Re: [gentoo-dev] Help offered - Portage tree

[Mark Loeser]

Since you wanted to bring this onto this mailing list, I will address
all of the points you are making here, though I don't believe this to be
the correct place.

To preface the whole thing, I was really trying to understand your
viewpoint and help make things better, but you were either not
understanding what I was saying because of some language issue or
something else.  Instead of trying to understand me, you took it as some
sort of personal attack for some reason.  I don't understand why you
did, or why you believe I was being "annoying" or "boring" (those were
your words last night).

So, now onto addressing what you have said.

Fabio Erculiani <lxnay@××××××××××××.org> said:
> [02:31] <Halcy0n> lxnay: we offer all of our work that you base your
> distribution off, and you don't contribute back at all, in any way.
>
> ^^ This is a really stupid sentence. It seems some of you don't even
> realize how many users we brought to Gentoo, and this is really sad.

I wish you would realize that the work all of the Gentoo developers (and
users and outside contributors) has done for your distribution.  It is
entirely based upon our work, and we would really appreciate it if when
you find a problem, you report it to us.  We want to provide quality
packages, but if no one tells us of when there is a problem, we can't do
anything.  Also, the one statement of mine that you decided to pull out
should be put into a little bit of context:

<quote from #gentoo-dev from last night>
21:26:46 <+lxnay> Halcy0n: I entered #gentoo-portage, found zmedico,
talked about the issue, he wrote a patch in less than 1 hour and committed
21:27:06 <+lxnay> Halcy0n: I got the issue solved in less than 3 hours
21:27:17 <+lxnay> if I had to use bugzilla
21:27:26 <+lxnay> it'd have took me days, if not dozen of days
21:27:31 <@hparker> He woulda seen the bug and fixed it...
21:27:41 <@Betelgeuse> yeah
21:27:42 <@Halcy0n> lxnay: I'm not understanding what you are trying to
show me.  Sometimes you can get in touch with someone on IRC, othertimes you
need to use bugzilla.
21:27:55 <@Halcy0n> lxnay: and it would have taken Zac just about the
same amount of time.  He's quick to respond to things like that anyway.
21:28:19 <@Halcy0n> lxnay: What if zac didn't reply to you iin
#g-portage?  What would you have done then?
21:28:40 <+lxnay> Halcy0n: I just wanted to tell you, I don't have time
to wait (dozen of days) and  I always end up forking. and you will never see my
fixes, that's a pity for gentoo
21:29:03 <@jkt|> lxnay: but that's entirely your choice, not our flaw
21:29:10 <+lxnay> Halcy0n: he always replied me in a matter of hours
21:29:23 <+lxnay> jkt|: it is if your dev take that much to fix a silly
bug
21:29:24 <@Halcy0n> lxnay: so, if you couldn't find Zac on IRC?  What
would you have done then?   Just gone and fixed it on your side?
21:30:01 <@jkt|> lxnay: are you to blame us if we don't fix bugs in less
than one week? now this is  funny
21:30:07 <+lxnay> sometimes my bugs got closed just because the
maintainer didn't find them valid
21:30:09 <@Halcy0n> jkt|: shhh, I'm trying to find out something.
21:30:20 <+lxnay> if someone comes to you and say, I have a problem with
X
21:30:31 <@Halcy0n> lxnay: please...if you can't find a dev on IRC, what
do you do?
21:30:36 <+lxnay> you should answer, I'll get this fixed asap, as I
always do :)
21:30:47 <+lxnay> Halcy0n: I fork the ebuild
21:30:53 <@Halcy0n> lxnay: that's very sad.
21:30:59 <+lxnay> Halcy0n: it's not my fault
21:31:04 <@Halcy0n> lxnay: yes it is completely your fault.
21:31:08 <@jkt|> lxnay: well, it is.
21:31:12 <+lxnay> Halcy0n: no it isn't
21:31:15 <+lxnay> why?
21:31:21 <+lxnay> you make mistakes
21:31:21 <@Halcy0n> lxnay: we offer all of our work that you base your
distribution off, and you don't contribute back at all, in any way.
21:31:23 <+lxnay> then it's my fault?
21:31:35 <+lxnay> Halcy0n: yeah of course...
21:31:43 <@jkt|> nope, your fault is not reporting them to us in a
reasonable way
21:31:46 <@Halcy0n> lxnay: the fact that you don't contribute it back
upstream is, and if that's  the attitude you are going to take, then I am done
with this conversation as I don't see it going in a positive direction.

</quote>

Just so everyone can see the what led up to my comment, and hopefully
understand exactly where it is coming from.  Maybe it could have been
phrased differently, but I find it very sad when someone is completely
unwilling to use our bug tracking system to even try to get a problem
fixed.  Not all Gentoo devs are on IRC, and we all have other jobs and
families that we must take care of.  We can't fix bugs within hours all
of the time.  If you start paying us, then maybe that would change :)


> You see, people like Halcy0n, agaffney, zlin keep us away from
> interacting with you.

Who is "us"?  If you have instances where I have made it difficult for any
user to approach me and have me help them with a problem, I would love
to know.  The same goes for everyone else, please contact me privately
if you have a problem with me and feel you can't atleast work with me to
solve an issue.  I'm not asking if you like me or not, but if you feel
you can have atleast a civil relationship to get Gentoo work done.

> This is not a democratic way, let's talk
> publicly here, without hiding in a development channel, we probably
> get more visibility, don't we?

This is probably not the correct venue to have a conversation about this
as it has nothing to do with development.  If I have offended you in
some way, you can contact User Relations or Developer Relations and let
them know (same goes for anyone else as well, to complain about, or be
the complainant).

Thanks,

-- 
Mark Loeser
email         -   halcy0n AT gentoo DOT org
email         -   mark AT halcy0n DOT com
web           -   http://www.halcy0n.com