Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo healthy?

[Bryan Østergaard]

On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 10:54:06AM -0800, Grant wrote:
> >> I've caught a whiff or two lately that Gentoo is declining in
> >> popularity amongst users and developers.  Is it all in my head?  I
> >> personally still love Gentoo.
> >
> >there are always several phases in the life of a distri.
> >
> >Beginning, when it becomes 'cool' and a sudden surge in users, some time of
> >high popularity, a decline, and at the end, only the users who are
> >really 'the right ones' for that kind of distri are left.
> >
> >So the 'always using the cool thing' users are gone and the 'we are using
> >what
> >the cool guys were using' crowd is leaving now. So what? Are they
> >important?
> >No. At some point ubuntu will suffer the same. And then the next cool
> >distro
> >de jour.
> >
> >Some decline in user interest is normal - and a healthy process. Because it
> >removes the 'I use it because it is cool' and 'I use it because everybody
> >else uses it' type of users.
>
> I'm thinking this over a bit more, and it seems like the best thing
> for Gentoo (or any distro) is a lot of users.  More users must mean
> more active developers, and more active developers must mean an
> increased rate of growth for the software.
>
> I believe the great benefit of Gentoo is its flexibility, and
> flexibility is like a meta-benefit because it makes possible any other
> benefit.  What do you think makes Ubuntu the distro of the moment?  Is
> it ease-of-use?  If Gentoo focused more on ease-of-use aspects of the
> Ubuntu variety, they would attract more users and thereby increase the
> rate of growth for the software.
>
> Popular migration from one distro to the next sends a very important
> signal to any distro that wants to grow.
>
I don't think our primary goal should be growth (in number of users /
developers). In fact I think there's a lot of issues that're much more
important to Gentoo.

Gentoo started with the stated goal of providing a metadistribution.
This basically means providing the best possible foundation for others
to tinker with any way they like. Be it building embedded applications,
making the next 'Ubuntu' or whatever. To me the flexibility that Gentoo
provides is one of the most important things.

Another thing that I think should go before popularity is quality. What
good is a distribution if it doesn't work half the time no matter how
many users it has?

In short, staying focused on Gentoos original goals and not getting
sidetracked by some meassure of popularity is a very good thing in my
opinion.

And for those who think Gentoo is declining I can only say that's
definitely not what I'm seeing as lead of developer relations and
recruiters. There's always some developers leaving but we have a lot
more developers joining us. In the last 3 years that I've been a Gentoo
developer we've grown from ~80 developers to 330+ developers. That's a
yearly growth of 60% or more.

Now, whether those 60% is the right people.. is another matter
altogether :)

Regards,
Bryan Østergaard
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