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Heya Matt, |
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|
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On 1/5/06, Matthew Marlowe <mattm@g.o> wrote: |
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> Other than small improvements, |
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> I'm not sure anything positive has happened. If anything, |
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> Gentoo appears to be heading more in the "desktop" |
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> and "hobbyist" direction. |
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|
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Server-orientated activities have historically never had the same |
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standing in Gentoo that desktop-oriented activities have had. Under |
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the old organisational structure, those of us actively working on |
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server stuff (such as Apache) had no voice in the old TLP meetings. |
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|
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Thankfully, that has been addressed. The new metastructure creates a |
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totally-level playing field, where motivated individuals and teams are |
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really free to work on creating a strong server-oriented following. |
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|
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But that doesn't help if no-one's turning up to participate. |
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|
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Gentoo's strength is that it reflects the interests, committments, and |
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experience of the people who work on it. It's not like RedHat |
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Enterprise Linux, which reflects an agenda defined in a boardroom, or |
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by a commercial partnership with a vendor that benefits only a select |
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few customers. It takes its life and its energy from those who work |
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on it. We come from a diverse background, and we bring a diverse |
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range of needs that we want Gentoo to be suitable for. To the outside |
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world, it appears that we lack focus, but I believe the real truth is |
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that we're just really poor at communicating the many different |
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directions that we're going in. |
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|
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(As an aside, I personally find it very frustrating when we have |
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individuals strongly arguing against attempts to improve our |
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communications like the news GLEP, and then some of these same people |
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turn around and plead ignorance on strategic work going on in the |
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project. Duplicious behaviour like this is our own worst enemy, and |
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turns what should be smoothly-flowing work into horrendous log jams). |
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|
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And, equally, it suffers when people withdraw that energy - or (as |
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seems to be more and more the case these days) when people stop |
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enjoying what they do and lose the motivation to continue working on |
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the project. |
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|
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We've always had a problem of burnout amongst devs, and to be honest I |
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see that as a natural thing that we have to live with. Not worried |
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about that, and if they come back their contribution always seems to |
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be even better than it was before. |
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|
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We also seem to have regular "it's the end of the world" threads like |
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this (it's not the end of the world, btw). More (any? :) regular |
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face-to-face contact would help with that. Other leading f/oss |
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projects establish a culture of the key devs seeing each other |
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regularly on the conference circuit. I think this is where we should |
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start to sort things out - by making it possible for people to learn |
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more about each other properly, and to gain a better understanding of |
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each other's needs. It'll give us the foundations to build further |
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change and improvement on. |
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|
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> That might be what they mean |
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> when they say gentoo is becoming irrelevant. |
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|
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Gentoo's going to become irrelevant because today we're not |
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collectively capable of making that step to becoming a world-class |
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organisation. You've got three world-class organisations at the top |
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table - Red Hat, Novell/SuSE, and now Ubuntu. There's only room for |
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so many. We have to decide whether we really want to play at that |
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level, or whether we'd rather be playing in the sandpit and the slop |
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dosh with the other kids instead. |
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|
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Do we want to raise our game to that level, or not? |
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|
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(Btw, irrelevant doesn't mean no more Gentoo. When I contributed to |
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Slackware in the early 90's, it sent the trends and the standards that |
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other distros aspired to. Today, although Pat continues to provide an |
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excellent distro, what he does no longer matters on the world stage. |
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One of the four fundamental human psycological needs is to leave a |
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legacy. If Gentoo no longer matters, you're not going to get those |
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world-class people coming along and contributing. They're going to go |
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where their work has more impact. It's why we've already lost good |
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people to Ubuntu. Gentoo will just suffle along in a state of living |
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death - just like Slackware arguably does today. You need that |
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constant influx of new people to renew and revigorate any project or |
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organisation). |
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|
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Many of our devs have never had any exposure to the sort of |
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culture-driven environment Kurt's talking about. I know what Kurt's |
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proposing has been rubbished savagely here on the mailing list (and |
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those savagings have been roundly cheered in #gentoo-dev during the |
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day). In world-class professional organisations they're seen as |
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standard practice and sound, effective solutions. |
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|
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They're not "text book" solutions, or an "ideal world" that doesn't |
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work in reality. They're not fads, or fashions of their time. Every |
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time I hear or read people say that (and not just in a Gentoo context |
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- I hear this regularly from organisations and individuals I work with |
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outside Gentoo) I must admit I cringe a bit. In my experience, it's |
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normally used as an argument to cover up limits in individuals' |
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personal performance and their ability to raise their game to the |
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required level. |
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|
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They're just de facto standard best practice, no different to (say) |
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how the ITIL is for IT service management. |
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|
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Anyway, if we do want to steer the Good Ship Gentoo away from the |
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iceberg, I think our starting place has to be actively organising |
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face-to-face contact. |
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|
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Best regards, |
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Stu |
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|
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-- |
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gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |