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| Should the Gentoo trustees accept Daniel Robbins offer? |
| yes |
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91% |
[ 638 ] |
| no |
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8% |
[ 58 ] |
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| Total Votes : 696 |
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soulless
n00b
Joined: 05 Oct 2005
Posts: 2
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 Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:12 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| douglas_goodall wrote: | | Code: | This page is a candidate for deletion
Reason given: Not a good topic for this wiki. This is a short term situation which will be resolved by the devs. Use the gentoo forums for discussion.
... |
After spending some time reading all the forum traffic about this issue, I started to get a feel for the situation. The problem as I see it, is that everyone can see quite clearly the situation from their own perspective. Towards the end I could see that some enlightened people were looking at the middle ground and trying to find a solution that worked for everyone. Here are several of my observations for what they are worth.
It is a lot of fun to immerse yourself in technological work and create elegant solutions. I have spent many years writing operating system code myself. In fact years ago I was self employed working on my own version of a popular operating system, and while I was distracted being the most important person at my company (the developer), I ignored the mundane business issues around me, and a business partner stole my company out from under me. There were two important lessons learned from this by me. One was that I was only a member of the team, and while everyone can't write hardware drivers like me, everyone in the company had a job to do, and when everyone did their thing, business went along fine. I was too important to distract myself with mundane business issues, and I let things get away from me. It is a privilege to be allowed to write code instead of doing less interesting but nonetheless important jobs such as technical support and writing documentation. I learned that if you are too arrogant about your occupation, you can find yourself in a situation where people don't want to work with you, and suddenly you are not so important after all. Also we learn from our life experiences, and in the 20-20 hindsight we often have regrets about how we handled things and how other people responded to us.
I think Daniel has had time enough to consider his interaction with others at the gentoo project, and right now it looks to me like he understands that someone needs to take care of less fun things like management issues. On some level I am sure he would rather be eating pizza and writing code, and enjoying the company of his technical comrades. If the people who had a difficult time with him before don't allow him to change and grow, they will in effect keep him in a little box with his regrets. Right now he wants to take a chaotic situation and straighten it out so that developers can continue taking pride in their work and users can continue to enjoy using the gentoo operating system, and that is of course the centrally important value for everyone.
I am sorry to hear that, "This is a short term situation which will be resolved by the devs." This is not only a developer problem. The project lacks central management. When a company reaches a certain size, and a product reaches a certain complexity level, the project priorities can not be determined by developers unilaterally. I think the developers are used to working on the parts that the like or are interested in, but in the real world, team members pull for the team, and do what is needed for the benefit of everyone and that means some sacrifice sometimes.
Daniel has generously offered to do what he can to help the project now in its time of need. If he is a little vague about all his plans, it may be that he has considered and committed to the less fun business tasks and realities and has not planned every aspect of the future other than he wants to do a good job for the sake of the project.
I would be more impressed with the gentoo developers if they would pull together and make things work with a new management team instead of straining to keep things the same as they have been. Change is the natural state of things. Sometimes change is exciting. When a huge project for an important client happens, a truck full of great computers can arrive. Or extra developers can arrive for a while to help with difficult development tasks. Change is not always bad. Some of what there is to learn is project management and the mentoring of younger engineers. I encourage the developers to take a wider view of things, and to share the pending decisions with the other stakeholders, for this challenge affects many other people besides them. |
That is what I also want to say. Gentoo as a Distribution can not just live with Code and Devs. In this World there also needs to be done some stuff no Coder likes to do. But someone needs to do it. If the devs find someone who will take care of this that's fine. But if the devs will not find someone and drobbins is the only person around that has enough knowlegde and the will to do this job ...... what other choices are there?
Continue like the last months will not solve everything but Bugs.
Of course I want to thank the devs for the good work on the Code!
But also I hope that in a soon time I can thank someone for the good work getting the legal stuff done ..... whoever this will be. |
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Ibn al-Hazardous
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 02 Sep 2004
Posts: 133
Location: Somewhere deep in the desert.
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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| dalek wrote: | | ravloony wrote: |
I feel sure I'm not alone. |
Nope, you're not alone.
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Most certainly not alone... 
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AllenJB
Veteran
Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 1285
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:17 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| Ibn al-Hazardous wrote: | This is a fallacy because, a) your measurement is made during a time period so short as to be statistically insignificant, and b) it coincides with the holiday period. I bet you'll see a lot more retirements in March/April for the simple reason that people have a lot to do at work/school - and it's in the middle between holidays.
