[Sorry for delay in posting, trouble getting subscribed]
Dirk R. Gently wrote:
> Thank you trustees for reading this. I am a Gentoo user and really enjoy
> the Gentoo distribution. Thank you trustees for making this available to
> me. As it is though, isn't working.
Well as another user, I disagree: Gentoo works better than it ever did. It's
a lot easier to maintain for a start.
> Gentoo remains drifting with little leadership.
Others seem to agree with you about this "vision" thing: again, I must
differ. Imo Gentoo is now a federal structure of "mini-Gentoos" -- herds.
They work exceedingly well, and are small close-knit groups around their
own channels (eg haskell, java or kde) with exactly the same sense of
involvement: interested users collaborate with devs on testing, bug-fixing
and general ebuild development. The results are then pushed to the main
tree.
The vision everyone seems to share is that of Gentoo as the "best" GNU/Linux
distro. We all have our various perspectives on why it's the best, though.
Perhaps the real strength is that Gentoo doesn't tie you to someone else's
vision, but empowers you to enact your own and find others who share it and
want to collaborate. As such, parallel and even conflicting visions are
healthy, so long as the Social Contract and the CoC are kept in mind.
After all, you never know when you might suddenly need someone else's work.
Since you are only stepping out of the room to another in the same
building, it's not hard to get that help. If Gentoo were specialised and
focussed on one vision, we'd lose diversity.
I haven't seen a convincing benefit that overrides that yet.
> I am a supporter of Daniel Robbin's offer to help get Gentoo
> into a proper leadership structure.
I see the Council as exactly that for the 95% of the work we're all
interested in: the software.
> Gentoo currently has alot of well trained users. I have often seen many
> good ideas come to the forums but often they stop there because there is a
> lack of a leadership structure that is able to implement them. Getting
> something done would require tracking down whom is responsible for the
> project (not always easy), discovering if that person is still active (or
> cares) about doing anything, and persuading that person into doing it
> (right now there is only a lot of talk.)
>
I agree it would be better if users did not feel so alienated. I don't see
how changing the legal structure will affect any of the social issues.
> I was not aware that the Foundation has missed yet another required duty
> to make the community/distribution run.
Thing is, we haven't had a Foundation since last summer (even if it can be
reinstated). If it were such an essential requirement to make the distro run,
would it not have stopped working long ago?
That's why I don't feel as panicked about this as so many other users seem
to be; yes, we need to have a legal structure sorted out for stuff like
domain and asset management. My feeling is that even if that lapsed
permanently, the people who currently manage infra would continue to do so,
and the devs would continue to code. They use Gentoo which is why they
maintain it.
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