Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-core] proposal: make gentoo-core publicly read-only

[Alec Berryman]

On Fri, 2003-06-27 at 14:47, Jon Portnoy wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 27, 2003 at 02:21:35PM -0500, Matthew Kennedy wrote:
> > I personally feel that it may be a good time to reconsider making
> > gentoo-core a publicly read-only list.  Several users I know (some
> > personally) are irate that we appear to be a "behind-closed-doors"
> > project.  Yes, this stems from the recent fork announcement.
> >
> > gentoo-core is where we do our planning, discuss management structure,
> > discuss technical questions (of which we already try to CC gentoo-dev
> > out of courtesy) and architecture issues.
> >
> > I hope that we can open -core as a publicly read-only list to involve
> > our community more.  We owe this much to our user-base in my opinion.
> > For these reasons, I have CC'd this to -dev.
> >
> > Matt
> >
>
> We've already gone over the reasons -core should remain private
> (discussing security before it goes public and personal information). I
> think that a better approach would be to enforce a policy of all
> technical stuff and anything that isn't sensitive being discussed on
> -dev rather than -core.

Moving all development talk to the, well, -dev list would be the best
solution.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have heard four main reasons to keep
-core private:

1) Gentoo should speak with a unified voice, and by keeping the
community excluded from -core, announcements and policy changes can be
discussed without a public display of fragmentation.

2) Devs make mistakes, and would rather "fall on their face" in private
rather than in public.

3) -core would quickly become cluttered with mis-postings.

4) -core is boring anyway, why would you want to read it?

While these four reasons, as well as the security issues mentioned
above, look to be good ones on the surface, they become marginal when
examined and all serve the purpose of setting the developers apart and
away from their community.

Security is not a valid excuse to keep things secret - Bugtraq and its
kind already bring things out in the open quickly enough.  That dead
horse has been beaten enough.

Gentoo can speak with a unified voice while still allowing discussion. 
For example, it seems like once a month someone posts to -dev offering
to re-implement portage or something like it in another language - Java,
C, C++, Perl, whatever.  The standard answer from a dev is invariably
"We've discussed this on -core before and decided it wasn't a good
idea."  Now, the user who offered of himself to make what he saw as an
improvement feels shut out and unwanted.  Had there existed -core
archive, the user could have read through the reasons and understood why
- things are not always as obvious as they seem.  Even better, the user
might have looked through the archives and discovered the said
discussions before posting, saving everyone a headache.  Gentoo has
stayed with python despite many offers - what harm does a valid, public
evaluation do?

Devs do make mistakes - Daniel Robbins recently slipped on some
unmasking and there were a lot of questions in -user and on the boards. 
Obviously, no one wants to make this kind of mistake, but the end result
wasn't bad - it was corrected quickly, and no one thinks Daniel is
incompetent.  Everyone makes mistakes.

If -core is read-only, there won't be mis-postings to it by unwary
users.  -core might be very boring, but even most Gentoo users' eyes
would glaze over trying to parse the kernel code.  Does that mean the
kernel is distributed as a binary, because 'it would be boring' to try
and improve the source code for those few that would want to?  Perhaps
the devs might have an idea that a non-"official"-dev can implement
quickly; everyone benefits.

Currently, -dev isn't a developer list; most of the e-mail is users'
suggestions discussed by other users and the occasional dev, as well as
the occasional mis-post targeted for -user.  Perhaps in the future, if
-core would be accessible to the community that drive it, -dev could be
the buffer zone between the final work of the developers and the user
community.  Right now, there's a feeling that the developers are
shutting themselves in an ivory tower.  That's not good for community. 
Gentoo's social contract has always said it will not "hide its
problems", but has continued to keep its core development decisions
closed.