Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo Blog GLEP

[Sven Vermeulen]

On Wed, Aug 18, 2004 at 11:54:31AM +0200, foser wrote:
> The most useful part besides the news page for anyone really following
> the gnome project is the planet page, it creates a sense of community by
> allowing devs to interact in public & keep them up-to-date on what
> everyone is working on. Yes, there's also some personal stuff posted
> there, but that actually brings the developer closer as a person. It's a
> plus for the devs & the users alike.

I agree with foser. In many people's eyes (including mine) Gentoo is far
more than "just a software project". It is an entire community which
embraces a lot more than just the development of Portage, our packages,
porting, documentation and infrastructure (and everything else I might have
forgotten). 

Having a planet for Gentoo developers gives us the opportunity to show our
users that we are all human with our own interests. I find it myself very
interesting when I discover that a colleague of mine loves to play squash as
well as it allows me to - when we ever come across each other - propose to
play a game. It's even more interesting when I discover that a colleague
shares interests in other aspects so that we might want to start off a new
project.

Some users even like the idea of knowing what the interests are of the
developers, where they live, what they do besides making their Gentoo
experience the best they can. And even if the amount of such users is
relatively small (say 1% - which is a very low estimation) it is large in
absolute numbers (we *do* have an enormous user base).

And it's not like it will be part of our policy that you add your stuff to
that site. It's only for the interested developers who want to share their
personal stuff. I believe that, when there are more than a couple of these
developers _and_ infra can support it, then we should at least try it.

Wkr,
      Sven Vermeulen

-- 
 ^__^   And Larry saw that it was Good.
 (oo)                                      Sven Vermeulen
 (__)   http://www.gentoo.org              Documentation & PR