Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: New project: Gentoo Seeds

[Ramon van Alteren]

Hi All,

It's always interesting to be part of a project that seems to be 
in-focus considering the reply's, especially if it's your first within a 
OSS-group. It's a long reply, but please bear with me (is that correct 
english ?)

Stuart Herbert wrote:
> On 9/20/06, Andrew Gaffney <agaffney@g.o> wrote:
>> Well, now it's gotten to the point where people are being sneaky and
>> underhanded
>> about this whole thing. Stuart (I believe) said that they had talked
>> to members
>> of releng about this, but the truth seems to be that Stuart talked
>> with rocket
>> and Xen support in stages and some random user associated with this
>> project
>> talked to plasmaroo about using catalyst for stage4 builds.
>
> Could you be a little more polite about our users _please_?  There was
> a day when I was just "some random user", just as there was for you
> and everyone else who is, or has been, a Gentoo dev.

I'm the random user that's being discussed here, I appreciate the effort 
(thanx stuart) but I can use a mail client.

It's an interesting mail-thread so far.

1. I'm a user not a dev. You folks have a history of working together, I 
do not. Part of this thread seems to be rooted in that experience. I 
know very well that that is hard to put aside, but can you try ?

2. I like gentoo a lot, I've been using it since somewhere 2003 and have 
seen it grow. I looked at my mail-archive before sending this mail and I 
have been lurking in -dev to keep abreast of new stuff going on since 
may-2003. I've been using gentoo about a half year before that.

3. Gentoo is my job, building seeds as proposed in this project is my 
job. I run a 220+ serverpark which all run gentoo. I'm very proud of 
that and I seriously feel this is largely credit to the excellent work 
most of YOU have done to make this the most configurable and most 
"closely following $UPSTREAM" distribution there is ATM. It's not really 
easy to run such a serverpark on gentoo, hell it's not easy to run such 
a serverpark on any linux distribution.

4. Building seeds/stage4's is a large concern for me. With the moving 
portage tree as-it-is and the nature of a source build distribution, 
it's the only way to get a repeatable install process. You cannot 
install and manage 220 servers with the installation guide. It's just 
not possible regardless of how good a resource it is. We want it 
repeatable and we want it with as less human intervention as we can get it.

5. It's slightly shameful to run such a large serverpark on OSS without 
contributing back to the community. Part of this is rooted into the fact 
that up to a 180+ servers I was the only sysadmin for the entire set.
Recently with new hires my work-hours have slacked and I have some time. 
This is(will be) the project I picked to contribute something back. I 
have been wanting to do that for some time. Give something back. OSS 
thrives on people giving stuff back because they like what they got. I 
would like and hope for gentoo to thrive. I very much like what I've got 
and regardless of this flame-fest I will continue using gentoo as our 
server-OS because it suits our business.
I do try to encourage all my employees and interns to file bugs, 
contribute and get involved. However that is a voluntary choice. You 
cannot force people into a OSS project. You can only encourage them to 
do so, and show them that it's fun.

6. Frankly the response to the project-announcement is a big 
disappointment. No again it is a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT.
For most of the people opposing here: Read your own dev-manual
I've quoted it before to Chris (sorry mr white) and I will not do it 
again. You all agreed on those policies (by proxy). If you don't like 
your own policies you know the way. GLEP or approach council. period.

7. Please note that I'm not invalidating any concerns. They may be very 
real. I've followed the sunrise-flamefest closely and valid points were 
made in that discussion. They are in this one as well. I just want to 
convey the disappointment of butting in the time to read most of you 
Fine Manuals and be flamed to a crisp by following them. This is your 
public statement on how projects should behave. Work with a gentoo 
developer, get a project-page up and keep it up-to-date, be courteous to 
  devs and users alike. that's it.
Don't like it, apply for a change in policy. Do NOT revert to calling 
people idiots and/or putting down their work/plans/idea's. You have 
defined ways of changing policy, neither of above behavior is part of 
it. Sorry, but grow up.

8. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I like the work of 
-releng. I've been using their release-snapshots as base for my own 
stage4/seeds for at least 2 years. I think they produce quality work and 
I would be very proud to work with -releng to make the seeds-project a 
success. I am aware of how understaffed you are and I've refrained from 
asking questions before because I knew most of -releng had to be busy.
The fact that I don't use -releng products in generating my 
stage4's/seeds is caused by the lack of docs on them and my own lack of 
time(the latter being probably the most important factor). Part of my 
personal goal of this seeds project was to document the process of using 
catalyst and genkernel in concert and in a server environment. Many 
people I talk to face the similar issues in growing from a 1-10 server 
environment on gentoo into something bigger. -releng has experience with 
that and has written some excellent tools to solve those problems. This 
is part of my extreme disappointment wrt the reply by Chris and other 
flamers in general. I would like to cooperate with releng. They made 
those tools, I like them a lot. I would like to help out and use them. I 
would hope that my using them in a different situation would give 
feedback to improve them, I would like to be part of the people that 
improve them. I'm trying to do so within your published framework of 
policies.

I do not feel encouraged.

9. Most of this mail has been on policies, expected behavior and 
perceived behavior. I would like to get this discussion back to 
technical issues wrt to generating stages/seeds and livecd's.
I would like to log into #gentoo-releng and ask questions about those 
technical issues. Or #gentoo-php where this started. This is what I 
enjoy. I would like to work out a way to produce these stages and 
improve on our method of doing so. Most of the tools I could use to do 
so are actually freaking cool and I would like to learn more about them.
I would very, very VERY much like to work with all people within gentoo 
on technical issues regardless on how we feel on policy and social 
issues. Live by the policies you've defined as a group, flame anything 
that's not covered by them to a crisp until you have a policy. This 
project is IMHO as a user well within defined policy.


10. I have no good suggestions on how to avoid these flame-fests on 
policy, bahavior and expected behavior. I've tried to write to a mail 
that explains how this comes across as a user willing to contribute. I 
hope that part is clear. For those who've missed it: IT DOES NOT 
ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO GET INVOLVED WITH GENTOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I like gentoo and I will not back off because of a flamefest. Apart from 
that, as I have said, this is a large part of my job (generating 
stages/seeds) and I would like to cooperate with gentoo community at 
large to streamline the process. Basically I am scratching an itch, 
isn't that what OSS started with?

If you've read up to here, thank you.

Regards,

Ramon

It's more important to enjoy what you do, than to do what you enjoy.

All of the statements and opinions in this mail are personal and in no 
way affiliated with any commercial or non-commercial entity I work with 
or have worked with in the past.
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