Gentoo Archives: gentoo-nfp

From: Ned Ludd <solar@g.o>
To: Stuart Herbert <stuart@g.o>
Cc: gentoo-nfp@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-nfp] Re: [gentoo-core] Nominations?
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:43:21
Message-Id: 1154486555.18938.45.camel@localhost
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-nfp] Re: [gentoo-core] Nominations? by Stuart Herbert
1 Ack... Books!%$^&
2
3
4 On Tue, 2006-08-01 at 21:30 +0100, Stuart Herbert wrote:
5 > Ned Ludd wrote:
6 > > This is a pretty long book you wrote. So I'll just say what I think
7 > > here.
8 > >
9 > > No offense but this seems like a crack heads pipe dream and would
10 > > probably not be a wise use of funds. Dump 300k in hardware, developer
11 > > training, books, etc and we will get a lot more accomplished that make
12 > > Gentoo itself better. Raise 300k and get us all together and you will
13 > > see 250 people with hangovers and a small handful projects that come
14 > > out of it in the end. SoC will probably of proved to be more successful
15 > > (end results) for a lot cheaper.
16 >
17 > You call it a crack heads pipe dream. But I say this: why are we the only
18 > major distribution (or, heck, one of the few major open source projects)
19 > that does nothing to get its contributors together offline? How can you
20 > have a real community whose main interaction is bitching at each other via a
21 > puny mailing list? That's not *my* idea of a community.
22 >
23 > That's what it comes down to. I'm standing as a trustee, because this is
24 > something I want to change.
25
26
27 Well that is a defiantly a positive attitude that we need.
28
29 > --
30 >
31 > PS: Here's the long argument if anyone's interested.
32 >
33 > Does that mean that things like DebConf, GUADEC, aKademy, and so on, are
34 > also a crack head's pipe dream? These things happen, and when you add up
35 > how much money is spent on events like these - where hundreds of folks
36 > travel from around the world to be in the same place at the same time -
37 > you'll be looking at probably the same amount of money as a Gentoo
38 > conference will cost.
39 >
40 > 300K in hardware's not going to make Gentoo better. I'm sure there are
41 > folks out there who could use better hardware than what they have; we all
42 > want better hardware ;-) But, ultimately, it's the time each individual
43 > developer can dedicate to working on Gentoo that makes the difference.
44 > Extra / faster hardware can help by speeding up tasks, but it only helps so far.
45 >
46 > You can't dump 300K of hardware on infra either. Sure, infra needs more
47 > money than it currently has - that's indisputable - but lots of extra
48 > centrally-hosted hardware will just mean more boxes that waiting for the
49 > very understaffed infra team to turn their attention to them. It already
50 > takes weeks for infra to get things done, and that's not always for lack of
51 > hardware. (This isn't an attack on infra; it's simply an observed fact).
52
53 Noted.. I'll say that infra is a pretty small team and usually one of
54 the harder ones to get quick results out of as it's a lot of mundane
55 boring tasks that falls in it's courts..
56
57 > 300K will buy you a lot of books, but do you need it? Has anyone tried
58 > talking to the big publishers, to see if we can arrange discounts on buying
59 > books (and maybe getting copies for free)?
60
61 Mike has worked with oreilly a bit...
62 I would see your efforts better used in such things as education
63 vs trying to get all together for a pow wow.
64
65 > Developer training ... who's going to train Gentoo developers? The only
66 > folks who are supposed to be more expert than us are $UPSTREAM, most of who
67 > we couldn't buy training from if we wanted to.
68
69 Stu.. You got to be kidding me here..
70 Gentoo developers vs other major distros are very under par..
71 We need work here.. big time..
72
73 > Sure, we could pay for
74 > general C, C++, Python, PHP, Ruby et al training, but do we really need to?
75
76 Yes.. most of our guys can't code their way out of a hand basket. if
77 they could we would see more proactive base development (which we don't)
78
79 > If there's such a skills shortage atm amongst Gentoo developers, how did
80 > they get to be Gentoo developers? ;-)
81
82 We have had lower standards than we really should of in the past.
83 In case you did not notice for year or so there was an influx of
84 developers for tiny pkgs (no names as that would be very rude).
85 Thankfully that has slowed down and the ones who were not really as
86 qualified as they should of been are in much better shape now.
87
88
89 > Where will you buy PHP training from
90 > for me? There isn't anywhere that you can. Is it fair that I won't get any
91 > money from you, but others will?
92 >
93
94 money better spent on proactive educational events vs social events..
95
96 > How are you going to decide who to spend the money on?
97
98 not my job.. I'm here to simply point out a bad idea when I see one.
