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On Tuesday 22 Nov 2005 10:09 pm, Chris Gianelloni wrote: |
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> *sigh* |
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> |
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> Another "Gentoo is about choice" argument. Can I ask you something? |
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> Where does it say that Gentoo is about choice? I see lots of places |
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> that say that Gentoo allows you to customize, but nowhere do I see |
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> anything that says that we are about choice. |
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I am a really novice desktop end-user and am following gentoo-dev just for |
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learning what all goes through the minds of the uber gentoo developers. I |
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have no say in this discussion as it doesn't effect me and am certainly not |
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qualified to get into an argument with someone like you but I have read your |
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posts mentioning this "Where does it say that Gentoo is about choice?" |
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argument lots of time. |
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Till now I also had a picture in my mind that Gentoo was actually about |
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"choice" and when I saw that picture getting shattered by a Lead Developer, I |
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went to look for the places that made me think about Gentoo in that way i.e. |
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"Gentoo is about choice". These are the few things I could find. |
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1) On the about page with picture of "Larry The Cow": |
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http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml |
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"He discovered lots of up-to-date packages that could be auto-built |
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using the optimizations settings and build-time functionality that |
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he wanted, rather than what some distro creator thought would be |
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best for him. All of the sudden, Larry the Cow was in control. And |
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he liked it." |
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---rather than what some distro creator thought would be |
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best for him. |
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^ that statement makes you think it is about choice. |
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2) The Philosophy: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml |
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"If the tool forces the user to do things a particular way, then the tool is |
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working against, rather than for, the user." |
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3) Gentoo Social Contract: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/contract.xml |
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"A Gentoo operating system should satisfy the self-hosting requirement. In |
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other words, the operating system should be able to build itself from scratch |
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using the aforementioned tools and metadata. If a product associated with an |
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official Gentoo project does not satisfy these requirements, the product does |
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not qualify as a Gentoo operating system." |
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All these things "imply" that there should be a choice for a user to do what |
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ever way he/she wants while building his/her system i.e. even from scratch. |
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Since these documents just implied the "Choice" nature of Gentoo, I went ahead |
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and did some googling to actually get the direct connection. Searching for |
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"gentoo about choice" leads 653,000 results and just the first two results |
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are enough to get the point across for a user. |
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|
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1) From 1st Link: |
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Gentoo Weekly Newsletter: March 28th, 2005 |
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http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20050328-newsletter.xml |
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Developer of the week talks |
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"Gentoo represents choice and freedom for every user to build their computing |
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environment to their individual needs, by giving them the tools to do it." -- |
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Marcus D. Hanwell (cryos) |
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2) From 2nd Link: |
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Trusted Gentoo : by Daniel Black |
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http://www.gentoo.org/news/20050202-trustedgentoo.xml |
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"Gentoo is about choice" |
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The last link should settle it for you? |
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Can we now comfortably say that "Gentoo is about choice"? The other 652,998 |
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links might reveal a few more places where we can get the choice idea from |
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but I hope that all these links should be sufficient to give anyone this |
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idea. |
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Regards, |
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Abhay |
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