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>>>>> On Sun, 20 Jun 2021, David Seifert wrote: |
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> 1. Do you feel you have enough time to commit to serving as a Gentoo |
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> council member in the 2021/2022 term? Does your commit activity |
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> support this? |
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Definitely yes to both questions. |
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> If you served in 2020/2021, have you prepared for council meetings and |
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> finished all unfinished business for which you were responsible (as a |
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> council member)? |
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No unfinished business. |
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> 2. Project X and Project Y have irreconcilable differences, but you |
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> aren't involved with any of the projects. A crucial technical decision |
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> needs to be made. How will you react? Will you defer? |
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That's the kind of questions that are difficult to answer without a more |
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concrete example. :) |
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Generally, I'd try to discuss the issue with both teams, and then go for |
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a solution that I think is good for the distro as a whole, but that both |
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projects can live with. In my experience, keeping the discussion at a |
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technical and factual level also helps. |
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> Do you consider abstaining a viable option for the group of people |
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> making decisions as a last resort? |
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Not in the situation described above. There are other issues where I may |
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abstain from a vote, e.g. if I was involved with one of the projects. |
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> 3. Given your typical area of responsibility, how have you performed? |
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I am active in all projects I am a member of (look them up on my user |
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page on the wiki, no "placeholder" projects there). I also believe that |
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I was responsive to any questions in a timely manner, typically within a |
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few hours. |
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> 4. What positive change/idea/plan do you have for Gentoo that you would |
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> try to further (not necessarily as a council member)? By positive change |
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> I mean actually changing something concrete, not some diffuse notion of |
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> "improving how the council acts" or non-tangible deliverable. |
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- There's a reorganisation of GNU Emacs packages pending, related to |
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just-in-time/native compilation that will be available with Emacs 28. |
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Not yet sure how large the impact of this will be. We also need better |
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integration with upstream package archives (ELPA, MELPA, etc.). |
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- I have some ideas how to improve license groups. Currently, especially |
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the GPL compatible licenses with exceptions aren't handled in the best |
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possible way. We also need a mapping between our license labels and the |
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ones used by the SPDX, so that automatic detection tools can be used |
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more conveniently. |
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- Represent Gentoo at events again, as soon as it will be possible after |
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the pandemic. |
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- Start collecting items for EAPI 9. :) |
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> 5. Do you think the council should be more agile - i.e. take decisions |
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> for the purpose of propelling Gentoo forward, rather than waiting for |
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> the decision to be made for it? |
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This has been brought up repeatedly in the past and was mentioned in |
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countless manifestos of Council members, but not much has changed. |
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IMO a volunteer organisation doesn't function in that way, i.e. the |
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Council cannot tell people on what they should work. (If you need a |
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concrete example, the Council has voted three times for the feature |
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mentioned in bug 489458. We still don't have it, because nobody has |
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implemented it in package managers.) |
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Ultimately, Gentoo's progress is driven by developers and users having |
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good ideas and implementing them. Of course, nothing prevents Council |
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members from having good ideas either. |
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> Would you consider a small number of departing views on the mailing |
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> list or IRC to be enough to derail a proposal? |
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"Number of views" may not be a good criterion. One must rather look at |
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the arguments themselves. |
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> When do you consider a controversial issue to have been discussed |
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> enough? |
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When no more new arguments are being presented. |
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Ulrich |