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anello
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 Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Dralnu wrote: | | Don't use a dev for the lead. That may help. |
Nope, if you want to lead you have to know your playground!
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Dralnu
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| anello wrote: | I wouldn't include users so much. Users tend to dream too much and not realize what it takes and don't deserve as much of a voice as developers do but I would still include users in trivial questions like package removals or things that really influence users in their common usage.
Or make a quota like 2/3 devs - 1/3 users. |
You take a good chance in this of the devs still doing whatever they want which I think is a problem. There are problems that have not been fixed and other things that are needed.
One problem at a time, though.
Something that might be a decent half-way point would be to have the users elect the lead dude. With the devs as a supervisors, and helping him with some decisions, I think it would be a decent fix to both problems. This, then, could allow for userrel to be reimplemented as a mediator of the general user public to the lead, who could then figure out ways to fix problems they are having as a whole, and dealing with other main problems there may be.
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anello
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Dralnu wrote: | | anello wrote: | I wouldn't include users so much. Users tend to dream too much and not realize what it takes and don't deserve as much of a voice as developers do but I would still include users in trivial questions like package removals or things that really influence users in their common usage.
Or make a quota like 2/3 devs - 1/3 users. |
You take a good chance in this of the devs still doing whatever they want which I think is a problem. There are problems that have not been fixed and other things that are needed. |
Why? The chancellor has the last word on everything, he is supposed to limit the devs and the coucil(s) is/are there to supervise and limit/drop the chancellor if it(the chancellor) gets out of hand.
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Brainfart
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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| anello wrote: | I wouldn't include users so much. Users tend to dream too much and not realize what it takes and don't deserve as much of a voice as developers do but I would still include users in trivial questions like package removals or things that really influence users in their common usage.
Or make a quota like 2/3 devs - 1/3 users. |
Users tend to make requests that are not always feasible, but if the distro is run by devs, it'll end up getting used by devs... only. If anything, the users should be more in charge of running the show, but there has to be some checks to make sure that the devs aren't being pushed around and are actually still willing to dev. If it weren't for dreamy users, we'd lose a lot of push for more usability. Better to have them dreaming and the devs bringing them back to reality than to not have them at all... |
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cokey
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Dralnu wrote: | | cokehabit wrote: | So how about this structure:
| Code: |
Gentoo F�hrer
/ \
/ \
* *
Gentoo council Users council
/ \
* *
Developers Users |
It would mean the F�hrer (German for guide) would answer to both councils but would have executive control in disputes between the two. Internal disputes in the parties would be fix by all 3
It seems pretty simple if you ask me |
Decent. I fixed your diagram btw. Easier to read and understand now. |
lol, only when you quote it
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Dralnu
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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| anello wrote: | | Dralnu wrote: | | Don't use a dev for the lead. That may help. |
Nope, if you want to lead you have to know your playground! |
Thats why you have the devs council as an assistantt ohelp him make decisions.
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Dralnu
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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| anello wrote: | | Dralnu wrote: | | anello wrote: | I wouldn't include users so much. Users tend to dream too much and not realize what it takes and don't deserve as much of a voice as developers do but I would still include users in trivial questions like package removals or things that really influence users in their common usage.
Or make a quota like 2/3 devs - 1/3 users. |
You take a good chance in this of the devs still doing whatever they want which I think is a problem. There are problems that have not been fixed and other things that are needed. |
Why? The chancellor has the last word on everything, he is supposed to limit the devs and the coucil(s) is/are there to supervise and limit/drop the chancellor if it(the chancellor) gets out of hand. |
Gving the devs the power to drop him sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. Whats to keep them from dropping him, or trying to repeatedly, to try and get someone in power that will let them do whatever the hell they want. From what all I've seen, this is a bit more of a problem then some people might think.
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Dralnu
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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| cokehabit wrote: | | Dralnu wrote: | | cokehabit wrote: | So how about this structure:
| Code: |
Gentoo F�hrer
/ \
/ \
* *
Gentoo council Users council
/ \
* *
Developers Users |
It would mean the F�hrer (German for guide) would answer to both councils but would have executive control in disputes between the two. Internal disputes in the parties would be fix by all 3
It seems pretty simple if you ask me |
Decent. I fixed your diagram btw. Easier to read and understand now. |
lol, only when you quote it |
No. I had to move it around some. I looked like Gentoo and Council were the only two in the field, and Users Council was just kinda floating there 
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anello
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Brainfart wrote: | | anello wrote: | I wouldn't include users so much. Users tend to dream too much and not realize what it takes and don't deserve as much of a voice as developers do but I would still include users in trivial questions like package removals or things that really influence users in their common usage.
