Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Restricted version of gentoo-dev mailing list

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 3:48 AM, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org> wrote:
> On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 08:41:25AM +0200, Micha?? Górny wrote
>> Next time such a thing happens, the discussion will happen on a
>> completely private media or not happen at all because of the state
>> of this mailing list. Is this what you really want?
>
>   Here's the part you did not quote...
>
>>> If we could have a guarantee of proposed changes like that being
>>> posted on Gentoo-User for comment, rather than being sprung on
>>> users by surprise, I'd be willing to sign off this list.
>
>   Note where I said "...posted on Gentoo-User for comment...".  What I'm
> asking is for such proposed changes to be posted on Gentoo-User, and the
> discussion/feedback/flamefests/etc will be on Gentoo-User.  This type of
> surprise stuff seems to happen a lot in Open Source...
>
> * Gentoo /usr
> * Firefox Australis UI, and dropping ALSA and going PulseAudio-only
> * GNOME getting a hard-coded dependancy on systemd
> * etc, etc
>

What value would be obtained by posting this stuff for user comment?
I'd also note that only one of those was posted on -dev-announce for
comment as far as I'm aware.  Two are package/project-level changes
which typically don't get wide discussion.

These sorts of changes aren't being made for the purpose of giving
users a hard time.  They're typically done because of technical
constraints.

Sure, it is valuable when somebody points out an issue nobody has
thought of.  However, dropping support for /usr not being mounted
during early boot was something that was recognized up-front as being
controversial.  It is doubtful that a bunch of additional list
contributors would have pointed out an issue that wasn't already
discussed or anticipated.  Sure, maybe we'd get 20 people posting that
they don't like the change, but that would have been unlikely to
actually change the outcome of the decision.  That basically means
that it is unhelpful.  We already knew that a lot of people weren't
going to like the change, and numerous developers said as much as
well.  The change was made because to some degree it had already
happened and it was the result of upstream forces that were becoming
increasingly difficult to work around.  For what its worth, I suspect
that a system with /usr mounted late probably isn't much more likely
to break today than it was back then - we just won't necessarily take
bug reports if it does in some corner case.

Honestly, I think the flamefests are generally not helpful.  For one
they tend to discourage contribution.  A few have already posted on
this list that Gentoo is well-known to be a community with lots of
infighting/etc.  Well, putting controversial changes out there just so
that people can complain about them isn't going to change that
reputation if we're going to make the change anyway.

Obviously there is only so much that we can do to stop people from
complaining, but keep in mind that every time somebody posts a "Gentoo
devs are out of touch" post/email/whatever it isn't exactly great for
PR.  Most of those who do contribute do so because it scratches some
personal itch and so a lot of us just ignore it (which probably wasn't
the goal of those complaining either).  However, there are probably
many who might get involved, and who might even listen to these
complaints in the future, who don't get involved because of them.  A
lot of the sentiment in these discussions is about trying to keep the
useful contributions without the noise.

My main concern with the multiple list suggestion is whether it will
actually accomplish the intended goal in the first place.  If not,
then the issue of social contract is a bit moot.

-- 
Rich