Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Social Contract, Council: please fix the mess you cause

[Gregory Woodbury]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 4:26 PM, Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera
(klondike) <klondike@g.o> wrote:
> Hi Michał,
> El 27/03/18 a las 19:57, Michał Górny escribió:
>
> From the Merriam Webster dictionary
> (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stakeholder):
> "one who is involved in or affected by a course of action"
>
> In this particular case any of the members of the Gentoo Community who are
> affected by the Gentoo Social Contract.
-------------------------------------------------------

 want to agree that the word "stakeholder" is an appropriate use in
this discussion.
Francisco points out the most common definition that is used in
general conversations
and email discussions.  Anyone using Gentoo has in interest in the
results of this discussion and
the potential results of any actions it prompts.  We/they are already
affected by the results
of the decision to limit the participation in the gentoo-dev list.

In terms of the extended discussions that are not being tossed around
in the general
flame wars as a result of this action, whoever is "in charge" of the
Social Contract
should, in my opinion, clean-up and correct the wording, and make it
more clearly
indicated as to where various sorts of discussions should be directed.

Personally, I am affected by the "closure" of the gentoo-dev list, in
that unless I make
a special effort to become "approved" to post or actively participate
there I can make
not contributions to the development processes for Gentoo. I certainly
understand WHY
the developers feel a need to cut down or out on the occurrence of
inappropriate whining
and flaming on the list -- it has been quite a distraction, and more
appropriately should
have been sent to gentoo-project.lis --.but I am just as disinclined
to go through the motions
required to get active access to gentoo-dev mailing list, as I am
disinclined to jump
through the hoops of becoming an "official" developer. It is, in my
opinion, just a
means for the core power structure to maintain its hold while facing a
decline in its
influence in the Linux ecosystem.

However, using technical constraining controls for something that is, in fact, a
social problem has historically been shown to not only be ineffective, but also
to be directly harmeful in most cases.  In this case I feel that
historical result from
many different projects are being forgotten, and Gentoo has doomed itself to
repeating history.

Despite the reinforcement of Gentoo's core power structure as being controlled
by a self-perpetuating and self-defined "developer" group, I will most
likely continue
to use Gentoo because it is still a distribution that offers the most
choice and personal
control, for the admin, of features and programs. Too many other
distributions have
traveled down the road of deciding that users are fools and have to be
forced into
doing thins "the right way" as defined by the architects of the
system.[Ultimate choice,
of course, can be obtained using a "Linux From Scratch" sort of approach, but
not everyone can do that AND keep up with updates, bug fixes, and
security fix-ups.]

Some may interpret what I write, and obviously think, as a 'hostile'
attitude, but that
is a projection. I feel no animosity to anyone involved. I just simply
don't care to deal
with the politics involved to become a 'certified' member. I have
better uses for my
time and efforts.

-- 
G.Wolfe Woodbury
redwolfe@×××××.com