Re: [gentoo-project] Hiding problems, breach of Gentoo Social Contract

[Michał Górny]

On Fri, 2 Dec 2016 21:52:57 +0000
"M. J. Everitt" <m.j.everitt@×××.org> wrote:

> On 02/12/16 12:36, Aaron Bauman wrote[excerpted]:
> > On 12/02/2016 09:10 PM, Craig Inches wrote[excerpted]:
> >> I realize I am not a dev, but for awhile I was actively pursuing this
> >> and the situation with Idella4 (who was my mentor) has made me have
> >> second thoughts,  from the information I have been able glean about
> >> what occurred, and also the way his retirement was handled cause
> >> confusion and disillusionment with the whole process for me at least
> >> and I think a few non-devs from Proxy-Maint IRC channel feel the same.
> > Please do not let this dissuade you from becoming a Gentoo developer.
> > Despite the current situation and the giant books being written about
> > comrel, council, and others, this is not the norm.  Many developers
> > contribute everyday with no interference or thoughts of either.  Hell, I
> > did not even know they existed aside from the quizzes.  No one focuses
> > on the good things they have done... that is for sure.
> >
> >
> It may come to some surprise to you (and others) that Craig is not the
> only prospective dev who was somewhat perplexed with the attitude
> towards select Gentoo Devs, who seemed, on the face of it, to be
> actively contributing to the Gentoo project. There were at least six of
> us (if not seven, possibly more) who were actively considering and
> pursuing becoming a Gentoo developer, who all felt that we felt uneasy
> about progression, not helped by the problems of a lack of active
> recruiters and other issues within the Recruiters project, which have
> hopefully now been resolved. There is a mild concern that the only
> remaining recruiter, may have a bias against some of the prospective
> recruits, as having been "tainted" by the former Gentoo Dev who was
> ousted from the Proxy Maintenance project. As non-devs, we have no
> recourse to council to ask for this to be investigated, and we don't
> consider ourselves to have a 'voice' to express our opinions and
> frustrations with the Gentoo 'system' as we observe it. It seems ironic
> that we are unable to influence the procedures that would help us be
> represented, and hence the only outlets we have are the mailing lists
> and third-party platforms. If anyone can suggest the correct course of
> action that any prospective non-dev contributor might have, I'm sure
> there are a few ears who would be interested in the response.

The first and most important person for a prospective developer is
his/her mentor. If you have a mentor, then by all means talk to him/her
first and he/she'll represent your case to the Council or any
appropriate community members.

If you don't have a mentor or feel like you need a new one, you can
find (another) one. Just talk to the developers you're interacted with
(we're not all wolves after all, even if we react bluntly to some toxic
people), they can become your mentors or talk to other developers.
There's also #gentoo-proxy-maint that's always open for new developers.
As a last resort, you can send a generic 'I need a mentor' message to
gentoo-dev.

But don't get unnecessarily involved in those flame wars that serve no
purpose to you. Most of the problems are better resolved peacefully.
And if your worries end up unfounded, it's better not to offend people
publicly, isn't it?

And please take into consideration that many of us are not native
English speakers. I find your e-mail extremely hard to understand,
and I'm not even sure I got it all right.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny
<http://dev.gentoo.org/~mgorny/>