Re: [gentoo-nfp] drobbins, leadership, etc.

[James Laslavic]

Luca Barbato wrote:
> I'm afraid you don't have way to back such bold claims.
>
> point 1 to 3 and thus 5 are quite false and I have number to back my
> claim (and since they are public in our website you have just to read
> them), I have no idea about point 4.
>
> Please give us a bit of trust. We _may_ know better.
>
> lu


Sure, I'm happy to talk about the points I made.

First off, I said that things are not getting done in Gentoo. This is 
fundamentally true. Are there projects related to or within Gentoo that 
are getting some things done? Yes, sure. But look at the writing on the 
wall! Gentoo does not currently have a reputation for getting things 
done exactly, and it's not like this reputation we have right now came 
out of nowhere. 2007 was arguably the most negative year in the history 
of the project, featuring everything from a lack of a second release 
(yes, I'm aware of the security advisories that slowed it down, but 
other distributions seemed to be able to deal with their security 
issues) to the rather embarrassing collapse of the weekly newsletter to 
the eventual revoking of the charter the vanishing foundation members. 
You can't argue with results, and right now, we don't have postive 
results exactly.

Next, I said that Gentoo is losing developers. Again, notice the amazing 
vanishing acts currently being performed at all levels of Gentoo.

My third point was that potential developers are choosing not to join. 
Now, I'm a graphic designer and a writer myself, and even though I love 
Gentoo, I didn't volunteer to help because I knew that 99% of my time 
would be spent dealing with what has become a famously stagnant and 
unfriendly bureaucracy. I've seen several other people who have decided 
not to officially join Gentoo at this time for the same reason. Consider 
how many capable people are in the #gentoo irc room alone who choose to 
remain officially unaffiliated if you don't believe my observations. 
It's just a sad fact. And another fact, for better or worse, is that the 
possibility of Daniel Robbins returning has given all of us who feel 
this way hope for change, which is making a lot of us think about it again.

My fourth point was about how the current Gentoo foundation has had a 
long time to acknowledge and fix this stuff. They have. The negative 
reputations in those areas are not at all new. Now, the code of conduct 
thing sort of helped with the whole "potential developers aren't 
joining" thing by injecting some friendliness back into the way things 
get done, but that's basically it, and it certainly didn't turn the tide 
as we can all see.

The fifth thing I brought up on my little list was that Daniel Robbins 
coming back is not random, and it is not a power play. The issues that I 
talk about are not only real and ongoing, but have become kind of 
infamous even. He is responding, and offering to help with these issues 
by stepping back up to the plate himself. Whether or not you think this 
is good is one thing, but I've heard a couple people imply that he is 
doing this out of the blue. The only way that this is "out of the blue" 
in my personal opinion is that these aren't new issues at all, so him 
doing it this week instead of last week or next week is not super 
obvious, but this doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not 
it's a good thing or a bad thing.

The last thing I want to say is that I did have a lot of trust in the 
Gentoo world, but again, just take a look at this past year. So many 
people that are currently still officially affiliated with Gentoo are 
basically saying that all the issues I've brought up are false, and that 
the negative reputations regarding those issues don't exist. I've seen 
otherwise, and I think everybody else has too. We can blame DistroWatch 
for the negative attention all we want, but just dismissing everything 
and saying that it all came out of nowhere is not encouraging. Right 
now, due to the lack of any real plan except the offer by Daniel to 
return means that there is really no other plan to trust in except for 
supporting how things are currently supposed to get done, which a lot of 
people just don't believe in. If you want to show the community 
something or issue some statements and roadmaps and that kind of stuff, 
then by all means, please do! But until then, a lot of us feel like 
there is no other plan to trust in anyway. Personally, I think Daniel's 
offer would be appealing even if some other plan was published, but I'd 
still definitely be up for hearing other plans for how Gentoo might 
change for the better.

Sincerely,
Square Bottle
www.visualflavor.org
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