Re: [gentoo-nfp] Please communicate with us verses blogging at us

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Mon, 2008-01-21 at 21:33 -0500, Richard Freeman wrote:
> William L. Thomson Jr. wrote:
> >
> > 	I would like to believe you have good intentions. Which would be nice
> > to be able to discuss with you. But seems like you are avoiding any sort
> > of direct communication possibly confrontations. Can you please start
> > talking with us, and stop blogging at and about us. It's really adding
> > an unnecessary layer of drama.
> >
>
> Agreed.  I think a lot of developers are genuinely interested in
> Daniel's proposals and his ideas for trying to improve the distro.

Yes.  We are all interested in what Daniel has to say.  Most of us don't
frequent Daniel's blog, so the best way for him to express these ideas
and have them considered by the developers is to submit them to one of
the lists.

In case anyone wants to know which ones:

gentoo-dev - technical and development-related discussion
gentoo-nfp - this list, for Foundation issues
gentoo-project - discussion about the Gentoo (Linux) project

> However, developers want to feel like they're being led in a common
> effort - not given orders.  As such Daniel's goal needs to be to develop
> a relationship with the developers, and not merely to seek to gain legal
> control over the foundation.

Well, even with legal control of the Foundation, Daniel would have zero
say in the technical operations of the distribution and developers.
However, Daniel specifically asked for such powers, which effectively
does two things:

- Puts Daniel and his appointed Trustees in charge of the distribution,
without any form of vote of the members, changing the separation of
powers that Daniel was a part of setting up in the first place.
- Disbands/Deprecates the Gentoo Council, the elected governing body of
the distribution.

> I'm not quite sure what he expects to happen if he has legal authority
> over the foundation and chooses to make a technical decision that does
> not have consensus.  Developers really can't be forced to obey, and it
> could lead to a real mess where you have the foundation threatening the
> distro with lawsuits over trademarks and copyrights and infrastructure
> developers revoking accounts as every little fief struggles for control.

This is a real possibility and something that's been discussed.  It is
definitely a fear among some developers.  I'm not one of them, as I
think Daniel doing such a thing would be quite defeatist and know that
he isn't stupid and realizes this, too.

> Is the goal to make Gentoo a success?  Then let's start working together
> and let's stop trying to stir up publicity to try to force everybody to
> make decisions a certain way.

I believe that his intentions are noble, even if his approach leaves
something to be desired.  I also think that I understand his reason for
doing things the way that he has done them.  By pleading his case to the
community, and more specifically, his fans, he drums up grass roots
support before many of the people within Gentoo are even aware of the
issue.  This does put certain pressure to get a decision made, adding a
deadline just puts the final nail in the coffin.  It is either all or
nothing, and we relinquish all control to Daniel so he can do what he
thinks needs to be done, without discussion.  I don't know whether he
believes that democracy and every developer having a voice has itself
been a cause of much of the recent issues, but it is definitely
something that could be plausible as a motive.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Games Developer