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

[Alec Warner]

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Kurt Lieber wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 07:57:06PM -0800 or thereabouts, Greg KH wrote:
>
>>>Which is why Gentoo has jumped the shark and is now on a long, slow
>>>decline.
>>
>>Ok, then what should Gentoo do to fix this percieved decline?
>
>
> Exactly what a lot of folks will have kittens about; appoint a CEO, leader,
> boss, manager, etc.  (you know, all those corporate-type words that raise
> the hackles of nearly everyone on this list.)
>
> Right now, Gentoo is this gigantic, obese amoeba that just sort of sits in
> one place.  Different parts of it try to go in different directions, with
> the net result being that the whole body never goes anywhere.  We haven't
> done anything interesting or innovative over the last...year?  two years?
> We have no effective leadership whatsoever.  We spend far too much time
> arguing amongst ourselves instead of working as a team towards a common
> goal.

 I think some people have attempted things that are interesting or
innovative, although they may not have gotten off of the ground quite
yet.  I think for instance, that Stuart's webapp-config project is a
good idea, and while I also think his first attempt sucked, that perhaps
in the future it could be a great tool, especially for large virtual
host places.  I think it sucks that he has gotten the flack from it here.

The Gentoo Installer is an interesting project, not only for the
graphical frontend, but for the Distro-sponsored Network installer that
is being worked on.  I think many distributions lack tools in this area
and we can be interesting and helpful here.

The Portage project has some cool stuff coming up.  I realize that the
2.X codebase scares a lot of people away due to it's nature but recently
there has been a lot more active development in features and planning.
Plus there is code in the savior branch to do some "interesting" things :)

> <snip>
> adhere to the decisions and, if they don't, invite them to find other
> opportunities for their creative outlet.
This sounds to me like "if they don't like it then send them on their
merry way"  which is kind of a bad attitude IMHO.  If they are working
on something it usually is because they are interested.  You can't
really say "well your interest is useless so work on something else
instead" and expect them to comply.  If they are either going to work on
something they enjoy and contribute to Gentoo or do nothing at
all...well I'll take the former :)

>
> That person should figure out what Gentoo wants to be when it grows up.
> S/he should carefully consult the various stakeholders, look at the
> strengths/weaknesses of Gentoo as it stands currently and then figure out
> where the best direction is for it to proceed.  They should then be
> responsible for making sure everyone (and I mean *everyone*) executes
> according to this direction.  Folks who disagree with the vision will be
> able to go their own direction and start their own projects.  That's the
> beauty of the GPL.

If this Gentoo project fails/falters (like you seem to think it is
heading) you are free to do the same, form your own project with it's
own set of rules and leader if you so choose.

>
> Anyway, I have no illusions of this idea ever being implemented in the
> current Gentoo environment.  /shrug.  It was a good ride.
>
> --kurt

I would agree overall that inter-project communication is lacking in
many areas.  I also think that people are uncompromising.  Everyone is
over-worked, everyone has no time, if you want thing X done, get
cracking...etc... I don't think that is an especially healthy attitude
to getting larger/cooler things accomplished.  If there is an entity
that can help "persuade" projects to listen to one another that would be
 great, but in the end what can you really do?

Partially I ( as currently still a user at this point ) would like to
see a bit more project management.  I see that webapps posted a monthly
meeting reminder to -dev, but how many projects really have meetings
that often?  Do they accomplish anything?  Should we have someone that
tries to attend most meetings to make sure things are going smoothly, or
going at all?  Do we need to have slacking projects that get killed off
by the council as well as "slacker" council members?

More things to consider ;)

Alec Warner (antarus)
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