Re: [gentoo-dev] Monthly Gentoo Council Reminder for January

[Lance Albertson]

Patrick Lauer wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-01-02 at 12:50 -0600, Lance Albertson wrote:
>
>>A mission statement only goes so far. The underlying leadership has to
>>make sure that statement is upheld and kept alive. Too many folks have a
>>mission statement, but no one ever remembers what it is or abides by it.
>
> I guess there isn't one driving force behind Gentoo - we have many
> differing opinions on things like QA, handling of bugs, ...
>
> It's just that usually Gentoo gets the least in your way when you're
> trying
> to do something :-)

See, thats the exact problem we have. Its too opinionated with no ground
rules. Nothing ever gets done, and flame wars just go on. Sure we have
the council, but minor things shouldn't have to wait on the council to
meet each month. Such a person would only have one vote on the council
IF it were ever decided they even had a vote on there. (Perhaps a tie
breaker type of thing, though I think we already have an odd number of
council members)

>>I guess I'm almost hinting at that Gentoo needs a single entity that's
>>sole purpose is to drive/research the direction and goals for Gentoo.
>
> There was this Robbins guy ... remember him? ;-)

Of course, but that was then, this is now. We can't play by the same
rules as when Daniel was around.

>>It'd be almost ceo-like, but the council is still top dawg. Right now, I
>>view our group as a bunch of chiefs with no real single leader saying
>>"lets strive to do this". The main problem is, too many people fear
>>about such a person could turn into a dictator, so I'm not sure if this
>>could ever happen.
>
> I wonder if any single person would be accepted?
> After all there is noone capable of forcing anyone to do anything as far
> as I can tell - worst case you fork Gentoo (again) and don't resolve
> the issues.

That's what I fear might be the only solution because of the
indecisiveness we are as a group.

>>This person would be in constant contact of all the
>>groups and try to muck together what everyone is doing. They could
>>suggest things to help minimize user impact, maybe try to join two
>>projects if they are both working on a similar goal, thus minimizing the
>>workload. Stuff like that essentially.
>
> Communication ... should happen anyway, but it seems to get more and
> more
> difficult. Another layer of bureaucracy won't help that ...

Its not another layer of bureaucracy. Its the bonding part of the
communication that will help. We can't assume that everyone will
communicate everything they need to. This person would ensure they got
in contact with every group regularly. They won't govern what those
groups do, just summarize and report back to the council who has the
authority.

>> We need a good visionary. If such
>>a position were created, I also think that person's sole focus should be
>>that focus within Gentoo. (i.e. they aren't a major contributor for a
>>subproject in Gentoo). This position would take too much time for them
>>to keep those other duties.
>
> ... and you'd burn out a capable person within half a year I think

Possibly, I mean look at what happened to Daniel. Of course, there were
other reasons going on, but I do realize such a position would be
demanding. Why else do CEOs get paid the big bucks in the corporations?
:) (Since they essentially do the same type of work).

>>Dunno, maybe I'm the loner here thinking this...
>
> Maybe a bit idealistic, but I mostly agree :-)

Yeah, maybe so :-)

Reflecting on this more, I see that most of the council members are a
very important part of the active Gentoo development model (toolchain,
etc). They need to keep those roles active as much as possible, then
help on the council. I guess I view this person as a sole chairmen of
the board that just focuses on council type duties and roles. I think
the current council has lots of great people, but they're all busy with
their subprojects and can't take on a role like this. We really need a
single voice to bind everything together, but doesn't have total control
like Daniel did.

Hopefully I'm making sense...

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@g.o>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

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