99
100 > Will you agree to
101 > buy every member of the web-apps team shiny OS X boxes, and pay for Windows
102 > licenses for us all? After all, our work enables folks to put something
103 > useful on Gentoo-based web servers. From a QA point of view, we really
104 > should be testing all web-based packages against the top three browsers (IE,
105 > Firefox on Windows, and Safari).
106
107 Sorry but this paragraph is irrelevant and tacky.
108
109
110 > I believe that the difference between our point of view is that I think you
111 > are measuring "end results" in terms of lines of code. X packages, Y
112 > ebuilds, Z turn-around time. That sort of thing.
113
114 Yes you are correct.
115 I'm one of those guys who looks at the budget and says whats wasteful,
116 whats productive and what will help us grow.
117
118 > I'm looking at the
119 > intangibles, such as the effect that a fragmented and polarised group is
120 > having on moving the distro forward, and on general morale. I look at other
121 > opensource projects that I'm involved with, and I see that face to face
122 > contact breaks down communication barriers.
123
124 regional events do this quite well.
125
126 > It's not a silver bullet, but
127 > social interaction is an important part of a community, and it's something
128 > that Gentoo sorely lacks.
129
130 I don't mean to rub my own stone.. But.... I've never met up with a
131 single other developer.. I do quite well. I've started a few sucessful
132 projects and I've helped gentoo grow and appeal to a community that
133 matter. Sometimes.. other people just suck.. Getting us together for
134 sure wont make guys like XYZ suck any less. It might make us get a kick
135 or a laugh out of it..
136
137 > Having folks get to know each other offline will
138 > help break down those barriers. I know it has here in the UK, amongst those
139 > who have attended one of the annual UK meets.
140
141 Thats great.. Should be volunteer however.
142
143 > 300K sounds like a lot of money (especially if you have to raise it), but in
144 > reality it's not.
145
146 Right not so much if you are used to dealing with it.. However in
147 essence what you might do is turn our community into something like
148 OBSD/Theo which begs for money and makes a fool of itself doing so..
149 Even if it's granted money from sources such as the DOD which is wasted
150 on nothing more than developer events.
151
152 Try bring up any sort of money events on dev.. There will be backlash no
153 matter how good your intentions are. ;/
154
155 I think the key thing from my POV which you may not be considering is
156 that every dime you beg for you are essiantly pulling/stealing that
157 away from an already existing limited resource pull.
158
159 Please don't get me wrong I admire your goals and enthusiasm, but I
160 don't think it's very realistic or ideal at this point in time for this
161 distro at hand. If you want to win my vote and you want to raise money
162 then I think the educational route is the way to go.. Set up a platform
163 in which developers are granted access to online educational resources.
164 The more we lean the better developers and people we become in the end.
165
166 > It's the annual turnover of a small business. It's the
167 > annual cost of a small server cluster with a third-party hosting service.
168 > At current exchange rates, 300K US is only 169K sterling. That won't even
169 > buy you a house in many UK cities.
170 >
171 > 300K is a figure you've plucked out of the air. No-one actually knows how
172 > much this sort of event will cost - and my proposal
173
174 Right.. I figured about 1k per dev and thats probably a low
175 ball figure depending on where said event could be held.
176 Clearly tied into a LWE(SF) would be best.
177
178 > Another point to consider. How are you going to raise any substantial sum
179 > of money if you don't have clear targets to focus potential doners on? We
180 > already say "Hi, we're Gentoo, donate to us" today, and the last available
181 > financial report speaks volumes for how well that's working out [1].
182
183 "Hey give us money.. We fight like a bunch of fags every few days..."
184
185 I give gentoo my blood and sweat (probably cuz I'm a fool)..
186 But in reality we don't not deserve a dime till such time as we
187 learn how to make our developers behave remotely like professionals.
188 We got a long way to go on that front.. Getting us together may help in
189 the slightest but unless we are working from good seed/stock to begin
190 with I really can't see that happening for us any time soon.
191
192 Solve that.. I'll give you my vote and even promote you in my
193 spare time.
194
195 None the less.. I do admire you for your end goals.. I think if you
196 change the platform a little and just say "I'm going to focus on
197 fund raising for future events" this might stand a chance..
198
199 Final note.. in no way is any part of this mail intended to be a flame.
200 I'm simply saying that any funds raised should be focused on
201 improving our developing abilities. (I/We need 50 clones of Mike)
202
203 -peace
204
205
206 ...
207
208 --
209 Ned Ludd <solar@g.o>
210 Gentoo Linux
211
212 --
213 gentoo-nfp@g.o mailing list

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-nfp] Re: [gentoo-core] Nominations? Joshua Jackson <tsunam@g.o>
Re: [gentoo-nfp] Re: [gentoo-core] Nominations? Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@g.o>