Also, I fail to see how a retirement during the period would have impacted the planet. (Wasn't it suffering from lack of love btw? Would it have been updated?) As for the mailing list, how do we see what/how many people are subscribed, and how do we know retired devs are unsubscribed in a timely manner? |
I have no other reliable sources that I know of to use, unfortunately, so I picked the best I could think of. Many devs post to their blogs when they retire, and as such it appears on planet. Recruitment is easier since new dev notifications are usually put on to one of gentoo-devel or gentoo-devel-announce. But surely if devs are leaving in droves right now, we should have seen some signal within the past 3 weeks?
I'm trying to point out again that people keep posting that devs are bundling out the door at a huge rate, but never provide any evidence. This is because they can't. IT IS NOT HAPPENING! |
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dleverton
Guru
Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 517
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:18 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| Ibn al-Hazardous wrote: | and none of them will step up to the plate. Right?  |
If they did that, they'd be devs. Which sort of proves the point. |
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Slalomsk8er
Apprentice
Joined: 03 May 2003
Posts: 228
Location: Münchenstein, Switzerland
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:20 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| AllenJB wrote: |
What status quo? If the developers leave, and assuming no one "turns out the lights" on their way out, all the donated hardware will be pulled (I'm assuming that basically literally all the developers leave here, meaning the companies donating the hardware will hear of the event) and all the mirrors will stagnate / shutdown and the users will be left with nothing. |
That sounds far more possible then your last version of the theoretical event of "all developers leave the project". But still this would leave the users some possibilities to work against the dead of there beloved distribution. And that was my point: the project is not dead for sure if the developers leave the project. But one could argue, that the developers superseed the users and are users them selfs, so that if the users leave the developers are gone too
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astinus
Retired Dev
Joined: 19 Jan 2005
Posts: 27
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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| nihilo wrote: | That's a very good point, and I can appreciate that if he is truly difficult to work with, then that presents a serious problem. But how many of the devs who worked with him way back in the day (not the latest aborted attempt to join the fold again) feel the same way?
I, like a lot of users, have very fond memories of things running better, better communication between devs and users, less acrimony, etc., back when drobbins was in charge. Was it the case that only the users were happy, and the devs hated working with him then, or are most of the 92% of the devs just taking at face value what a vocal minority has said? |
There are still quite a few Developers around who either worked with Daniel, or were just joining the project and seeing the direct aftermath. Personally I was just joining I'd seen a few things in #gentoo-dev and on the mailing lists around that time which gave me "cause for concern" - on one hand it seems a good thing that our Chief Architect was departing, on another there was a void, with a big question needing to be filled, namely "How is Gentoo going to be run now?".
Lots of the people who've stated why they think it's a terrible idea gave compelling reasons. I'm not at liberty to post those, I respect the privacy of said list. However I have no problem with making my reasons public and have done so very vocally earlier in this thread.
To try and keep things simple: drobbins worked well when the project was tiny, we were still on the old numbering scheme for releases back then. There was a small core of 'hardcore' developers, the Portage tree was a *lot* smaller than it is today, even though Treecleaners are cutting down on the stuff which isn't maintained. It was a different landscape back then  Most of the concern, I believe, emanates from the fact that internally the project was showing fairly major stress fractures by the time Daniel left, caused by his leadership style. Attempting to force that same leadership style onto a much larger project, as Gentoo Linux is in 2008, would likely cause very bad things to happen IMO.
| nihilo wrote: |
| astinus wrote: | | Things are underway to try and fix the status of the Gentoo Foundation in New Mexico. The announcements for www.gentoo.org are in the final stages of drafting and will be up soon. |
That's good to hear, but it is really indicative of deep problems that things got to this state in the first place. |
It's very difficult to get people to undertake such work. There's no glory in handling legal paperwork, having confidential discussions with our pro-bono lawyers. Most of us got into the project to assist in a technical role, not to shove paperwork around Add to that the legal ramifications, you effectively become a Trustee and are bound by various United States law, even if you live abroad...
Last time we proposed an election, we couldn't even get the minimum number of people required to run it. Hence why there aren't new Trustees for this year. |
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AllenJB
Veteran
Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 1285
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:26 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| Slalomsk8er wrote: | | AllenJB wrote: |
What status quo? If the developers leave, and assuming no one "turns out the lights" on their way out, all the donated hardware will be pulled (I'm assuming that basically literally all the developers leave here, meaning the companies donating the hardware will hear of the event) and all the mirrors will stagnate / shutdown and the users will be left with nothing. |
That sounds far more possible then your last version of the theoretical event of "all developers leave the project". But still this would leave the users some possibilities to work against the dead of there beloved distribution. And that was my point: the project is not dead for sure if the developers leave the project. But one could argue, that the developers superseed the users and are users them selfs, so that if the users leave the developers are gone too |
For the purpose of this scenario, I always assume a clear split where "developers" are official developers and contributors and "users" are those who simply use the software without contributing any code or documentation (any kind of purely support role including answering posts on forums/irc and anything related to gentoo-wiki doesn't count as development).