Or make a quota like 2/3 devs - 1/3 users. |
Users tend to make requests that are not always feasible, but if the distro is run by devs, it'll end up getting used by devs... only. If anything, the users should be more in charge of running the show, but there has to be some checks to make sure that the devs aren't being pushed around and are actually still willing to dev. If it weren't for dreamy users, we'd lose a lot of push for more usability. Better to have them dreaming and the devs bringing them back to reality than to not have them at all... |
So devs can't/don't dream and don't use the distribution? 
I'm sure that you just want to point out that users are a important part of the whole and I certainly agree on that, but the devs shouldn't be underestimated. In the end users are only using the distribution and devs are putting the effort in it to run the "right" way. Maybe the users council should consists of actually helping users that are known to assist devs in some way. But this is difficult to track so I would rather leave users out.
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cokey
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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the developer council and the user council should be exactly the same, same amount of people, same power, same responsibilities
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anello
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Dralnu wrote: | | anello wrote: | | Dralnu wrote: | | anello wrote: | I wouldn't include users so much. Users tend to dream too much and not realize what it takes and don't deserve as much of a voice as developers do but I would still include users in trivial questions like package removals or things that really influence users in their common usage.
Or make a quota like 2/3 devs - 1/3 users. |
You take a good chance in this of the devs still doing whatever they want which I think is a problem. There are problems that have not been fixed and other things that are needed. |
Why? The chancellor has the last word on everything, he is supposed to limit the devs and the coucil(s) is/are there to supervise and limit/drop the chancellor if it(the chancellor) gets out of hand. |
Gving the devs the power to drop him sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. Whats to keep them from dropping him, or trying to repeatedly, to try and get someone in power that will let them do whatever the hell they want. From what all I've seen, this is a bit more of a problem then some people might think. |
It's not the devs, its the devs council ... which is elected from all, so it should be a fair mixture which would avoid your scenario. If not, then why not just drop the whole thing ...
If people don't want to work together, why the hell hold on to?
We are not the people to decide this anyway ...
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anello
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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| cokehabit wrote: | | the developer council and the user council should be exactly the same, same amount of people, same power, same responsibilities |
define users council! What are they actually doing besides having power and dreaming?
and who would be the candidates? I don't see only people that actually influence gentoo mostly in a positive way would be voted. I see a popularity contest and thats the worst thing to happen!
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tante
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 7:48 pm Post subject: |
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| anello wrote: |
That chancellor should act like a dictator. And dictators aren't always a bad thing ... clear instructions, decisions and aims are all benefits of it. And there is still room for democracy if the "dictator"/lead isn't too bossy. |
man democracy
A dictator is either antidemocratic or not a dictator. And most problems that people try to solve by installing a "strong leader"/dictator somewhere kinda work as long as the dictator is benevolent and are screwed if things change.
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anello
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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| tante wrote: | | anello wrote: |
That chancellor should act like a dictator. And dictators aren't always a bad thing ... clear instructions, decisions and aims are all benefits of it. And there is still room for democracy if the "dictator"/lead isn't too bossy. |
man democracy
A dictator is either antidemocratic or not a dictator. And most problems that people try to solve by installing a "strong leader"/dictator somewhere kinda work as long as the dictator is benevolent and are screwed if things change. |
Thats exactly why he should act like and not be a dictator and of course not too bossy 
PS:
English is not my native language so excuse misunderstandings.
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Gergan Penkov
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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I don't get it why are these three snob trolls still around, isn't there someone to just ostracize them - they are just as cancer for gentoo.
And still don't see how could they get away with all this - they are badmouthing almost every developer out there - as if they are the geniuses of the universe or god know what - just some petty cambridge and such PhDs <- WE DON'T NEED THEM!
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Brainfart
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:33 pm Post subject: |
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| anello wrote: | So devs can't/don't dream and don't use the distribution?
I'm sure that you just want to point out that users are a important part of the whole and I certainly agree on that, but the devs shouldn't be underestimated. In the end users are only using the distribution and devs are putting the effort in it to run the "right" way. Maybe the users council should consists of actually helping users that are known to assist devs in some way. But this is difficult to track so I would rather leave users out. |
I wasn't trying to say cut developers, I'm just saying don't cut non-dev users. Developers are obviously users and obviously are very important for keeping the distribution alive (moreso with Gentoo than others). But they shouldn't be dominating it per se. If developers are making most/all of the decisions, it's quite likely that some good ideas will be skipped over and it's quite likely that the distro will become heavily slanted towards developer-type users. It seems like we need the distro to become more attractive to a general Linux user population rather than appealing mainly to developer-type users. I'm not trying to say that we should become the next Ubuntu, or even compete with it (it has a very newbish target audience), but there have been QA issues in the past and it seems like more people are leaving Gentoo than are coming in.
