into ignominious
> forgottenness among the thicket of bugzilla ebuild requests or the day
> you discover your favorite package hasn't been updated in 2 years and
> the herd responsible won't (or can't?) respond to email inquiries.  You
> will care that day when you realize many things that are wrong with
> gentoo may be the result of corruption or inefficiency.
> 
> You should care because not even Free Software or gentoo is free.  As in
> politics apathy will only get you what you want or keep the affairs of
> state safely insulated in the bureaucracy as long as somebody favorable
> or benign is in power.  You may be satisfied with gentoo now but what
> will you do when emerge --sync stops working because somebody stopped
> caring?  I don't claim that everybody should contribute the same effort
> or work or any work at all, but rather that you ought to at least care.
> 
> Go ahead and pick up a copy of the next distro when gentoo crumbles to
> the ground but at least reflect then that each distro out there is made
> great by the work of lots of talented developers, volunteers most of
> them, because they care because they love hacking software.
> 
> This isn't meant to chasten anyone into a state of open source piety,
> but rather is offered as a somewhat incoherent argument for why caring
> matters, because in the end free software is a human endeavor.
> 
> 
> Justin

Well said, Justin.

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