[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?

[James]

Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes:


> > http://blog.funtoo.org/2008/01/here-my-offer.html

> I've kept very quiet about Gentoo politics for a long time, but Daniel's
> blog has promoted me to finally open my mouth and express my views.

> Daniel is in a tricky position - he is the legal President of the
> Foundation but also has no role in the project in real life.

This can be corrected quite easily. If one is to believe his
posting, (I have no evidence to believe otherwise) that he
wants to be removed from gentoo completely, or return and offer
a vision for leadership in a autocratic environment...


> There is no evidence whatsoever that the Trustees as a group have ever
> done a single thing for Gentoo in three years. The fundamental
> responsibility of Trustees is to ensure that legal paperwork is
> properly filed, they did not even do this. Grant Goodyear is getting
> some things done but he's doing it as one person. Chris is in a similar
> position. But the Trustees, as a body with specific duties, simply does
> not exist in any reasonable definition of Trustees.

This is not difficult to fix either. Getting the legal issues handled
is not difficult, especially if those trustees what to leave. If they
are non-performers, they either want to kill gentoo or they do not
see viable replacements for trustees, or mediocrity is acceptable
to them.

The bulk of the devs and the community of the users, should decide
who is a on the BOD. One person, one vote, with a required registration
as to actually who people are. The potential BOD folks could be elected?
If  the current trustees do not like this then it only takes a core group
to create a fork. (It seems to me Daniel has some well concealed plans
for Gentoo, and my bet is that he is either going to regain autocratic
control or fork). 

As a successful business man (Engineer), with a Lawyer in 
my family and dozens of lawyers that owe me favors, It its not difficult
to solve these leagalise problem, given either a quorum or a motivated group
of technical folks.  In fact, since I seen the charaterization that gentoo
is really just LFS + portage, it would seem that Mr. McCreesh has indeed 
created his own (gentoo) distro. Also, there are other forks of Gentoo
and they do not seem to require legions of devs to maintain a fork. 


I turn down most opportunities to be on a BOD
with many organizations, but, I care about Gentoo quite a lot. If Gentoo
is truely in crisis, why have the devs not discuss this with the wider
user community? This simple fact make the whole state of affairs
suspicious to say the least.

Potential BOD members should each create a vision document, publish it
and let's elect the BOD (trustees). If the current Trustees do not 
agree with this, then fork the distro and let's all move on. It's not
like this has never happened before.


After reading the aforementioned Blog (by Daniel), I have strong 
reservations about Daniels 'vision'.

First, let him publish his vision, including who he wants to name to the
board of trustees and the governing bylaws (or changes) he is proposing.

Second if he wants to be the day bay (tribal chief) then he should
have only a vote as to the makeup of the BOD. Allowing him to return
with the sole responsibility to select a BOD, is a recipe for doom,
IMHO. You can describe DOOM as you wish, but, giving carte-blanche 
control to him, or anyone, is foolish, at best. Doing so with no
published data, nor restrictive covenants, nor by-laws, nor mission
statement, nor accountability mechanisms.... is unwise, IMHO.


> I used to read -dev and various council mailing lists a long time ago as
> I wanted to keep up to date with these things as a user. I unsubscribed
> because I couldn't stand the constant bickering going on there. OSS
> projects always have their laundry out in the public eye and some
> conflict is always present but Gentoo management manages to take this
> to a whole new level - from on outsider's point of view, the bickering
> is done for the sake of bickering, and it does not result in decisions
> being made or solutions found.


I'm not certain that these discussion should be held on the -dev list.
After all, if the 'devs' where the managerial geniuses they claim to be
(evident by their choice of -dev as the proper place to discuss the future
of Gentoo) then we would not be in this mess (YMMV)... Like many readers 
on this list, I've have noticed some increase in the dysfunctionality 
of gentoo over the recent months, but, was unaware of an imminent melt down
in the distro's 'chain of authority'. 