[edit:] and threads like "Which distro will you switch to?" and "Has Gentoo lost its edge?" don't seem like good signs...  |
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cokey
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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| anello wrote: | | cokehabit wrote: | | the developer council and the user council should be exactly the same, same amount of people, same power, same responsibilities |
define users council! What are they actually doing besides having power and dreaming? |
I am not sure completely, it was a thought to get gentoo out of the mess it is in now and replace devrel with a council made up of developers (which we have), a council of users and an authority figure.
I suppose the idea was to liquidate those responsible for developer relations and spread that through the users and the developers. But instead of having just a huge forum of 100,000+ developers and users voting on every point we have a parliamentary system consisting of 2 chambers (the users and developers councils) and a Dictator/Führer/Prime Minister. The groups would have the say on the running of gentoo and anything that couldn't be sorted would be sorted by the Führer
| anello wrote: | | and who would be the candidates? I don't see only people that actually influence gentoo mostly in a positive way would be voted. I see a popularity contest and thats the worst thing to happen! |
it would be nice to see people from different languages and i would definitely like to see one person with little gentoo experience (but the rest having gentoo experience)
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TheCoop
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 10:43 pm Post subject: |
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I can't remember which project does it, but there's one which has a 'rotating dictator' - the dictator for one year is picked randomly out of an initial pool of devs, and the dictator is swapped round to a new person every year/6 months/etc. A varient of this might work...
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slonocode
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:11 am Post subject: |
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IMO the real problem is that gentoo as a distro has lost any identity, any driving purpose, any goals.
These squabbles seem more like symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself.
It used to be that gentoo offered the most up to date packages and the tradeoff was the lengthy install process and manual configuration. It used to be that a good gentoo install ran faster/snappier than the big binary distros. These days ubuntu, suse, fedora are all comparable to gentoo in terms of speed. It used to be that you needed the ultimate control and configurability to get a nice desktop. These days the big binary distros do a good enough job of giving a nice desktop. It used to be that maintaining gentoo was actually fairly painless after the initial investment in the install and configuration. These days one has to live on the forums and scour mailing lists to keep a working system.
The binary distros have advanced to the point that many of the advantages that gentoo offered are irrelevant. And in the case of up to date packages often are ahead of gentoo.
Gentoo needs a purpose and some goals to work towards. Something that will give it back an identity and relevance. Something that makes the extra time to maintain it worthwhile.
Someone or something needs to be able to chart a course and at that point you either work toward the goal or leave. |
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Dralnu
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:09 am Post subject: |
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| slonocode wrote: | IMO the real problem is that gentoo as a distro has lost any identity, any driving purpose, any goals.
These squabbles seem more like symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself.
It used to be that gentoo offered the most up to date packages and the tradeoff was the lengthy install process and manual configuration. It used to be that a good gentoo install ran faster/snappier than the big binary distros. These days ubuntu, suse, fedora are all comparable to gentoo in terms of speed. It used to be that you needed the ultimate control and configurability to get a nice desktop. These days the big binary distros do a good enough job of giving a nice desktop. It used to be that maintaining gentoo was actually fairly painless after the initial investment in the install and configuration. These days one has to live on the forums and scour mailing lists to keep a working system.
The binary distros have advanced to the point that many of the advantages that gentoo offered are irrelevant. And in the case of up to date packages often are ahead of gentoo.
Gentoo needs a purpose and some goals to work towards. Something that will give it back an identity and relevance. Something that makes the extra time to maintain it worthwhile.
Someone or something needs to be able to chart a course and at that point you either work toward the goal or leave. |
++
A solid, good goal would be needed for anything. Something the users AND the devs can agree on.
The comment about making Gentoo into something more user-friendly I think would be kind of counter-productive. I'd like to see Gentoo with a small community, but a community that, each person may not be able to do everything, but as a whole could recode the kernel (bit of an exageration, but you get the idea). Fewer "Let me do it for you" programs (GUI installer, anyone?), and more of "Ok, exactly how much of this do you REALLY want?" (stage1/2 installs, for instance).
