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George Prowse wrote: |
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|
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> Dominik Riva wrote: |
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>> This organisation is not able to do any thing then producing code at the |
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>> moment and this is what produced that mess. |
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>> |
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Agreed; coders are useless at organisation and administration of anything |
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but software. That's how it's supposed to be. |
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|
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>> The offer from drobbins and the community that wants you by a big 90% to |
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>> take him by his offer. |
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>> |
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>> The developers that don't like his offer because of his style to handle |
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>> volunteers that don't share his point of view. |
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>> |
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>> |
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Well whatever their reasons might be, we're not the ones who would have to |
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work under drobbins, are we? And for all the talk of this only being about |
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the organisational side, the Trustees were/would be the legal owners of |
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Gentoo, if Gentoo went back to that form of incorporation. drobbins has |
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made it clear he wants to institute changes on the developmental side, from |
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his position as President/Chair of Trustees. |
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|
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So that's a pretty major change in terms of the structure: the Trustees |
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would be deciding development policy. |
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|
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>> So what to do: |
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>> |
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>> Decline his offer! |
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>> |
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>> Forget the Foundation - it is as dead as it can get legal. (how long can |
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>> Gentoo wait till the assets get lost?) |
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>> |
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Well I don't know much about it ofc, but I don't think they do own many |
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physical assets or money. AFAIK most of the infra (especially network |
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connectivity) isn't owned by Gentoo. I'm sure there are several machines |
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(most likely donated to Gentoo) given rack-space at eg osuosl.org. Domains, |
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brand and IP appear the most significant assets, and the last is debatable |
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given the lapse of the legal entity. |
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|
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Since there hasn't been a Foundation in all this time, my bet is the |
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copyright on the code reverted to the authors a while back. Anyone who felt |
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s/he donated their code to the whole Community could quite justifiably |
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protest at it going into the control of an individual; after all since |
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drobbins left, it has been a NFP Foundation they assigned copyright to. |
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That no longer exists. |
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|
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US law is not the only law in the world, either; I am told that in Germany |
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you can't even assign copyright, only grant a usage license. I am not a |
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lawyer, nor do I assume drobbins is out for any nefarious purpose: I'm |
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simply pointing out that if the devs don't all agree to this, there could |
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be a hell of a situation to deal with which really could lead to the demise |
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of Gentoo. All because it had to be done in a week with no discussion? |
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|
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>> Let the community vote on a constitution for the council. (One from the |
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>> developers and as much others that have a substancial backing from the |
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>> community. In Switzerland we normally can vote for 2 to 3 versions of a |
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>> "hot iron" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Switzerland) |
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>> |
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OK I think we're mixing terminology here, which could get confusing: there |
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already is a Council, and it's the ultimate decision-making body on |
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technical matters. drobbins is proposing to take over the Board of |
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Trustees, which doesn't technically exist so he'd be starting a new |
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Foundation only he wants all the devs to hand their work over to that, and |
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accept him as ultimate authority. |
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|
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>> A new council of 5 persons gets voted that stands under the rules of the |
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>> new Gentoo constitution by the community at large. |
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>> (Yes they will vote drobbins in if the likes to accept his nomination in |
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>> the light of the new rules) |
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>> |
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Er no, drobbins has insisted that the entire Board would *all* be his |
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appointees, and Gentoo would have *no* say in the matter. |
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|
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>> |
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>> Why I think this drastic steps are needed: |
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>> |
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>> Gentleman, you screwed big time and the community is pissed! |
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>> |
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>> The Gentoo-Project at large lost a lot of trust and credit in the eyes |
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>> of the community. |
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>> |
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Maybe you're right; personally they haven't in my eyes, mainly cos I've seen |
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how much crap they've had to deal with in the last few months on the m-l. |
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There's also been the small matter of a release which they've been working |
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towards, as well as getting the new Gnome stable (which seems to have real |
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issues, esp wrt policykit.) Then again, I don't much care about legal stuff |
