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On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 11:08:49PM -0500, Andrew Gaffney wrote: |
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> > Is it just me, or does any one else get the feeling that something's |
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> > gone wrong with this distro? Lately it seems devs just do what the heck |
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> >they want, and the only time anyone notices is if someone is polite to |
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> >give everyone a heads-up first. |
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Could you describe more of this? In general, we try to make what we feel |
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are the best medium and long term choices for the distribution as a |
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whole, not the immediate short term solution. |
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|
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> >This used to be community development, but had gone to thug |
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> >development. If we can't get features we ask for, let's just screw it |
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> >then and drop all the use flags. |
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> First, most (if not all) of the devs are volunteers. They do this in their |
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> spare time. They are not obligated to add every little feature that every |
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> user asks for. Like you said, this is community development. If you really |
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> want something, do it yourself and submit it. It doesn't mean that they |
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> give you whatever you want and you give nothing back. |
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If you've got a FULL plan (not just a vague idea), incl. code that |
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developers are happy with, then we're generally very glad to help you |
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with it. Code/Changes/Features that break existing systems are much less |
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likely to get accepted - a bunch of qmail features that have been |
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proposed to me (incl. some preliminary patches) have been that way, they |
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would break how the package previous behaved in some way that is |
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important and relied upon. |
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|
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> >Hell, lets get crazy and impose developer term limits, that way the |
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> >jaded devs can be recycled and the fresh blood will keep the |
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> >momentum going. And since we're all gonna have huge overlays, cut |
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> >back to about 20 devs, that ought to do it, since we'll leave the |
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> >real work to the end-user. |
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Lack of developers is a severe problem in some groups already. |
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As an example we have _two_ active people that handle KDE. This is |
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hideously undermanned for something of the scope of KDE. |
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|
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> >If you thought all the above was sheer insanity, it doesn't sound too far |
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> >off the crap on this ml, or some of the crap on bugzilla::::( |
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Vague discussions don't usually end up anywhere productive, but just |
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like the policy of the linux-kernel mailing list, patches and good |
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changes are a lot more likely to be accepted, providing there is |
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somebody willing and able to maintain them (that's the reason a lot of |
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new ebuilds aren't being accepted right now, as we just don't have |
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enough manpower). |
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|
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> Second, if the senior (and some not so senior) devs want to be jaded, let |
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> them. They know what they're doing (for the most part) ;) |
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> |
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> Last, if you don't like what Gentoo is doing, help fix it or go somewhere |
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> else. |
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And it would strongly benefit everybody (incl. yourself) if you picked |
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the former option as I don't think there is really anywhere else to go |
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without having even more problems than exist presently. |
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|
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-- |
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Robin Hugh Johnson |
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E-Mail : robbat2@××××××××××××××.net |
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Home Page : http://www.orbis-terrarum.net/?l=people.robbat2 |
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ICQ# : 30269588 or 41961639 |
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GnuPG FP : 11AC BA4F 4778 E3F6 E4ED F38E B27B 944E 3488 4E85 |
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