Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council nominee 2018/19 questions

[Matthias Maier]

Hello everyone,

this is my Council manifesto in form of a detailed answer to all
questions that were currently raised. Michał, if I missed a question,
please tell me :-)



On Sun, Jul  1, 2018, at 14:37 CDT, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:

> - How do you feel about Gentoo's use of GitHub?  Do you support Gentoo
>   providing resources for our users on GitHub?  Or are you opposed to
>   using GitHub at all?

I think that reaching out to a wider audience of contributors via Github
is a good idea. Github is a good platform for that because it simply has
by far the largest number of users that could potentially readily
contribute.

In my opinion we should take some additional precautions, though:
Because github is a closed-source and for-profit third party we must
ensure that

 - github is not used for bug tracking (i.e., close all repository issue
   trackers)

 - we should encourage projects to use our own gitolite infrastructure
   for overlays (mirrored to github.com/gentoo-mirrors)

The current incident - as unfortunate as it is - has not much to do with
Github. (Meaning, if we would have used Gitlab, or another platform then
that one would have been compromised.) Some lessons learned:

 - We should educate on rsync/tree validation (currently working on that with
   fellow developers)

 - Do not use passwords for authentication if possible (i.e. use ssh
   pubkeys, or gpg auth/signatures for authentication). If passwords are
   unavoidable, we should enforce two-factor authentication (at minimum
   for admins).



On Fri, Jun 29, 2018, at 00:15 CDT, Eray Aslan <eras@g.o> wrote:

> 1/ What do you think of closing gentoo-dev ML to the general public?

We restricted posting on the gentoo-dev ML to whitelisted users for the
time being to ensure that the mailing list communication channel is
remains unobstructed (similar to, e.g., +v/+o in #gentoo-dev). I think
that this step was necessary to stop individuals from abusing the
mailing list for their personal agenda and to stop persistent trolls.

We are currently working on reviving a moderator team for the gentoo-dev
ML. With a moderator team in place (that ensures on-topic discussion
with hopefully minimal intervention) the mailing list can be reopened
again for posting for the general public. Hopefully in a timely manner.



> 2/ Where do you think Gentoo stands in the Linux ecosystem?  Who do you
> think are its users?

Gentoo has a fairly niche standing in the Linux ecosystem as being one
of the only entirely source-based Linux distributions. As such a number
of our user base consists of people that need that level of
customization - examples range from scientific software ecosystems to
using Gentoo as a meta distribution for an in-house distribution in
larger data centers. Or users that like to have that level of
control. All in all, I would say we have a pretty fine and knowledgeable
user base.



On Wed, Jun 27, 2018, at 03:25 CDT, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:

> 1. Do you believe that Council members should respect the requests of
> the developer community even if they disagree with them?  Or should
> Council members decide based on their own judgment of arguments
> presented?
>
> Example: there's a heated debate, and the majority of respondents
> request that X is implemented.  However, after reading all the arguments
> you don't think that X is a good idea but you haven't managed to
> convince others.  Would you vote for X (as your electorate demands)
> or against it (as you believe is better for the distro)?

The council is merely an elected body of developers to make the process
of finding formal decisions more streamlined. The Gentoo project itself
is entirely defined and shaped by its members/developers. I think that 
the current form of annual council elections creates a bit of a
disconnect between the council and the developer base. Because of that I
support the introduction of a "general resolution" voting mechanism
for more basic democratic control [1,2].



> 2. Do you believe that the Council should proactively research the state
> of affairs and make decisions whenever they believe the direction
> of the distribution needs to be adjusted?  Or should it be passive
> and avoid involvement unless developers explicitly request Council's
> intervention?

I think that the overall "state of affairs" and decision making
regarding the project as a whole should lie within the developer body as
a whole. As such, the Council should be careful with such decisions. If
necessary, there is always the possibility to initiate an "all dev"
vote [1].



> 3. Do you believe the developer community should hold the power
> to veto or dissolve the Council at any point?  Provided there's a global
> developer vote agreeing on that.

Yes.



> What do council-nominees think about the current lack of manpower in Gentoo as a
> whole, and how do you propose to confront this situation, with facts?

> In the same line that previous question, what global decisions do you consider
> necessary in order to solve the manpower issue?

The "current lack of manpower" situation is a never ending story, isn't
it? We have maintained a more or less constant number of active
developers over the years :-)

 - I have seen quite a few of our active github contributors becoming
   developrs in relatively short time. So streamlining the contribution
   process (pull request instead of bug report + attaching patches) has
   played out nicely, I would say.

 - The situation with maintainer-needed and maintainer-wanted improved
   quite a bit as well. Overall I think we are slowly catching up on
   portage tree cleaning (EAPI 0 - 4 removal, etc).

 - I think that due to the fact that we are a rolling release
   distribution we lack "visibility" a bit due to the absence of regular
   release announcements. Thus, maintaining special occasion live-cd
   releases and similar events is a good thing.

 - Finally, reducing the need for manpower is also an important point, I
   should mention here. For example, we have significantly smaller arch
   teams nowadays but the more streamlined and more automated
   stabilization process balances that.

   On the other hand, I wish sometimes that fellow developers would be
   a bit more conscious when it comes to introducing maintenance
   burden (USE=libressl is such an example...)



> Finally, and this is just a personal opinion, right now I see many devs trying
> to pull Gentoo to different sides, but what I can't see is a set of common
> beliefs that join us all in the same vision of what Gentoo should be or do in
> the near future... how could you address this issue?

Being a meta distribution that provides solutions for a very diverse set
of needs I don't exactly see a problem in diverse agendas. I think the
current process of GLEPs, PMS, RFCs and council decisions provide a good
mechanism to find a common ground and solutions that helps everybody.

Given the very diverse background of personal agends, it is actually an
amazing display of self-organization that we all stick together to make
Gentoo a better platform for all of us. I think that, the unfortunate
noisy discussion we have at times, hide this little fact a bit and
people tend to forget how peaceful coexistence looks like :-)



On Tue, Jun 26, 2018, at 02:12 CDT, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:

> And I'd like to ask the inevitable question: what do you think should be
> the roles of Gentoo Council and Trustees appropriately?

  [3] As already stated publicy otherwise:

  """
  We request that the Board of Trustees of the Gentoo Foundation and the
  Gentoo Council affirm Gentoo's metastructure GLEP 39 as the governing  
  principle of the Gentoo Linux developer community. In particular, both
  acknowledge the intended (non-exclusive) split between
      - the Gentoo Developer community, currently lead by the Gentoo Council,
        which is responsible for the developer community, its user base and
        all technical development decisions,
      - and the Gentoo Foundation, whose role is to hold Gentoo's assets
        (such as trademarks and server infrastructure) and support the
        developer and user community. Although the Board of Trustees
        exercises its own independent judgment on every decision, it
        generally carries out requests from the community.
  """



Best,
Matthias



[1] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/973be0a662b3cc74aa118a1128dcac9e
[2] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/dffe725b064bf240834d5fe4ae78a83d
[3] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-nfp/message/a7c1b4e8df8690c8829d8854f767856f