As with any open source project, there would always be a possibility to use the code already in place - however if the devs leave, (in this scenario mainly because they feel that they can't work with Gentoo any more for whatever reason) they'll likely set up their own new project (which won't have any users but themselves to start - which is how all OSS projects start anyway, proving my point that "users" are unnecessary). |
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Kloeri
Retired Dev
Joined: 02 Sep 2002
Posts: 144
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:27 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| AllenJB wrote: | I have no other reliable sources that I know of to use, unfortunately, so I picked the best I could think of. Many devs post to their blogs when they retire, and as such it appears on planet. Recruitment is easier since new dev notifications are usually put on to one of gentoo-devel or gentoo-devel-announce. But surely if devs are leaving in droves right now, we should have seen some signal within the past 3 weeks?
I'm trying to point out again that people keep posting that devs are bundling out the door at a huge rate, but never provide any evidence. This is because they can't. IT IS NOT HAPPENING! |
https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=ALL+retire is a much better indication of the "global retirement status" as all retirements are tracked on bugzilla. Do note that most of the retirements are due to inactivity and not people leaving on their own request. |
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Kasumi_Ninja
Veteran
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 1825
Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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| NeddySeagoon wrote: | kernelOfTruth,
| kernelOfTruth wrote: | | Neddy plays (played ?) |
Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated
[With thanks to Mark Twain] |
Lol 
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Kasumi_Ninja
Veteran
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 1825
Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Gerard van Vuuren wrote: |
At 80 I am not capable of contributing software so doing any |
Your 80?!
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bmichaelsen
Veteran
Joined: 17 Nov 2002
Posts: 1277
Location: Hamburg, Germany
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:28 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| AllenJB wrote: | | I have no other reliable sources that I know of to use, unfortunately, so I picked the best I could think of. Many devs post to their blogs when they retire, and as such it appears on planet. |
And shortly afterwards their blogs disappear from the planet ... |
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leifbk
Guru
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 415
Location: Bærum, Norway
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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I've been a Gentoo user since 1.4, and I'm all for the return of drobbins. Maybe the devs who can't work with him should fork their own distribution.
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Naib
Watchman
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6051
Location: Removed by Neddy
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:33 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| Kloeri wrote: | | AllenJB wrote: | I have no other reliable sources that I know of to use, unfortunately, so I picked the best I could think of. Many devs post to their blogs when they retire, and as such it appears on planet. Recruitment is easier since new dev notifications are usually put on to one of gentoo-devel or gentoo-devel-announce. But surely if devs are leaving in droves right now, we should have seen some signal within the past 3 weeks?
I'm trying to point out again that people keep posting that devs are bundling out the door at a huge rate, but never provide any evidence. This is because they can't. IT IS NOT HAPPENING! |
https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=ALL+retire is a much better indication of the "global retirement status" as all retirements are tracked on bugzilla. Do note that most of the retirements are due to inactivity and not people leaving on their own request. |
but even that aint accurate
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=199912
taken as a link from what you posted
and a few others as well
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astinus
Retired Dev
Joined: 19 Jan 2005
Posts: 27
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:33 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| AllenJB wrote: | | Using the gentoo-devel ml and planet-gentoo, Gentoo lost 0 developers and gained 2 developers for the period 22nd December to present. WHERE ARE THE RETIREMENTS? The only one I specifically remember relatively recently was uberlord, who is still effectively working for Gentoo, but split off baselayout into openrc (so that other distro's can use it easily, afaik). |
I think he wanted to integrate stuff into OpenRC which was meeting opposition within Gentoo, particularly POSIX stuff? But yeah, getting it working on other platforms is a goal too. I was extremely sorry to see him go and hope he'll be back eventually, he's a great guy.
Last edited by astinus on Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Slalomsk8er
Apprentice
Joined: 03 May 2003
Posts: 228
Location: Münchenstein, Switzerland
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:34 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| AllenJB wrote: | | Slalomsk8er wrote: |
That sounds far more possible then your last version of the theoretical event of "all developers leave the project". But still this would leave the users some possibilities to work against the dead of there beloved distribution. And that was my point: the project is not dead for sure if the developers leave the project. But one could argue, that the developers superseed the users and are users them selfs, so that if the users leave the developers are gone too |
For the purpose of this scenario, I always assume a clear split where "developers" are official developers and contributors and "users" are those who simply use the software without contributing any code or documentation (any kind of purely support role including answering posts on forums/irc and anything related to gentoo-wiki doesn't count as development).
