Re: [gentoo-dev] where goes Gentoo?

[Lance Albertson]

On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 19:55 -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:

<snip>

> In my humble opinion, Gentoo is missing too many points to be an
> enterprise Linux.  We commit to a live tree.  We don't have true QA,
> testing or tinderbox.  We don't have paid staff, alpha/beta/rc cycles.
> We don't really have product lifecycles, since we don't generally
> backport fixes to older versions, requiring instead for people to
> update to a more recent release.  We don't have, and probably will
> never be able to offer, support contracts.  We support as wide a range
> of hardware as the upstream kernel, plus hardware that requires
> external drivers; we don't have access to a great deal of the hardware
> for which we provide drivers.  We understand when real life gets in
> the way of bug-fixing, because all our developers are volunteers.

I tend to agree with most of those problems you mention. I've tried to
think of ways to make Gentoo fit more into an enterprise market ... its
not that easy. 

* We'd need a tree that isn't 'live' per say, something that has a
lifecycle and only includes security/criticial software bug updates
* We'd need a full staffed QA/testing/tenderbox crew to do make it
truely 'stable'
* We'd need to have a better way to backport fixes
* We could never probably offer support contracts, but that doesn't mean
someone in the private world could do it. 
* Access to drivers/hardware would be a major problem that would be hard
to solve without corporate funding.

> I think that attempting to take Gentoo in the "enterprise" direction
> is a mistake.  I think that we are a hobbyist distribution.  This
> doesn't mean that we should not strive to meet some of the enterprise
> goals.  Those things can be important to hobbyists too.  But I don't
> think we should be aiming for corporate America.

I'd say as a global goal, yes I'd agree with you. Gentoo as a global
entity should stay where its at, but that doesn't mean a subset of
Gentoo could have a goal towards being enterprise. I don't really see
Gentoo has a hobbyist distribution as a whole. I know a majority of our
folks use Gentoo as a development OS which is great and it works
perfectly for that, but I can see Gentoo working into a more enterprise
environment with some work. I know several folks that run Gentoo in a
production server environment and it runs well! Doesn't mean its easy to
maintain, but it is doable and I see some very benifical situations
where Gentoo would work best in production systems. 

> I don't even understand why that goal appeals to people.  Let other
> distros go there!  I want Gentoo to run in people's homes, in student
> dorm rooms, etc.  Places where people want a fun distribution that
> they can tailor and work on easily.

I envision the 'server/enterprise' project to help create numerous tools
that help aide Gentoo in a production environment. There's a lot of cool
stuff we could do to help make it run better in that type of
environment. 

> Also I find it amusing when people say that Gentoo exists for the
> users.  I think that is wrong.  Gentoo exists for the *developers*.
> It's our playground, and it's the reason we use a live tree rather
> than switching to an actually sane approach.  The users are cool
> because they point out bugs, help solve problems on bugzilla, suggest
> enhancements, provide patches, and notify us of package updates.
> Sometimes they become developers.  But the truth is that Gentoo sees
> improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
> developers.  And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
> the users second.

I see your point there, but I also think theres a group of people that
also like gentoo in the enterprise realm. I remember at the last LWE
show in San Francisco, there were numerous people asking about Gentoo
and making it more 'stable'. This would really be tied to an enterprise
level of Gentoo. So I know there is interest out there. We all have
opinions on were Gentoo should fit in, so I don't see why we couldn't
fit there.

To sum it up, to make Gentoo better in the enterprise isn't a bad goal
for some of us. It'd be a bad goal for Gentoo globally though. Take a
look at the hardened project for example. They've shown a good userbase
that likes how it works and the tools with it. I for see something
simliar happening to an enterprise sub-project (or whatever you'd call
it). Heck, maybe this idea would be better fit as a fork, who knows.
Would be neat to have a group of people working on this and helping
Gentoo if they find bugs in the process and fix them!

Anyways, you made some great points on where we fall, but I don't think
we should shoot down the idea or potential because some of us don't
think it'd work. 

Cheers!

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

---
GPG Public Key:  <http://www.ramereth.net/lance.asc>
Key fingerprint: 0423 92F3 544A 1282 5AB1  4D07 416F A15D 27F4 B742

ramereth/irc.freenode.net