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> And they have to go through a specific set of privileged people. |
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|
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True, although to the best of my knowledge all distributions have |
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a similar system. I don't think it will ever make sense to |
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provide CVS write access to all users; it's simply too easy to |
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mess things up. Goodness knows that our developers regularly |
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manage to render Gentoo uninstallable, and they're trying very |
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hard not to do that. Our system isn't perfect, but I'm not sure |
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what would be better. |
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|
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> Q: Can I help, can I help |
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> A: Sure, you can take out the trash and scrub the toilets. |
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|
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Well, right now that's pretty much what the developers are doing, |
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too. Our biggest need for help right now is good bug reports and |
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help with existing bugs. The only major "development" that is |
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ocurring right now is portage and some people starting to work on |
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a sensible installer. Everything else is really bug fixing of |
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one sort or another. |
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|
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> > > I havent checked, but is gentoo-core still closed? |
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> > yes, it is. |
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> > |
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> Ivory tower? |
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|
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The original rationale for closing gentoo-core was that it allowed |
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developers a chance to propose wacky ideas (and get shot down) |
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with minimal embarrassment (and without generating a flood of |
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"hey, some dev wants to do _this_!) posts on the mailing lists |
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and forums. I don't particularly have an objection to gentoo-core |
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being made read-only. I certainly think it would be an improvement from |
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a PR standpoint. At the same time, I could also see how making the |
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list truly public might cut down on the number of "hey, some unnamed devs |
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have been doing _this_, and it really has to stop!" messages that need |
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to be sent but might not be if everybody gets to read our "dirty |
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laundry", so to speak (and mix metaphors). |
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|
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> As a user of Gentoo, I feel like a child whose parent has to double |
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> check everything I do. And in the same way that the child |
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> becomes frustrated with their parent because they place no trust |
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> in the child, I am frustrated with Gentoo because it places no |
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> trust in the users. |
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|
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That's an interesting argument, because I would still argue that |
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other than Linux From Scratch, Gentoo provides users with more |
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flexibility than does any other distribution. If you want to |
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play with a masked ebuild, unmask it. If you want an ebuild |
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that has been languishing on bugzilla for a while, download it |
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and emerge it (or write it, if that's necessary). If you want |
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to be a developer, start fixing bugs on bugzilla and make your |
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good work known. If nobody gets around to inviting you to be |
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a developer, e-mail me and tell me what you've been doing, and |
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I'll look into it and get back to you. I'm pretty sure that |
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nobody is actually trying to be rude, but we all are quite |
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definitely overworked. |
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|
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> Among all the distributions I am familiar with, Gentoo is, |
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> in my opinion, the best as far as placing trust in it's users. |
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> But Gentoo is also, in my opinion, far from what I imagine as ideal. |
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|
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Fair enough. If you have additional ideas on how we can trust our |
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users better, please do post on bugzilla. |
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|
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-g2boojum- |
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-- |
66 |
Grant Goodyear The Secrets of Physics: |
67 |
Dept. of Chemistry 1. Add zero. |
68 |
Clemson University 2. Multiply by one. |
69 |
Clemson, SC 29617 3. Expand in a Taylor series |
70 |
e-mail: grant@×××××××××××××.org 4. Integrate by parts. |
71 |
http://www.grantgoodyear.org 5. Fourier transform. |