From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1GwOim-0005Mi-Ud for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:04:25 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.8/8.13.8) with SMTP id kBIK0kxp012700; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:00:46 GMT Received: from wr-out-0506.google.com (wr-out-0506.google.com [64.233.184.236]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id kBIJwQqY012177 for ; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:58:27 GMT Received: by wr-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id i12so630165wra for ; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:58:26 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=EbeejNGcmBkwVVEmoTrXm73hnKqj5aZaLLSdXGtMls/ySdM+MCDqyD9q5nb9Y5NS/i2BKM2g+XBI/S0mWy/lQkUtchWTNF2VZomYKDouk3wFhMMiXcEZG6RmcU6JZwKUGwdnxOm/GrxOoJg8sRr4fE0v/+/bjSum+WPXsElgCIY= Received: by 10.90.115.9 with SMTP id n9mr4270616agc.1166471906368; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:58:26 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.90.56.10 with HTTP; Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:58:26 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <49bf44f10612181158m15366003r47a642f334959364@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:58:26 -0800 From: Grant To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo healthy? In-Reply-To: <342e1090612181118s1d832443vac532f866719c3fb@mail.gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <49bf44f10612180647g6ac243ebm9cfa8b79a5aeb3b5@mail.gmail.com> <200612181827.20843.volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> <49bf44f10612181054s6e4f621dy17708692a71a25dd@mail.gmail.com> <342e1090612181118s1d832443vac532f866719c3fb@mail.gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: 078c56b0-f273-4ddb-b497-affbd71a4542 X-Archives-Hash: 1cd0da53e29d02eb5db9190cee050e88 > > > > I've caught a whiff or two lately that Gentoo is declining in > > > > popularity amongst users and developers. Is it all in my head? I > > > > personally still love Gentoo. > > > > > > there are always several phases in the life of a distri. > > > > > > Beginning, when it becomes 'cool' and a sudden surge in users, some time of > > > high popularity, a decline, and at the end, only the users who are > > > really 'the right ones' for that kind of distri are left. > > > > > > So the 'always using the cool thing' users are gone and the 'we are using what > > > the cool guys were using' crowd is leaving now. So what? Are they important? > > > No. At some point ubuntu will suffer the same. And then the next cool distro > > > de jour. > > > > > > Some decline in user interest is normal - and a healthy process. Because it > > > removes the 'I use it because it is cool' and 'I use it because everybody > > > else uses it' type of users. > > > > I'm thinking this over a bit more, and it seems like the best thing > > for Gentoo (or any distro) is a lot of users. More users must mean > > more active developers, and more active developers must mean an > > increased rate of growth for the software. > > Well, I must say not all users really add to the distro in any way... Every user does add to the distro because they make it more popular, and, generally, a more popular distro will have more active developers than an unpopular distro. Active developers make the distro. For example, I submitted this bug about a mod_perl-2.0.3 version bump on 11-28-06, and there hasn't even been a reply yet: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=157239 One way or another, this is a (big) problem of not enough active developers. Gentoo needs more users so it can get more active developers so we can get a better Gentoo and a continually up-to-date Gentoo. We very well may have to adapt to survive. - Grant -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list