Re: [gentoo-amd64]

[B. Nice]

On Thu, 2007-07-05 at 21:25 -0500, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 05, 2007 at 04:02:00PM -1000, Joshua Hoblitt wrote:
> > <dustin@×××××××.us>
> > Cc:
> > Bcc:
> > Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] unsubscribe
> > Reply-To:
> > In-Reply-To: <468CBF77.1010301@××××××××××××.de>
> >
> > Ahem... I think you missed your queue.
>
> Sorry -- I hadn't had my coffee yet.
>
> I also feel a little guilty that my only contribution as an AT is to
> make fun of people trying to unsubscribe from the list.  It's not
> exactly productive, and only serves to reinforce the bad rep that Gentoo
> has.
>
> Dustin
Way off topic, but since there is none for this I don't feel too bad.

Where do people get the idea that Gentoo has a bad reputation?  I've
come across just as many fanatics using other distros (Debian and
Slackware come to mind) as I have using Gentoo.  Granted the fanatics
can be irritating, but I've noticed that if you respect their opinion,
even if you don't agree, they have useful information to share.  
Gentoo has better documentation, IMNSHO, then most other non-commercial
distros do.  The only better documentation I've come across was with
SuSE 8.2, a commercial distro, with paid tech writers and editors (I
can't really comment on what the documentation is like in post-Novell
iterations).  To be honest, the quality wasn't that much better then
Gentoo.  
Being as uninterested with the developer politics as I am, I know that
there has been a turn over in developers for what sounds like
inter-personal reasons.  But that is normal on any large project where
people who care about what they are doing are working.  It's human
nature to get emotionally involved in your view and it causes excessive
bad feelings if/when your idea is overruled.  
It could be the ricers giving Gentoo a bad name, but you have ricers
trying to uber-optimize pretty much anything.  Maybe they are just more
vocal about it with a source-based distro then a binary distro.  
It is very unlikely that it's caused by the people manning the IRC
channels or who partake in the forums.  With a very few rare exceptions
that are easily ignored, the people are uniformly helpful, knowledgeable
and willing to assist even the most bone-headed of people (I fall into
the bone-headed variety myself.. ;-) )  

Just wanted to get that thought out there for the rest of the list.
It's true Gentoo is not the be all and end all of distros.  But is
definitely doesn't deserve any special note for doing things badly.

^^ShadowHawk^^

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