Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo healthy?

[Grant]

> > 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.

- Grant
-- 
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