Gentoo Archives: gentoo-nfp

From: Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@g.o>
To: gentoo-nfp@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-nfp] Re: How to improve the trustees
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:49:21
Message-Id: 1202046556l.2718l.0l@spike
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-nfp] Re: How to improve the trustees by Jan Bilek
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4 Jan,
5
6 There appeared to be a quoting issue with your email, so I have
7 reformatted it for my reply. I hope I have the attributions correct, if
8 not I apologise in advance.
9
10 On 2008.02.03 03:39, Jan Bilek wrote:
11 > Dear Roy
12 >
13 >
14 > > On Feb 3, 2008 1:04 AM, Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@g.o
15 > > wrote:
16 >
17 > > You need a balance between the formal, which produces formal
18 > > records and the informal, that does not.
19 >
20 > Yes - sure. I wrote that under the impression that there is too much
21 > of a 'formal side' in Gentoo recently.
22 [snip]
23 As others have said, you only see the informal part if you are taking
24 part in it. If you think Gentoo (any of it) is too formal, which
25 information would you as a user be prepared to go without?
26 The premise here is that users only see the formal information.
27 >
28 >
29 > > I think the Gentoo council, which was set up to be a technical
30 > > body is getting bogged down in politics from time to time, which
31 > > impedes its technical decision making process. This is where the
32 > > Gentoo Foundation can help, by taking on all the political aspects
33 > > of our community.
34 >
35 > This might be very difficult task. How are you going to handle it if
36 > elected? I might be totally out of proportions but do you think there
37 > can be some kind of a fight for competences between trustees and
38 > council? I am sorry if that is a stupid question.
39 First, there are no stupid questions, except the one you do not ask. Be
40 on your guard for stupid answers though.
41 I do not think there will be a "fight for competencies" because the
42 council and foundation were established with different aims which need
43 volunteers with different skill sets. The council has had to deal with
44 the politics of Gentoo because the Foundation has not been very active.
45 I do not intend to suggest that the Foundation will snatch any
46 responsibilities away from the council. It will be by agreement with
47 the council.
48 >
49 >
50 > > I hope that's not the intent. My intent is to have the council and
51 > > foundation work together such that the council does not spend its
52 > > time on politics and is free to focus on technical things. This
53 > > will lead to more flexible decision making.
54 >
55 > I am sure that's not the intent. But... and I don't want to sound too
56 > pessimistic... my experience is that these things (regular meetings,
57 > regular summaries etc.), despite good intentions, tend to turn into
58 > meaningless routine which is more of a barrier than any help.
59 > Hopefully this time I am wrong.
60 I would like to model the Foundation on the current council process
61 that seems to work quite well. Allow me to refer you to the council
62 meeting logs and summaries.
63
64 >
65 > > Gentoo has reached a size where central control can at best, only
66 > > set a direction. It cannot manage details. Gentoo does have some of
67 > > the structure in place for these things to happen - the separate
68 > > projects and herds. Gentoo is in need of middle management -
69 > > perhaps it can come from the Foundation.
70 >
71 > Yes - I think Foundation might be very helpful. But I keep thinking
72 > about structural matters - these things are closely related to
73 > management and efficiency of the system.
74 Gentoo is already a loosely co-operating set of projects. These
75 individual projects seem to work well.
76
77 > I think very flat and very free and open organizational structure can
78 > be more efficient although more difficult to manage - to set up smart
79 > rules enabling more of a self-managed system (yes, I have read too
80 > much about learning organizations and evolution) - that's a good goal
81 > IMO.
82 In practice (in the workplace anyway) its not possible for one person
83 to manage more that abouot 10 others. At that sort of scale, the one
84 person becomes a full time manager. Gentoo has the same scaling
85 problem. Projects work - they fit the above relationships.
86
87 >
88 > There is no money in Gentoo so it has to be about fun and freedom -
89 > people have to have options when it doesn't feel like fun. If you
90 > don't like to work with someone anymore you should be supported to
91 > build up - easily - your own independent team inside Gentoo
92 > (supporting internal competition instead of internal fighting) - even
93 > if the team would work on the same thing, seemingly wasting time -
94 > *let them do what they want* strategy - to me it seems somehow
95 > contradictory to 'named positions with responsibilities' - I might be
96 > wrong.
97 > Again - foundation itself is very specific, but speaking about Gentoo
98 > generally - it's not company and it cannot be organized as a company
99 > - the most important thing is fun.
100 I agree with most of that, especially the fun part.
101 However workable orgainsations can be applied to any project. The
102 difference between Gentoo and a company is that the company is supposed
103 to make money.
104 >
105 >
106 > > That's fine for the individual projects but what about the wider
107 > > community and the bigger projects that need to know what is
108 > > happening to the projects that they use. In particular, I'm
109 > > thinking of Release Engineering who are putting together the 2008.0
110 > > LiveCD. They need to know that the various parts will be ready on
111 > > time. Users like to know whats happening too - how would that
112 > > information be circulated without summaries and reports ?
113 >
114 > Yes - I agree with you. And I am not against summaries and reports
115 > generally. I just think it's good idea to be very careful with
116 > institutionalizing these things. If you have something to tell just
117 > write blog post or comment and there is no need to make it regular or
118 > somehow mandatory... that's what I meant.
119 If reports are irregular and on blogs they will mostly be missed by
120 readers. Blogs are OK for individuals making statements on their own
121 behalf but they can never be offical statements on behalf of Gentoo.
