[gentoo-user] Re: The end of "Herds"

[James]

Alec Ten Harmsel <alec <at> alectenharmsel.com> writes:

> > I think the concept of "Projects" will persist, but herds have
> > to become active and request to become "Projects" as defined
> > on the gentoo wiki or they will be erased. Like many others,
> > I have been burned in the past with trying to get directly involved
> > with Gentoo (been here since 2004). That's all water under the bridge.
> > So I am "tip_toeing" behind the scenes willing to be a grunt
> > and clean up some of the java mess, participate in clustering and
> > contribute to the science project. We'll see just how long it lasts
> > before I get "bitch_slapped" like  my previous attempts........

> There is a large discussion on the Spark mailing list right now about
> having groups of maintainers for different areas:
>
>
http://apache-spark-developers-list.1001551.n3.nabble.com/VOTE-Designating-maintainers-for-some-Spark-components-td9115.html
>
> I'm not sure how relevant that is, but it's interesting.
>
> My own viewpoint is that there should be no individual maintainers;
> packages should be assigned on a herd level, and the herds can
> self-regulate and know who has expertise with each package. Just my two
> cents; best to not have a single point of failure.


The spark post is relevant to the discussion. But spark is one (large)
code_set and we have thosands of different codes at Gentoo as a distro.
So some of our softwares, such as Python, are like spark and there
are multiple maintainers, like spark. We also have many smaller softwares
(ebuilds) that need someone (anyone?) to step forward and maintain that
singular package. Routine on Gentoo dev, there are packages up for
grabs that need a maintainer. Spark is in the luxury postion of having
many, very talented coders all working on one (large) piece of software.

Beside, I think the the "projects" will provide that group effort
that you admire in the current gentoo herds and the spark community for very
important codes (like gcc, python, perl etc).

 But there will also be many useful softwares that we should keep around
that just need a single maintainer. How it shakes out as to what the devs
will allow for those sorts of packages, like "elvis" for example of a
package that is not in anyone's critical path, but are cool to keep around. 

We, gentoo, have a wide variety of codes to maintain, and we'll need
everyone from the very talented coders to capable_users to maintain
these ebuilds, as our distro grows. We're going to have dozens if not
hundreds of codes (ebuilds) just to fluff out the clustering codes
necessary for a robust set of ebuilds for  gentoo_clustering, imho.

We need more devs and responsible users to help maintain and grow the base
of ebuilds, imho. But I do  agree, spark is going to need a very
talented maintainer...... with quite a bit of java and gentoo expertise?

Beside I think the decision, from what I've read, to terminate herds
is pretty much a "done deal". Think of projects and maintainers and others,
as you formulate gentoo's path forward.


James