[gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   I'm wondering whether these stats are correct? They are captured
from this page:

http://archives.gentoo.org/

   If these stats are both correct and complete then I find them
interesting, and maybe a bit disappointing. If they are incorrect then
nothing below matters.

   Not meaning to cause too much of a hubbub but I was surprised at
how much email traffic has fallen off for the Gentoo lists over the
last couple of years. I suspect that some of this is folks moving to
less technical environments - maybe Ubuntu or Arch - but still I was
surprised that it was something like a 60% drop since the high in
2006. I was also surprised at the drop off on gentoo-dev as it sort of
correlates with my impression of bugs not being addressed as fast
these days.

   Again, I don't want to cause some sort of flame war here. I
personally love the distro and as I look at building a new i5 or i7
based machine I suspect it will be much faster to build and maintain
Gentoo. I'd like to see the traffic growing, not falling.

   Maybe someone has written something on this already?

Just observing,
Mark

gentoo-dev
2009, 3743 emails
2008, 5379 emails
2007, 8480 emails
2006, 10184 emails
2005, 9055 emails
2004, 8569 emails
2003, 8324 emails
2002, 8156 emails
2001, 5679 emails
2000, 4 emails


gentoo-user
2009, 11126 emails
2008, 15269 emails
2007, 13643 emails
2006, 25954 emails
2005, 15378 emails
2004, 545 emails


gentoo-amd64
2009, 1519 emails
2008, 1418 emails
2007, 1977 emails
2006, 4038 emails
2005, 1880 emails
2004, 27 emails

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 08:59:57 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:

>    Not meaning to cause too much of a hubbub but I was surprised at
> how much email traffic has fallen off for the Gentoo lists over the
> last couple of years. I suspect that some of this is folks moving to
> less technical environments - maybe Ubuntu or Arch - but still I was
> surprised that it was something like a 60% drop since the high in
> 2006.

It could be a sign of the maturity of Gentoo. If there are less problems
there will be less posts, since there are very few threads starting with
"I did a world update today and everything worked perfectly".

> I was also surprised at the drop off on gentoo-dev as it sort of
> correlates with my impression of bugs not being addressed as fast
> these days.

Or they are spending more time developing and less time flaming one
another these days?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Guillotine operator wanted. Chance to get ahead.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>   I'm wondering whether these stats are correct? They are captured
> from this page:
>
> http://archives.gentoo.org/
>
>   If these stats are both correct and complete then I find them
> interesting, and maybe a bit disappointing. If they are incorrect then
> nothing below matters.
>
>   Not meaning to cause too much of a hubbub but I was surprised at
> how much email traffic has fallen off for the Gentoo lists over the
> last couple of years. I suspect that some of this is folks moving to
> less technical environments - maybe Ubuntu or Arch - but still I was
> surprised that it was something like a 60% drop since the high in
> 2006. I was also surprised at the drop off on gentoo-dev as it sort of
> correlates with my impression of bugs not being addressed as fast
> these days.

I think traffic on ALL mailing lists has dropped, just like usenet.
Web forums are the normal place to go these days. Only us
technological dinosaurs are still using e-mail lists and newsgroups.
:)

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[Philip Webb]

090903 Mark Knecht wrote:
> I'm wondering whether these stats are correct?
> They are captured from  http://archives.gentoo.org/
> I find them a bit disappointing.  I was surprised
> how much email traffic has fallen off for the Gentoo lists
> over the last couple of years.  I suspect some of this
> is folks moving to less technical environments - maybe Ubuntu or Arch -
> but still I was surprised that it was something like a 60 % drop
> since the high in 2006.  I was also surprised at the drop on gentoo-dev
> as it correlates with my impression of bugs not being addressed as fast.
> 
>         gentoo-dev       gentoo-user       gentoo-amd64
> 2009     3743            11126             1519 
> 2008     5379            15269             1418 
> 2007     8480            13643             1977 
> 2006    10184            25954             4038 
> 2005     9055            15378             1880 
> 2004     8569              545               27       
> 2003     8324       
> 2002     8156       
> 2001     5679       
> 2000        4       

First, you need to adjust 2009 by 3/2 , ie

  2009     5615            16689             2279

which shows a significant increase this year in all 3 categories.

Otherwise, I agree with the other comments, ie that Gentoo has matured:
Portage is more user-friendly, big changes like Udev have been accomplished,
people who shouldn't be using Gentoo have dropped out
& the few devs who were responsible have stopped flaming one another
(or perhaps do so on a non-public list somewhere else);
it may also be true that the Forum has taken away a lot of users,
who seem on average younger (it sounds like a high-school cafeteria).

Quality is what matters & I'ld say it has improved in recent years.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___    Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:04 AM, Neil Bothwick<neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 08:59:57 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>>    Not meaning to cause too much of a hubbub but I was surprised at
>> how much email traffic has fallen off for the Gentoo lists over the
>> last couple of years. I suspect that some of this is folks moving to
>> less technical environments - maybe Ubuntu or Arch - but still I was
>> surprised that it was something like a 60% drop since the high in
>> 2006.
>
> It could be a sign of the maturity of Gentoo. If there are less problems
> there will be less posts, since there are very few threads starting with
> "I did a world update today and everything worked perfectly".