With linux slowly gaining popularity, there will be those of us who wish for a system of our own, not one that has been handed to us with the thought of "Well, the user needs X, Y, and Z", but where its more "Ok, I need X, want to test out Y, and lets scrap Z". Give the user the choice.
This may sound like it would be focusing on a dev-type user base, but what I'm suggesting is a desktop that yes, could be called a dev distro, but also supplied the general user with a good, solid system they could learn on. Leave it up to Ubuntu, Red Hat, SuSe, and the other distros and whatnot make life easy(er) for the user. Let Gentoo make the user choose what they want done instead of telling them what they will do.
This is what I'd like to see in Gentoo myself, and what I could see it having a future in. Like was said, the bin distros are catching up to us (I think Arch is pretty much on par with us, actually), so we need to find ourselves a nice, warm corner to settle down into and make Gentoo into what it was - something faster, newer, and more configurable then whatever else is out there.
OT: I actually could see a nice little joint project (or a few) with Arch. From what I can tell, the two could easily do quite a bit together - One focusing a sort of binary Gentoo, and the other with a source-based system the user has full control over. From everything I've seen, Arch seems to be going in a similar direction as Gentoo could/should/would, so I think a combination of dev power between the two would be an interesting venue, even if just to see the results of such an agreement.
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mudrii
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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I see an paradox in this thread I don't see much of devs involvement.
The devs should remember that in one way they serve the user base and I think that users or user representatives should decide about the way the conflicts should be handled.
I so many interesting ideas from users that really wont to help to move forward.
Radical changes could be very bad for Gentoo we need more process base decision making a meta-continuation beyond perception.
Nobody is perfect what is more important specialist or human side.
In western culture specialist is the winner in Asian culture the Human is in charge.
Can we combine both worlds ?
All big things starting with small steps in organised order with strategy in mind before becoming true.
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cokey
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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| mudrii wrote: | | I see an paradox in this thread I don't see much of devs involvement. |
apart from a few good developers like genone uberlord and nightmorph, quite a few have a long history of completely ignoring the users, thats why userrel and the userreps were created
| mudrii wrote: | | The devs should remember that in one way they serve the user base and I think that users or user representatives should decide about the way the conflicts should be handled. |
but the devs are those who implement them, it's a stalemate. Thats why you should bring users into the decision making process
| mudrii wrote: | I so many interesting ideas from users that really wont to help to move forward.
Radical changes could be very bad for Gentoo we need more process base decision making a meta-continuation beyond perception.
Nobody is perfect what is more important specialist or human side.
In western culture specialist is the winner in Asian culture the Human is in charge.
Can we combine both worlds ?
All big things starting with small steps in organised order with strategy in mind before becoming true. |
no-one is willing to come here and discuss anything though. Get devrel and the council here, have an open forum and let the users ask questions, that would be superb. But they wont so they dont
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ashtophet
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Drainu wrote: |
we need to find ourselves a nice, warm corner to settle down into and make Gentoo into what it was - something faster, newer, and more configurable then whatever else is out there.
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IMO Gentoo has already its corner and didn't lose its 'personality'. It's still the distro I choose years ago: source based, giving me almost absolute control about the system I want. During these years, I dind't see any significant break on Gentoo's path.
About the representation of users idea, I don't think we users should be deciding the developing roads of Gentoo. We have right now ways to interoperate in developing process (filling bugs, for requests, additions, etc.). If any user want to go any further, the better way would be to became a dev her/himself. A bicefally (or 'tricefally') ruled Gentoo won't be the solution to the problems that this distro has (users gaining power of decision cannot be logically aimed to solve problems regarding devrel ---maybe yes to the opposite---).
P.S.: Sorry in advance for my crappy english. |
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Conan
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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So uhh, i'm sure you can answer me this simple question...
What exactly gives the users the right to choose what the devs work on? |
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Dralnu
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Conan wrote: | So uhh, i'm sure you can answer me this simple question...
What exactly gives the users the right to choose what the devs work on? |
It seems we are the ones who notice the problems more and more. We (those that have some clue what they are doing) have a good idea on what needs to be done to fix various problems, while the devs basically just keep piling crap into already broken code, and classify the thing as "Good Enough", while ignoring the need (not want here, NEED) to fix various an asundry issues.
If you havn't noticed, I'm pretty much talking about Portage in length here, as it is a rather heafty problem which just seems to grow while even the devs will tell you, adding anything to it is becoming almost impossible due to the bad coding pratices, but they won't recode the whole thing like it needs to make it usable and developer-friendly again.
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