122
123 >
124 > > > Allowing and promoting funny competition between smaller teams
125 > > > instead of demotivating (because unsolvable) fights inside huge
126 > > > teams frozen in official ways of doing things.
127 > > I have never seen this - can you provide an example please ?
128 >
129 > I am afraid I cannot - it's just an impression I got - I used to read
130 > devel MLs and sometimes I saw technical disputes turned into personal
131 > attacks and some people even left - and I felt it was out of
132 > frustration that those extremely valuable people had no other way to
133 > do anything constructive with their disagreement - I felt it could be
134 > somehow organizational failure and not just the personal one. But I
135 > have to admit that I am probably not competent enough to assess these
136 > things - I have never been a developer.
137 >
138 >
139 > > Some technical discussions really do only have a single solution.
140 >
141 > No doubt about it. But to have opportunity to try my solution and
142 > fail is much better than never-ending fights.
143 >
144 >
145 > > Like the portage, plaudis, pkgcore developments in progress at
146 > > them moment perhaps ?
147 >
148 > Perhaps... but maybe there is a need for some kind of a fair and
149 > transparent mechanism how to decide which one gets to be in official
150 > tree.
151 I'm missing something here. The offical tree is only limited by what
152 developers want to commit and there are lots of competing packages
153 there already. KDE vs GNOME, any number of window managers, several
154 Office applications, plaudis, portage (not sure about pkgcore)
155
156 > It's great that Gentoo offers possibility to have many
157 > different overlays and many different ways to do things but it's also
158 > great that there is no need to fight with different repos. I mean -
159 > it's not just about apps - all of these apps can be in official tree
160 > - I thought more about overlays- how to make sure that the best stuff
161 > gets to official tree - without fights and delays?
162 The only requirement for a package to be in the offcial tree is that a
163 Gentoo developer wants to put it there and maintain it.
164
165 > Generally - it's good to have many possibilities and its good to have
166 > an efficient mechanism how to combine as many of them as possible to
167 > some kind of main/default tree for 'basic users' - where there are
168 > compatibility issues solved, quality checked and no need to dig in to
169 > choosing the right overlays and dealing with specific configuration.
170 That exists - its the arch tree.
171 There will always be some configuration, but as long as you select your
172 profile, the system will build a working Gentoo for you.
173 Overlays are never required for Gentoo to work.
174
175 > And btw, Sunrise overlay - IMO absolutely great thing but so many
176 > users don't even know it exists!
177 How do we fix that?
178 I think we tell users about overlays as they ask and the need arises.
179 The quality of software in overlays varies considerably.
180
181 Many new users come to gentoo as their first Linux. Many of them are
182 poorly informed about both Linux and Gentoo - I don't know how to reach
183 this group *before* they start asking for help in #gentoo and on the
184 forums. Thats the sort problem we have to solve.
185
186 >
187 > And speaking about Paludis - I don't know how to write this - I
188 > respect McCreesh, he is very talented, but I think Gentoo needs some
189 > sort of organizational change that would let him stay inside Gentoo
190 > without need for some other great developers to leave Gentoo - do you
191 > know what I mean? I realize that I am in no position to criticise
192 > anyone - anyone don't take me too seriously please.
193 I know what you mean, other projects have similar issues. The kernel
194 manages these issues by structuring to keep such groups/individuals
195 apart, so they continue to contribute to their areas of interest.
196 Its more of a problem to Gentoo because any developer may contribute
197 anywhere. Gentoo has that open structure.
198
199 >
200 > > > To find the mechanism that would allow to maintain functionality
201 > > > of Gentoo as whole, solve compatibility issues etc. without too
202 > > > much of a huge organization that needs more and more energy to
203 > > > keep itself going... writing summaries and attending meetings
204 > > > while there is less and less time left to do the actual work -
205 > > > that is the problem.
206
207 > > Its a question of balance. Producing the information needed to
208 > > keep users and other developers informed without doing to much, at
209 > > the same time making sure that enough paperwork is produced to be
210 > > able to use the products made by developers and understand the
211 > > decisions they made at sometime in the future, when changes need to
212 > > be made.
213 >
214 > Yes - but the trustees will have very difficult task achieving the
215 > balance and in my humble opinion they will have to distinguish legal
216 > stuff and the rest of their part of leading Gentoo and come up with
217 > very different styles of management for each of them.
218 I'm sure it won't be easy, if it were, it would not be fun. I think
219 that we can learn from what others are already doing. In the Open
220 Source world, its very easy to build on what others have already
221 achieved - thats what the Open means.
222 This reminds me of a quote attributed to Issac Newton "If I have seen
223 further than other men, it is because I stand on the shouders of
224 giants"
225 Gentoo can build in the same way.
226
227 >
228 > Please consider that I am not an insider and I do realize that I can
229 > be wrong with anything I say. I just thought it might be useful to
230 > give you user's point of view. Great respect for developers.
231 >
232 >
233 > Thanks a lot, Jan.
234 >
235 > --
236 > gentoo-nfp@l.g.o mailing list
237 >
238 Its always good to hear others points of view. Let me leave you with a
239 link to my ideas for the Foundation
240 http://dev.gentoo.org/~neddyseagoon/docs/manifesto.xml
241
242 - --
243 Regards,
244
245 Roy Bamford
246 (NeddySeagoon) a member of
247 gentoo-ops
248 forum-mods
249 treecleaners
250
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259 --
260 gentoo-nfp@l.g.o mailing list

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-nfp] Re: How to improve the trustees Matthew Summers <matthew.summers@××××××××××××.com>