Well, mostly I'd say that's true, certainly at the app level it's my
experience, but it seems to me that upgrades like Xorg haven't gone so
well this year. Maybe that's mostly an aberration driven by upstream
quality problems, but if my recollections are correct it wasn't only a
problem for me.

>
>> I was also surprised at the drop off on gentoo-dev as it sort of
>> correlates with my impression of bugs not being addressed as fast
>> these days.
>
> Or they are spending more time developing and less time flaming one
> another these days?
>

Now that idea puts a smile on my face but unfortunately isn't
consistent with my personal view of bugs getting fixed. Maybe I just
got hit a bit harder but my memory of how long it took to get an
ebuild fixed in 2006 was considerably faster. Probably I'm mistaken.

For me 2009 has been a pretty disappointing year in terms of running
Gentoo and the first year in the last 5 or 6 where I spent ANY time
seriously looking around at other distros. Nothing struck me as being
good enough to warrant putting the time in to learn it. Gentoo is
still what I choose to run. I hope the stats are positive in nature
but I know of numerous pro-audio overlay users who have left the
Gentoo fold this year. (They don't seem any happier to me so I'm not
following...) I hope it's not happening too much in the more global
community.

Thanks for the responses!

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[Dale]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:04 AM, Neil Bothwick<neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
>   
>> On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 08:59:57 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>>     
>>>    Not meaning to cause too much of a hubbub but I was surprised at
>>> how much email traffic has fallen off for the Gentoo lists over the
>>> last couple of years. I suspect that some of this is folks moving to
>>> less technical environments - maybe Ubuntu or Arch - but still I was
>>> surprised that it was something like a 60% drop since the high in
>>> 2006.
>>>       
>> It could be a sign of the maturity of Gentoo. If there are less problems
>> there will be less posts, since there are very few threads starting with
>> "I did a world update today and everything worked perfectly".
>>     
>
> Well, mostly I'd say that's true, certainly at the app level it's my
> experience, but it seems to me that upgrades like Xorg haven't gone so
> well this year. Maybe that's mostly an aberration driven by upstream
> quality problems, but if my recollections are correct it wasn't only a
> problem for me.
>
>   
> <SNIP>
>
> Thanks for the responses!
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>
>   

Yea, there are quite a few that disabled hal, myself included.  I
disabled mine with the USE flag but some put the line in xorg.conf to
disable it.  Either way, I still can't get hal to work with the new
xorg-server.

I think that has been my only really sore spot.  I did have a issue with
a gcc update.  Couldn't compile a kernel, Seamonkey crashes like bumper
cars and a few other weird things.  I just backed up to the previous
version and all is well again. 

I do think Gentoo is a lot better tho.  The way it handles most blocks
is really really cool.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 03 September 2009 17:59:57 Mark Knecht wrote:
> Hi,
>    I'm wondering whether these stats are correct? They are captured
> from this page:
> 
> http://archives.gentoo.org/
> 
>    If these stats are both correct and complete then I find them
> interesting, and maybe a bit disappointing. If they are incorrect then
> nothing below matters.
> 
>    Not meaning to cause too much of a hubbub but I was surprised at
> how much email traffic has fallen off for the Gentoo lists over the
> last couple of years. I suspect that some of this is folks moving to
> less technical environments - maybe Ubuntu or Arch - but still I was
> surprised that it was something like a 60% drop since the high in
> 2006. I was also surprised at the drop off on gentoo-dev as it sort of
> correlates with my impression of bugs not being addressed as fast
> these days.

In a lot of ways, distros are like fashion statements, complete with current 
flavours of the week. 3 years ago Gentoo was on a high but a lot of those 
fanboys have gone elsewhere or maybe to the forums. Personally, I don't care.

I perceive that there has always been about the same amount of good quality 
mail on this list. 3 years ago we had about what we have now plus a whole 
bunch of help-me-pleeeeeeez! whingers and way too much flaming. We really need 
the first category - it's what makes this the best list I'm subscribed to - 
and are better of without the other two.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thu, 2009-09-03 at 11:20 -0500, Paul Hartman wrote:
> I think traffic on ALL mailing lists has dropped, just like usenet.
> Web forums are the normal place to go these days. Only us
> technological dinosaurs are still using e-mail lists and newsgroups.
> :)
> 

I'm going to concur with this only because I'm also on other mailing
lists/newsgroups where someone has said the very same thing.

So either these mediums are falling out of fashion or I'm struck with
the curse of being attracted to dying technologies :|

-a

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo list stats?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Donnerstag 03 September 2009, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Hi,
>    I'm wondering whether these stats are correct? They are captured

> gentoo-user
> 2009, 11126 emails
> 2008, 15269 emails
> 2007, 13643 emails
> 2006, 25954 emails
> 2005, 15378 emails
> 2004, 545 emails
> 

the numbers are incorrect.

also the forums took a lot a way. Less tech savie people prefer forums.