[gentoo-user] Through the looking glass: Reflections on Gentoo

[Ivan Sakhalin]

Dear friends and fellow Gentooists,

	I apologize for intruding onto your mailinglist, but what I wish to say is of
great enough importance to me. My contributions are not much to speak of, and
I've been silent for a long time. So I guess, like many before me, I will be
stoned as a heretic instead of being listened to - that, my friends, is your
prerogative as freethinking humans, but I must ask you to hear me out and
think about what I say, not what I am.

	Now, our memories of the past are not always as thruthful as we would like
them to be, selective memory is what makes some large things small and some
small things large. So let us not idealize the past as if it had no problems,
but let us try to keep a perspective on how things have changed, evolved
maybe, into what they are now and what they may become.

	Many good people, having all attained the rank of full developer, have
retired, with a noticeable increase in the last trimester or so. Some have
retired to avoid all the political tomfoolery that kept them from enjoying
their work, some left as they found something else to fill that special place
in their heart. Some, sadly, did not feel they could contribute enough as
real life took its toll - may they find some time in the future. And a very
selected few, regrettably, were retired against their will.
	These removals even went outside the ranks of developers - the hostile
takeover of some IRC channels has caused unneeded tension between groups that
should cooperate. It is a sad day when the appearance of a gentoo developer
may be the first sign that your channel will now be censored and people
removed that have dissenting opinions.

	While the politics around these cases make rational discussion quite difficult
	it is obvious even to outsiders that this is not in the spirit of the
original Gentoo Metadistribution - it even violates many of those so-called
rules that were created to help the interaction between people from wildly
divergent backgrounds.
	Devrel, as it stands, has always been controversial as everyone saw a
different use for the rather unneeded concentration of power in the hands of
a few people. But when people are denied an appeal and devrel unilaterally
decides, ignoring policies and common sense, what is one supposed to think?

	So then, while that part is hard to discuss, I point at another issue:
Everything that is not official (for certain undefined values of official -
objectivity seems to be lost on many humans) is attacked, torn apart and
insulted. A great example of that is the Sunrise Overlay, which has become
quite a success, with a few of the community members becoming devs - at the
same time I see with sadness that at least one dev has retired because of
Sunrise. What madness there is when people leave such a great project because
they can't let other people live in peace. It is this meddling in all affairs
that crushes the spirit of freedom with a heavy boot - but as you all are
volunteers it is hard to understand how you can treat each other like that.
Tolerance, my friends, doesn't cost you much and will bring you much good
karma.

	Now, you that have read this far may wonder, what is my point? Quite simple,
comrades. It is a warning I bring you, and I ask you to stop for a moment and
reflect upon the situation we have right now. It seems that a small group of
developers have ursurped power, leaving any checks and balances behind them
to shape Gentoo in the image they see, not caring for any losses they cause.
It can not be in the interest of a community to be ruled by such a group -
even among devs equality is hard to find as som just have to be better than
others.
	I ask you not to redo the errors of the past and remember the lessons
learned - there is so much that needs to be done, but no single person has
the strength to do them. Cooperate you must, my friends. Only when you leave
the infighting and bureaucracy behind can you aspire to true greatness.
Beware though, as I do not claim to have all the answers you want. Not a
single person, but only a group can find a solution to such a comples
interwoven technical, social and political problem.

	What is there to be done? I give you a few ideas in the hope of catalysing a
solution, but it is not I who will be able to apply any changes.

	- Review of the organization and distribution of power
        - Reduce the rules so that things can be done without a week of
discussion for every small idea
        - When a group can decide arbitrarily without needing the support of
any democratic counterweight, what is the point of any voting? Make sure that
noone has too much power.
	- Analyse the fluctuations in developers
        - how many retire because of political reasons?
        - how many are recruited?
        - how can the environment be improved so that people can enjoy their
work and not care about silly problems?
- Ignore the existing problems, fork and pray that you can do better

	It is here that I must interject with another problem - some groups complain
that they are understaffed, but reject candidates just because; some groups
obviously can't manage on their own but deceive themselves into believing
they are doing fine and refuse any help. Some groups are not doing what their
group should be and attack people that try to do what they refuse to do.
	There are good parts, of course, but when such a "let it go" starts affecting
central services is intolerable.  If the IT staff at a company were to fail
like this at keeping important parts of the infrastructure up and running
they'd be sanctioned, reprimanded and maybe even removed - but in gentooland
criticism is criticized as unpatriotic. After about 10 months finally
bugzilla got moved, an amazing feat that should not have taken that long,
especially  seeing that people tried to help and were refused.

So, with that being said, I hope that things change for the better.
	 Good day to you all.

Sincerly yours,
Y.Sakhalin
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