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

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 14 January 2008, James wrote:
> Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes:
> > > It could just be managerial ineptitude though, combined with
> > > emotional immaturity of certain persons (if Alan's previous
> > > critique re.treating persons as machines holds true).
> >
> > Odds are that this is the real explanation. Gentoo management is
> > full of people who are good devs but simply do not know how to run
> > a group. To see this, just read over minutes of meeting etc held on
> > IRC. There's little evidence of a meeting being chaired by someone
> > who keeps things on track and on agenda, and meetings usually
> > devolve into discussions of technical matters.
> >
> > It's entirely reasonable to assume that these same people will just
> > ignore things outside their expertise that they don't understand
> > and hope the problem will go away if they ignore it.
> >
> > Just as the solution to having a maintainer of a project that can't
> > code is to replace him with someone who can, the solution to
> > gentoo's current woes seems to be to appoint bodies to management
> > who do know how to do it and have a track record of doing it.
>
> OK, let assume you are correct, and the majority of users support
> these consensus  beliefs. How do we go about doing this (fixing
> gentoo with some documents that define the organization and lines of
> authority? I know how to do it mechanically and legally but how to we
> get devs to agree with being managed by anyone? After all, there are
> no paychecks here.

I think you have answered your own question actually.

It's a common human failing to assume that their own situation is 
somehow unique and completely different from every other situation that 
has ever been. Gentooites might well want to debate this ad nauseam but 
the situation will resolve that same way these things have always been 
resolved, by one of these or a combination:

a. a strong leader emerges with a vision and takes over
b. a strong leader emerges with a vision and forks
c. common sense prevails and everyone comes to their senses
d. a hidden bad egg goes away or dies and suddenly everything calms down
e. the project dies and nothing replaces it

There might be more options. In any event, to progress someone has to 
step up to the plate with a plan and put it into motion, and the 
mechanics will fall into place behind that. Daniel has a plan. It might 
be a good one or a bad one. He might be The Ultimate Enlightened One or 
he might be Evil Spawn Of Satan, I have no idea.

But he does have a plan, and thus far seems to be the only one 
*with*a*plan*. Let's hear what he has to say and respond accordingly.

alan




>
> My alluding to the tribal system is because technical folks will
> follow a technically strong leader. Are enough of those tribal
> (elites) willing to be managed? If so, surely they will want quite a
> lot of say in how a new structure to manage Gentoo is structured and
> organized. The fact they are discussing this seems like the majority
> of devs will make a decision and let us know?   Surely they will want
> a person that is mature and calm, yet very saavy with technology and
> Gentoo.
>
> We can put together a very good guidance document, borrowing from
> other projects and non profits, and add some interesting language,
> but if the majority, or at least a handful of tribal leader do not
> agree, we are dead, or starting our own fork.....
>
> It's more likely the user community will rally behind a group of
> devs, that decide to fork, or the bickering will just continue until
> everyone leaves?   I have not read any of their posts (the devs) nor
> any of the infighting. If they want help, they have to reach out. If
> they are determined to intellectually bludgeon one another, all we
> can do is prepare our ideas, here in this forum into a document, and
> humbly submit it to of those tribal leaders that might be receptive?
>
> Maybe someone that reads this solicit from the devs a list of
> grievances and we can begin drafting documents that the devs can
> comment on and we continue the process until 'the beast is soothed' ?
>
> Does anyone think they can get cooler heads among the devs to
> participate in a process like this, or something similar?  I do not
> know any of the devs enough to know who to approach.....
>
>
> ???
>
> James



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Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
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