As with any open source project, there would always be a possibility to use the code already in place - however if the devs leave, (in this scenario mainly because they feel that they can't work with Gentoo any more for whatever reason) they'll likely set up their own new project (which won't have any users but themselves to start - which is how all OSS projects start anyway, proving my point that "users" are unnecessary). |
It looks to me as we both have our logically valid points then
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Ibn al-Hazardous
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 02 Sep 2004
Posts: 133
Location: Somewhere deep in the desert.
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:35 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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| dleverton wrote: | | Ibn al-Hazardous wrote: | | and none of them will step up to the plate. Right? |
If they did that, they'd be devs. Which sort of proves the point. |
No, if they did that, they'd become devs.
My point being that gentoo doesn't live and die with the majority of the current developers. I'm tired of us users being treated like a bunch of freeloaders. We contribute testing, advocating, documentation, help on the forum, and a bunch more. Since gentoo is hardly a noob distro, most of us are fairly acomplished - and quite capable of stepping up if there is to be an exodus of developers. The reason I haven't, is that the current breed of devs is quite intimidating at times.
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AllenJB
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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| leifbk wrote: | | I've been a Gentoo user since 1.4, and I'm all for the return of drobbins. Maybe the devs who can't work with him should fork their own distribution. |
Yes, lets split the developer community in 2 (not very equal parts from what I've heard) to try a solution which may not work anyway. Sorry, but I'd rather the devs looked for a solution that didn't split the community horribly. |
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Kloeri
Retired Dev
Joined: 02 Sep 2002
Posts: 144
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:39 pm Post subject: Re: Not only a developer problem to be resolved by the devs |
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Right, some people like jakub should simply be banned from bugzilla so he couldn't fill it with such crap - despite that it is the most accurate picture you can get. |
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nixnut
Bodhisattva
Joined: 09 Apr 2004
Posts: 10974
Location: the dutch mountains
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:45 pm Post subject: |
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I'm locking this thread now. It has served its purpose in my opinion. The percentage of users in favour of handing gentoo back to drobbins has been consistently over 90% right from the start.
The discussion has turned to issues that while somewhat related have no direct bearing on the poll. And it has turned rather unfriendly here and there. Continued discussion does not seem to be contributing to the issue at hand and is likely to escalate to name calling and other kinds of behaviour we're not too fond of.
Thank you for your input everybody.
regards,
nixnut
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MarcNBarrett
n00b
Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:59 pm Post subject: Yes, we should accept Daniel Robbins' offer |
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Take a look at this link:
http://www.gentoo.org/
The 'Gentoo Weekly' Newsletter' hasn't been published in nearly THREE MONTHS!! Maybe we should call it the 'Gentoo Weakly Newsletter' instead.
Or, take a look at this one:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/
In particular, take a look at item #7. Obviously, a 2007.1 release was originally planned, but other matters interfered and so it was never done.
I know what people say about the 'official releases' that they aren't necessary, that you can always install an old release and do an emerge update, but these releases also serve as an indicator of the life of a distribution. The fact is, if you look at Gentoo from an outsider's perspective (like me, I use Fedora, and haven't touched Gentoo in about three years), then Gentoo appears DEAD. No GWN, no official releases, nothing.
Let Daniel Robbins back in. If he totally screwed everything up, it would be better than the way things are right now.
[Merged to the sticky - NeddySeagoon] |
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TheNewOsiris
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Posts: 91
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| Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 4:03 pm Post subject: Agreed |
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I completely agree with you.
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Square Bottle
n00b
Joined: 03 Nov 2006
Posts: 16
Location: San Francisco, CA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:35 pm Post subject: Decision Deadline Regarding Return of Daniel Robbins |
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This thread is not a place where you should argue for or against his return, as there are other threads for that, so be extra mindful of what you post. This thread is being made to encourage a decision to be made one way or another.
What will the criteria be for reaching a final decision? Will we have a poll on a certain day in which Daniel Robbins must achieve a certain percentage of the vote, or will certain respected members of the community be appointed as delegates to decide?
I suggest deciding on the method of reaching a solution by January 17, and then actually using that method to decide if Daniel Robbins should return should occur on January 21.
[Mod edit by NeddySeagoon
Duplicate post merged here] |
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