Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo Healthy? (The Return)

["Hemmann, Volker Armin" <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de>]

On Dienstag, 3. Juli 2007, Grant wrote:
> In December 2006 I started a thread titled "Is Gentoo Healthy?" in
> which I was roundly put down for raising the possibility that the
> decline in the number of Gentoo users could possibly affect the
> remaining Gentoo users in a negative way.

no.

gentoo was for a while the exciting new kid. And everybody flocked to it. 
Especially 'ricers'. The 'decline' you observed is more of a pruning - the 
type of users who always use the latest 'distri of the month' are gone, also 
the users who really do not fit in but used gentoo because it was cool for a 
while.

Every distro has that moment - ubuntu will suffer from that too.

>
> Is everyone still toeing that line?  The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
> hasn't been published in almost two months. 

that is a completly different problem ;)

> Is Gentoo destined to be 
> just another distro starved for contributors and struggling to stay up
> to date?

hm, couple of new devs in the last two weeks. What was your question?

> If so, I really misjudged it.  The meta approach of Gentoo 
> is superior to any other in my mind, and I think it's growth and
> potential are being stunted by the "we don't need them" attitude which
> perpetuates Gentoo's lack of usability features for beginners.

why should a beginner WANT to use gentoo? To get his hands dirty without being 
forced to, he can start with a much more 'beginner friendly' distro.

There is no reason nor need to dumb down gentoo to fit everybody.

>
> Gentoo needs as many users as possible to reach its potential.  

no. It really does not. The opposite is true. Gentoo does not need to become 
another dumb 'userfriendly' distro - there are hundreds of them already. It 
does not need the 'I don't want to learn anything' or 'I don't read 
documentation' type of user. It does not need the standard-ubuntu-dau that 
askeds the same stupid (stupid because it is explained in a sticky topic on 
top of the forum) question again and again and again, because he is too lazy 
to read an existing thread or use the search feature (look into the nvnews 
forum for an example).

Gentoo needs users who want to use gentoo for its technical merits, not 
because it is is 'cool'. We lost the 'cool distro of the month' users and it 
was a good thing.


> It's a 
> short-sighted mistake to think that non-contributing users do Gentoo
> no good.  Non-contributing users become contributors as time passes.
> Car mechanics all start as car drivers.

There are users and users. There are users who try to help in mailing lists 
and forums and file bugs. There are users who help fellow gentoo users among 
their friends.

And there are the ones who do nothing at all -except complaining if something 
does not work (even if it is their own fault).

Gentoo needs the first kind of users - and I would go so far to say, that it 
got them. Gentoo does NOT need the second kind - and we lost a lot of them.

I call that win-win.

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