Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's future directtion ?

[hasufell]

On 11/23/2014 12:20 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 5:44 PM, hasufell <hasufell@g.o> wrote:
>> On 11/22/2014 11:20 PM, Rich Freeman wrote:
>>>
>>> Nobody can block progress under the current model.  If you feel
>>> otherwise, please point them out so that they can be dealt with.
>>>
>>
>> They can block progress and they do. And by saying we allow conflicting
>> ideas in one repository we are even making it worse.
>>
>> The council is a workaround to make the broken project structure not
>> look too bad.
>
> What do you do if somebody blocks progress in your overlay structure?
> You start another one.
>
> What do you do if somebody blocks progress in the current Gentoo
> project structure?  You either ask the Council for help, or start
> another project.
>
> You have just as many options under the status quo, and actually more.
>

Why would that be? We have a centralized _culture_. All this is
basically about culture, not just about tools.

So regrouping is not as easy as you make it sound. Totally not. I don't
like ruby eclasses and their virtuals. What can I do? Fix them? No, I
cannot. Stop saying I can fix everything I please. That is incorrect and
our model makes it even more complicated, because all that stuff is part
of the tree.

You say I can fix the nethack bug? Well, I talked with various people on
how to do that, the basic idea was to stop using the games eclass. That
is NOT possible unless you suggest we break QA standards and cause major
inconsistencies in our tree. (the other possible fix just slipped my
radar and will probably happen soon)

>>
>> I strongly disagree. I know a fair amount of games overlays where people
>> do work on games ebuilds. They just don't give a sh*t anymore to try to
>> get that stuff into the main tree, because they were alienated long ago.
>
> Well, then by your argument there is nothing wrong, since they're
> already in the distributed model.  There is nothing I can do about
> people feeling alienated.
>

First of all they are not really in a properly designed distributed
model as I described just because they run an overlay. Most of them end
with ::mynick, are randomly themed and not reviewed.

Again: this is a culture thing and we have to make ourselves some
policies on how this can work well.

Random overlay != distributed model.

Second thing: sure can we do something about people feeling alienated. A
lot. We can:
* abandon CVS finally
* have proper contribution channels (NOT bugzilla)
* kickban major assholes from the community, no matter how efficient
they are
* kickban people from IRC channels that make fun of your first ebuild
(that's my first experience with gentoo btw... that guy is now a gentoo
dev as well)
* have a _working_ comrel project
* fix project internal communication... it's unbelievably bad
* stop the way we are recruiting, it's utterly tedious
* ...

> If you want to contribute to Gentoo, then do it.  If somebody blocks
> your progress then ask for help.
>

You don't understand. It's not just about blocking progress, it is about
_diverging_ ideas that cannot sanely be given as alternatives in a
SINGLE REPOSITORY.

> What I can't stand is people moping about their feelings being hurt
> from umpteen years ago.  I can't go back and fix the past.  Get over
> it - contribute or don't.
>

This is rude. Please stick to the topic, it's not about my feelings.

>>
>> The image of the games team is so bad, that not even gentoo devs bother
>> anymore (except me, uh). Yet neither the council, nor comrel has done
>> anything radical, except giving recommendations, asking for them to
>> elect a new lead, blah blah.
>
> The games team has ZERO power over any dev doing anything to any
> package in the tree.  That was the outcome of the most recent Council
> decision.  We didn't disband the team because we thought that having a
> team focused on games wasn't a bad idea, but so far nobody else seems
> all that interested so it seems as likely as not that there won't be a
> games team in the future.
>
> How is that not doing something radical?  What more do you want us to do?
>

Again: there are various people who have a different concepts of how
games in gentoo should look like. So we can either start breaking tree
consistency (and I hope QA will kickban us for doing so, because that's
exactly their job) or we just stop doing everything centralized and let
things happen... which concept is the most popular one will then turn
out by itself!

That's how opensource works. Writing stuff modular, so that people don't
have to fork the kernel, just because they don't like the icon theme.

>>
>> It's not about elitist old-timers, it's about a more dynamic model that
>> has low tolerance for
>> * bugs being open since 8+ years, because no one bothers to
>> review/change stuff (check nethack bug)
>> * territorial behaviour
>> * slacking devs slacking so hard, but not stepping down
>
> The reason the nethack bug is still open is because nobody cares
> enough to fix it.  ANYBODY can make themselves a maintainer of Nethack
> right now and fix the bug.  The reason that the Nethack bug is still
> open is because you apparently care enough about it to post about it,
> but not enough to fix it.  I'm not going to fix it, because I don't
> use Nethack.
>
> The issues you bring up were an issue in the past, and nobody really
> has any tolerance for it these days.  You keep bringing up past issues
> that have been fixed, which really sounds to me like a demonstration
> that we're running out of real current issues to fix.
>
> If there is somebody blocking progress on something, by all means
> point it out.  However, it needs to be a case where somebody is
> actually trying to do something, not just complaints about all the
> great stuff that could get done if somebody cared enough to even try.
>

You are being specific again, looking for a person, a project or
whatever that's not behaving.

I am looking at the contribution culture and our model and see that it's
not working and it's getting worse.

We are talking about two different things, apparently.


> The problem is that most of the overlays don't support everything in
> the main tree.  For example, right now it is REALLY painful to run qt5
> on a stable box, because the qt5 overlay just introduced changes
> making it incompatible with stable qt4.  That sort of thing is likely
> to get worse rather than better in a distributed model.
>

Low quality ebuilds, miscommunication and the like happen regularly in
our current closed-fashion gentoo project. I can only see communication
improve in a distributed model, because it CANNOT ever work without it
(cause there are not 200 people with push access, lol).

> Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more overlay support.  I'm all for
> reform when there is something to reform.  However, in all your
> complaints about developers causing conflicts you're actually becoming
> part of the problem.  You're basically coming across as being
> impossible to satisfy, because you bring up vague complaints without
> anything that anybody can act upon, and I find it rather frustrating
> personally as these sorts of issues are something I'm really committed
> to fixing.
>

Again: you are confusing a specific incident with my proposal of a
distributed model. I was just bringing it up as an _additional_ argument
why I find the distributed approach more interesting... because it makes
it easier to regroup and abandon toxic people without having to fight
them for years.

Nothing of what I say is vague. It is already implemented and I pointed
it out. If you refuse to look at it or recognize it, then that's not my
fault.