Re: [gentoo-dev] 2009 Council Elections

[Richard Freeman]

Ben de Groot wrote:
>
> In my opinion it is in the best interest of Gentoo at this point to
> ignore Exherbo and to silence those people involved with Exherbo that
> have been so divisive and generated so much conflict in Gentoo channels.
>

Nobody needs to be silenced (unless they're litereally spamming the list 
- as close as cirianm comes to this his posts are at least relevant to 
the topic and even if I sometimes disagree with them and he could 
exercise restraint I don't think he should be banned).  I suspect most 
devs just avoid the drama.

I do echo the sentiment that the Gentoo council should be focused on 
Gentoo.  Sure, nothing wrong with cooperating with other projects and 
learning from them.  Certainly I don't want a not-invented-here 
attitude, and I think paludis has a lot to offer.

However, those who have questioned the wisdom of cirianm as a proxy do 
have a point.  Technical knowledge alone is not the critiera of a 
council member.  One needs to be able to build consensus - not that we 
need to be strangled by consensus, but we can't afford to rule by edict 
either.

I'm happy that everybody seems to be getting along better, but council 
leadership requires maturity, and maturity is reflected by how people 
behave over the long haul.  Cirianm's best bet to get accepted by the 
gentoo devs is to just start working with them - if he works positively 
with enough different people (especially those with different opinions) 
he'll have no trouble gaining their support.  However, that is something 
that can take months or years - not weeks to a few months.  I might be 
willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but that is just me.  I'm 
not so sure I'd be eager to have him be a proxy if I were on the 
council.  Sure, I'd be happy to yield my floor time to him if I thought 
he had something worth listening to, but a proxy is more than just a 
platform to talk - any mailing list subscriber already has that.