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so long as it is done; the fact that it hasn't is bad. No doubt about it. |
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|
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All it says to me is: hurry tf up and join the SFC: |
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http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/ |
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http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/members/ |
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..seems like good company to keep in my eyes, and Gentoo can take itself |
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out of the SFC whenever it likes. That's vastly different to handing the |
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lot over to an individual, whoever that might be. |
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|
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With an individual in charge, you have a single point of failure. Stress |
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builds up on that person and they turn more and more to their inner-circle, |
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who will reassure them in the face of "adversaries". The same thing happens |
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with small cliques. It's not healthy for any organisation, leave alone one |
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as large and semi-autonomous as the Gentoo dev community. |
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|
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IOW moving backwards to a BDFL model isn't opening anything up, and isn't a |
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progression. Having drobbins as say, head of devrel or the like, /would/ |
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make a difference imo. He'd be in the position to act on the issues he sees |
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with how devs treat users (I mean the "advanced" users they interact with |
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on a more frequent basis who do come under devrel) as well as inter-dev |
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bitchiness. Those two groups are the ones who get involved in flames on the |
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m-l. It would give him much more chance to set the tone for Gentoo |
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developers, and I believe he would be firm and fair, and act on those |
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problems in a timely manner to nip them in the bud (once the initial |
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firefighting had been done ;) |
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|
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This is not a criticism of current devrel. As I quoted in my forum post: |
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"Strong leaders are good: strong institutions are better. A strong community |
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is best of all." |
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|
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>> Hell, I would not even trust a Gentoo-Foundation trustee to feed my pet |
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>> snails while I am on a vacation! |
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>> |
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Fair enough. |
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|
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>> One last thing in my own interest: |
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>> |
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>> Please fill in the gaps at http://gentoo-wiki.com/Problems_at_Gentoo |
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>> with your internal knowledge. |
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So what's going to be on that page in a year's time? And why can't people |
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get this information from the quite long posts in the forum threads? |
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|
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I see it as a temporary internal Community matter, and there's more than |
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enough info on the forums. Apart from your "own interest" (whatever that |
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is) whom does it really serve? |
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|
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>> The community needs all information's it can get if it has to vote. This |
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>> geeks want to know that what they do to there beloved distribution is |
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>> the right thing to do. |
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>> |
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You're assuming the users get a vote: they don't and personally I'm not at |
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all fussed about it. It's not my code, and it's not me who'd have to work |
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under the new regime. |
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|
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Not saying I'd have any problem with it: I like what drobbins tried to do |
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last year (stand up to a monstrous troll) and obviously I love the distro |
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he created, as well as the user community which he inspired. I just don't |
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have the right to make that decision for someone else, and nor imo do you. |
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|
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> I like the idea of a discussion of this kind and I applaud you for |
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> trying to start a discussion but you are unlikely to start any form of |
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> discussion here because it is not the forum for it. |
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> |
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I disagree: it's absolutely the right forum, since it's a non-technical/ |
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organisational issue that concerns all interested parties. Exactly the kind |
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of thing project was set up for. |
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|
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You may be right that it won't change anything however; this is one of the |
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rare occasions (it's the only one I can actually think of tbh ;) where i'm |
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siding with the devs against the users (since the discussion is framed |
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along those lines), in that it's their choice to decide how and with whom |
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they want to work. |
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|
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drobbins' offer left a nasty taste in my mouth: one week, all his own |
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appointees, no information (beyond: "expect big changes"), no discussion. |
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|
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Er, no thanks? |
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|
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Maybe that's cos he's frustrated and doesn't want to waste time; it's just |
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not the kind of ultimatum I personally would ever accept. And since we |
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haven't had a Foundation since last summer, I really don't see the need to |
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be bullied into accepting. |
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|
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The software is still improving, and the herds are still feeding ebuilds |
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into the main tree. I just did a fresh install from 2007.0 and |
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*GENTOO STILL ROCKS!* |
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-- |
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