| 1 |
On Thu, Jan 5, 2017 at 3:16 PM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@×××.org> wrote: |
| 2 |
> |
| 3 |
> What really needs to happen, as a priority, is Gentoo as a whole needs |
| 4 |
> to acknowledges and actively pursue the idea that the "Gentoo community" |
| 5 |
> is significantly greater than, and not _EQUAL-TO_ the Gentoo Developers |
| 6 |
> as defined by those electing council and those who hold a @g.o email and |
| 7 |
> /gentoo/developer/<nick> IRC cloak. Until this happens, it is clearly |
| 8 |
> visible that there is a potential conflict of interest in that the |
| 9 |
> "community" preserves the status-quo and only ever acts on it's own |
| 10 |
> interests, and not that of, for instance, its user-base or the *linux |
| 11 |
> community* at large. |
| 12 |
> |
| 13 |
|
| 14 |
Anybody who wants to become a developer can do so if they have the |
| 15 |
ability and desire to contribute positively. |
| 16 |
|
| 17 |
I get that there are people who don't have these abilities/desires, |
| 18 |
and they may not always agree with where the developers want to take |
| 19 |
things. In the end though, we're volunteers. We scratch our own |
| 20 |
itches. |
| 21 |
|
| 22 |
On the whole I think a lot more benefits fall down to the larger |
| 23 |
community when developers are happy than when they aren't, and so it |
| 24 |
is going to be the nature of Gentoo to cater to the desires of the |
| 25 |
developers. |
| 26 |
|
| 27 |
What is the alternative, giving a lot of voting power to people who |
| 28 |
aren't developers? Suppose we do that. Suppose the larger community |
| 29 |
uses their voting power to pass a policy that they want but which |
| 30 |
developers don't want. Well, the developers will probably react by |
| 31 |
spending their time doing other things, since nobody is forcing them |
| 32 |
to contribute anything. Suddenly the community has shot itself in the |
| 33 |
foot. |
| 34 |
|
| 35 |
Ultimately Gentoo is working together to produce a product. If it is |
| 36 |
a product that you want to use, then use it. If it is a product that |
| 37 |
you don't want to use, please contact us for a full refund, and |
| 38 |
consider contributing to somebody who makes a product that you do want |
| 39 |
to use. That's why we have 4000 linux distributions and not one. |
| 40 |
There is no rule saying we can have only one source-based distro |
| 41 |
either, we certainly don't have just one binary distribution. Of |
| 42 |
late, I'm not convinced that a lot of newer Gentoo users even care |
| 43 |
that it is source-based. There is also no rule saying that we can |
| 44 |
only have one distro that doesn't require running systemd... :) |
| 45 |
|
| 46 |
-- |
| 47 |
Rich |
Archives