Re: [gentoo-dev] A User's View of the Code of Conduct

[Larry Lines]

I am replying to this email on the coc because I am pretty much coming
from the same place as a user.  I haven't been that involved with the
community but I have been a user since 2002.  I am a developer.

It's funny, because I was considering getting more involved with
development with Gentoo because I love Gentoo, so I joined the dev list
a couple of days ago.  Just in time to see the meat of a really nasty
flame war.  And I thought, "Wow maybe I don't want to be involved in
this at all.  Hell maybe I don't really want to use this distro at all
anymore."

But I kept lurking the discussion here and now I think I have changed my
mind a bit.  I even read the distrowatch article and some of the nastier
lklm list exchanges and I have to say.  I don't care about the flame
wars.  Have at it.  And who cares what distrowatch has been saying.  I
remember in 2003 and 2004 reading Debian lists trashing Gentoo as well.
Even ridiculing Gentoo.  Gentoo is its own bird.  You can say that there
are choices where other distributions are concerned, but there is no
choice for well-managed source distributions.  There is only Gentoo.  It
attracts people that want to do something different and are not afraid
of getting into the muck up to their necks.  So don't hold back on how
you really feel.  Let 'em have it.  Sling some mud.

I was the moderator for a message board for artists and musicians for a
site I created for a couple of years back in 2000 and 2001.  At the
time, somehow a couple of topics came up that started a flame war that
lasted for months.  Philosophy of art and music and people just jumping
down each other's throats.  I even had some philosophy professors join
the board and started some long lasting threads.  But people kept
getting hurt and sending me email asking what I was going to do.  I
realized that I was going to have to start making the interactions more
complicated with programming if I was going to moderate.  I reprogrammed
the site and implemented some rules and everybody left.  I still run the
site but there is very little interest.  People wanted a place to argue
and I killed it.

I say forget the CoC.  Let the flamers flame on.  I think with as vague
as people seem to want to keep the CoC it is better just to deal with it
in a parliamentary way.  When someone goes too far, it will be clear to
everyone and everyone will know that they need to get rid of that
person.  And there is nothing wrong with Gentoo.  I learned Linux by
installing and hacking and suffering over Gentoo.  Exactly one year
after installing Gentoo, I was in Hong Kong building and programming for
a Linux cluster.  There is no other distribution that compresses the
learning curve like that.  I still can't figure out what is supposed to
be easier about running Redhat or Fedora.  Sure installation is easier
but then you don't know where anything is and you can't tweak anything
easily.

So maybe I will stick around and maybe I will find a niche to help out
with that I can feel passionately enough to start a flame war.

Larry Lines

On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 10:43 -0700, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> I joined this list mostly to talk about the proposed code of conduct.
> Let me state the context up front:
>
> 1. Some of you know I am a loyal Gentoo user. I run three
> "testing-level" (pure ~x86 with an occasional local package mask when
> something croaks) systems, I beta-test stuff I'm interested in, etc. I'd
> volunteer as a developer if I had the time to do more than test stuff
> and all that. Maybe when I retire from my day job. :)
>
> 2. I don't have any visibility into what exactly is going on in the
> developer portion of the Gentoo community. But I can emphatically state
> that it *doesn't* seem to be showing up as a reduction in quality of
> what's coming onto my systems when I emerge a package! I don't run
> anything else, like Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuSE or Debian, so I can't
> compare Gentoo with the others.
>
> 3. I *have* read the dire comments on Distrowatch, but not much of the
> auxiliary blogging. I don't visit the IRC channels and I don't in
> general inhabit the forums. I am on quite a few of the mailing lists
> and, given that I run ~x86, a frequent visitor to Bugzilla. If the dire
> predictions are true -- if Gentoo dies -- most likely I will switch to
> rPath/Conary and build my own distro, rather than leaping on the Fedora,
> openSuSE, or Ubuntu/Debian bandwagon.
>
> On to the code of conduct. My belief is that it's entirely too weak! I'd
> prefer a strict "no asshole" code. Screw up once -- get a stern
> reprimand and a 30-day suspension of all privileges. Screw up twice and
> it's bye-bye forever! I think there are something like hundreds of
> thousands of talented open source developers out there, ranging in age
> from maybe 13 to mid-70s or maybe even higher. There are many more of
> "us" than there are positions on *all* of the major community open
> source projects -- Linux itself, GNU, Apache, Gentoo, Debian, Perl,
> Python, Ruby, etc. Gentoo can afford to be choosy. I personally think
> Gentoo can't afford *not* to be choosy, given that it has little (if
> any) corporate support.
>
> Finally, let me add that I've never personally experienced what I would
> consider unacceptable treatment from a Gentoo community member,
> developer, user, interested bystander, etc. Perhaps if I had, it would
> change my views. But, as the saying goes, "where there's smoke, there's
> fire," and I'd prefer not to inhale the smoke. :)
>
> --
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
> http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/
>
> If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.
>

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