Re: [gentoo-project] Re: A proposal to get out of this mess

[Dominik Riva]

On Jan 15, 2008 11:02 AM, Steve Long <slong@××××××××××××××××××.uk> wrote:
> George Prowse wrote:
>
> > Dominik Riva wrote:

> >> Let the community vote on a constitution for the council. (One from the
> >> developers and as much others that have a substancial backing from the
> >> community. In Switzerland we normally can vote for 2 to 3 versions of a
> >> "hot iron" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Switzerland)
> >>
> OK I think we're mixing terminology here, which could get confusing: there
> already is a Council, and it's the ultimate decision-making body on
> technical matters.

I was referring to exactly that Council. I would like to see it
rebuild stronger then ever by being voted by the community at large
(including developers).
But it will in its new incarnation handling all matters Gentoo, that
needs a decision made by some sort of a lead.

> >> A new council of 5 persons gets voted that stands under the rules of the
> >> new Gentoo constitution by the community at large.
> >> (Yes they will vote drobbins in if the likes to accept his nomination in
> >> the light of the new rules)
> >>
> Er no, drobbins has insisted that the entire Board would *all* be his
> appointees, and Gentoo would have *no* say in the matter.

drobbins would have no say as Gentoo declined politely his offer.

> All it says to me is: hurry tf up and join the SFC:
> http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/
> http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/members/
>  ..seems like good company to keep in my eyes, and Gentoo can take itself
> out of the SFC whenever it likes.

>From all I know about the SFC, I welcome this step.

> With an individual in charge, you have a single point of failure. Stress
> builds up on that person and they turn more and more to their inner-circle,
> who will reassure them in the face of "adversaries". The same thing happens
> with small cliques. It's not healthy for any organisation, leave alone one
> as large and semi-autonomous as the Gentoo dev community.
>
> IOW moving backwards to a BDFL model isn't opening anything up, and isn't a
> progression.

That is why I would like to see the Council do the job.

> >> One last thing in my own interest:
> >>
> >> Please fill in the gaps at http://gentoo-wiki.com/Problems_at_Gentoo
> >> with your internal knowledge.
> So what's going to be on that page in a year's time? And why can't people
> get this information from the quite long posts in the forum threads?

I hope some some new problems are on that page in a year.
Because the forum posts and topics are quite long and the information
is all over the place and even most of it is in the mailing lists.

> I see it as a temporary internal Community matter, and there's more than
> enough info on the forums. Apart from your "own interest" (whatever that
> is) whom does it really serve?

I like to give Gentoo a tool to measure what in the eyes of community
needs to be done at large - where the shoe is pressing if you will.
And It addresses not only this matter. I hope I can move this problem
soon to a sister page with the title "Past Problems at Gentoo"
and mark the solution that was taken.

> >> The community needs all information's it can get if it has to vote. This
> >> geeks want to know that what they do to there beloved distribution is
> >> the right thing to do.
> >>
> You're assuming the users get a vote: they don't and personally I'm not at
> all fussed about it. It's not my code, and it's not me who'd have to work
> under the new regime.

Rebuilding a leadership by voting is a common way of rebuilding lost
trust and gives the community the feeling it is not ignored.

You don't care enough about Gentoo to vote?

> You may be right that it won't change anything however; this is one of the
> rare occasions (it's the only one I can actually think of tbh ;) where i'm
> siding with the devs against the users (since the discussion is framed
> along those lines), in that it's their choice to decide how and with whom
> they want to work.
>
> drobbins' offer left a nasty taste in my mouth: one week, all his own
> appointees, no information (beyond: "expect big changes"), no discussion.
>
> Er, no thanks?

I can understand drobbin's ultimatum but I too don't like the taste of it.

> The software is still improving, and the herds are still feeding ebuilds
> into the main tree. I just did a fresh install from 2007.0 and
> *GENTOO STILL ROCKS!*

But for how long if some big problems don't get addressed because they
are not technical by nature?


Regards, Dominik Riva
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