It also sounds to me as though Daniel, is trying to trick or provoke
the trustees into allowing him to decide the future of the distro
without first telling us what that future is to be.  But then again
why the trustees have become apathetic and have not sought out
replacement for themselves, is inexcusible if indeed this is the case. 
Daniel probably understands the inherent value in an established distro, 
such as gentoo, and might just be looking to use it (gentoo) more as a private 
fiefdom than an engine for the future benefit of the greater gentoo community.
Dunno.....

As such here are a few tenants I'd like to see in the article of incorporation,
bylaws, or where ever the focus of Gentoo is publish. Like wise
you could also view this as my vision of  Gentoo's future. Needless to
say, I'm what out in front of those that want gentoo to become something
they use to make a living with, if not reach some measure of significant
financial success.


1. Keep Gentoo open and free for all to use and exploit to earn a living,
create a business, become an entrepreneur, educate and use as the
individual determines is in the best interest of the individual.

2. Keep licensing more in line with the BSD license for Gentoo centric
technology (thus encouraging entrepreneurship as defined by the individual
while simultaneously respecting GPLv2 and maintaining compliance with 
GPLv2.   GPLv3 is a poor idea, IMHO. GPLv3 can be made easily available
and leave GPLv3 compliance/responsibility up to the individual. In fact
software licensing and compliance should always be up to the
INDIVIDUAL, IMHO.

Digression
I love conspriracy theories:  Here one that makes you think. Greenpeace
receives it's largest contributions from those that what to keep the
energy markets closed to all but the largest corporations.....

Here's another:  GPLv3 is the work of The Son of Satan, who sits
atop a mountain in Redmond......

/end Digression


3. Devise a formal sematic to install of all gentoo's instantiations
that is open and flexible so various groups can easily create their
own installation semantics  and share their installation semantics
with the wider public communities. (competition is the best
way to solve the current gentoo installation quagmire, methinks.

4. Formalize a process where others (non devs) can build, store and 
maintain ebuilds that are not blessed by the devs, so individuals
can easily share their work with the larger Gentoo community. If one
choses such and ebuild there on their own. The gentoo devs should 
develop a semantic where folks not officially part of the devs can
maintain a package or two, rather than making ebuilds for obsolescence,
unilaterally.


5. Trustees can be elected to one year terms. If trustees disagree
on the direction of the majority of the other BOD members, they
should be encouraged to aggregate with small bands of devs
and build alternatives (such as Mr. McCreesh's alternative to
portage)...... Forking of Gentoo is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Deal with it. If you do not want forks, then, allow for flexibility.
Be willing to integrate forks back into Gentoo, if feasible
and the majority of users vote for it. Discussions of
all issues should occur on Gentoo-politics or some such group.
Not spread around the groups. Discussion of Gentoo's future
exlusive by the devs reflects very poorly on gentoo and is 
ample evidence of exactly what's wrong with Gentoo.
 

6. Provide resources to the gentoo-embedded group to assist them
in their efforts to assimilate embedded-gentoo into gentoo
so that lots of ordinary users can build and experiment with
embedded gentoo. Provide resources for  a seemless integration
between gentoo-embedded and gentoo workstations and user
to encourage the commercial creations of lots of devices that
small companies can build, sell, support and make a living.

7. Provide direction and methodologies so both users and 
technical folks, can integrate Gentoo into the normal business
practices in small and mid-size (service oriented) companies.

8. Provide wikis for those requisite areas where folks can use
gentoo technologies to incubate, start, build and run business
centric to gentoo, such as legalese, accounting pricipals,
basic marketing, how to build a gentoo E commerce server, etc. etc.

9. Provide a clear migration path for novices to wanna-bee to techie to
entrepreneur to persons with a successful financial status to
a state of being self determinant. Mentoring, wikis and advise: a place for
entrepreneurs and techies to meet, hang out (on-line) and
aggregate into startup companies.

10. Celebrate the uniqueness that we all have  and respect the choices
that the individual uses gentoo for, for what the individual determines
Gentoo should be used for. Loose the attitude that if you use Gentoo
to make money, you are creating some form of evil. Quite the opposite
is true; IMHO.




James




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