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Hi Daniel, |
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> First, Seemant is a fantastic guy and Gentoo would benefit greatly from his |
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> return. He was an incredible asset on the project. |
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Sure, sounds like a good idea, if he wants to. |
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> I am happy to get more involved with Gentoo. I've actually been working |
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> with several Gentoo devs on several development-related things and plan to |
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> continue to do so informally. |
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Sounds also like a good idea. Feel free to get in touch with the recruiters. |
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> I do think Gentoo could benefit from some positive energy and some |
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> additional support for development. I would like to assist with this |
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> effort. |
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|
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A significant part of the "negative energy" comes from a generation conflict. |
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|
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Strongly simplifying, we had "oldtimers" who were used to organically grown |
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rules (see games team, which by force of tradition ignored QA and council), |
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and we had the "new" developers like me, who were recruited over the years |
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according to developed procedures and were told to stick to rules. That led to |
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effectively two classes of developers, with more and more increasing clashes. |
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Devrel, mostly consisting of people who were around a long time, was not |
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helpful. What happened eventually that the oldtimers were so much in the |
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minority that they got overruled more and more. See games team, which was |
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dissolved by the council, and see toolchain, which was basically completely |
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abandoned for a year before re-forming with new people. |
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|
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We are finally reaching the point where "new" people have a significant say in |
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Gentoo, and where rules apply the same to every dev and there are not a |
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selected few exempt. Which has already improved the overall mood a lot. |
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How do you want to contribute to this improvement? |
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> I think we do need to reach out to Google, who seems to have a habit of |
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> poaching our developers, and work out some kind of arrangement of |
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> cooperation. The sum total of stuff I've received from Google has been a |
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> prototype Chromebook, a $50 prepaid VISA card, and a google blanket. No, I |
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> am not making this up. I know these items were sent to me with the |
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> intention of saying thanks, and meant as the kindest of gestures -- but |
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> certainly, there are better ways for us to support one another? |
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I'm seeing this critical. OK I'm probably one of the few persons here who is |
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not hoping to get recruited by Google at some point. However... |
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One of the side effects of Google poaching our developers was that we ended up |
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with some mystery changes in core Gentoo stuff that noone ever explained, and |
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that possibly were added to support ChromeOS. Now, there's nothing wrong with |
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being cooperative. What is wrong is smuggling stuff in under the radar. |
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Disclaimer, I can't prove any of this, but a few times I had a rather odd |
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feeling. |
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|
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And please don't listen too much to wltjr. Most of us stop reading a mailing |
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list thread as soon as he is involved. |
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Cheers, |
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Andreas |
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|
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-- |
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Andreas K. Hüttel |
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dilfridge@g.o |
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Gentoo Linux developer |
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(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel) |