Re: [gentoo-project] Some focus for Gentoo

[Julian]

Rich Freeman:
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:00 PM, hasufell <hasufell@g.o> wrote:
>> 2. Make gentoo more decentralized and reduce the number of core-devs to
>> allow conflicting ideas which is one of the main points of GLEP 39, IMO.
>> But now make this idea actually possible on the technical and
>> methodology level.
>
> You've talked about the first sentence in this suggestion before, but
> not really about the second.  Just what does making this possible from
> a technical level look like, other than how things work today?

We would need much better tools and PM support for overlays. I've talked
about this too and there are examples of at least two distros that are
running a more decentralized model:
1. NixOS, also see my thread on nix-dev about how they want to ensure
focus [0]
2. exherbo: I consider this at least some sort of proof of concept for
tool-driven distributed development with automated inter-overlay
tinderbox runs. The PM has also very good overlay support. Unfortunately
they don't attract people with their arrogance (it's all over their
docs) and they haven't understood that there is a difference between
distributed and fragmented.

And there are more things that can be done, I've talked about some of
them too already.

If you have a different idea of decentralization, then please share it.

> How
> can we have both games.eclass and no games.eclass but due to a
> technical/methodology change there are now less problems?  Ditto for
> the two multilib implementations?
>

Well, for once: forking an overlay is easier than forking the whole
gentoo tree.
But that's not necessarily the main point. Ideas would not be decided by
"who does something first in the tree", but by more dynamic processes
about approval in the community. Someone starts a repo and does stuff.
If people like it, they are going to use it and focus their contribution
there.

> It seems to me that your #2 and #1 are really the same thing - having
> fewer core devs actually eliminates conflicting ideas and increases
> focus, simply by virtue of the fact that there are fewer people left
> to disagree.

They are fundamentally different things. They just try to fix the same
problem.

I can't really say which one is better for gentoo specifically.

> My main concern with this approach is that it seems reasonably likely
> to just result in having zero devs.  When I've seen big shakeups in
> other organizations with the goal of revitalizing things the result is
> often that the organization just disbands.  The chances of a new
> person becoming committed tends to be low, while the chance of an
> existing contributor remaining committed is much higher.  Anytime you
> shake things up you tend to have far more to lose than to gain as a
> result.
>

If you want to go business analyst, all right.
An austrian millionaire (Gerald Hörhan) sometimes gives lectures in
german economy universities and he's often talking about the 3 main
points why companies fail. Among those 3 is: conflicts between
shareholders/associates (not sure what's the precise translation). How
about having 200 of those? Sounds great.

> I think that a major shakeup only makes sense if we can actually
> demonstrate a new model in operation, and it actually solves our
> problems.
>

I've already given two examples of a new model in operation. Also, I
haven't said "let's do this tomorrow". IMO it will never happen anyway.
I am convinced that gentoo will rather die slowly, because people are
afraid to change the course which leads us to a nice thick wall, because
we might derail.
I'm still not sure if it will die because of "lack of manpower" or
because our technology is so messed up that it becomes unusable.


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[0] https://www.mail-archive.com/nix-dev%40lists.science.uu.nl/msg12446.html