Should the Gentoo trustees accept Daniel Robbins offer?

DanZ · n00b Joined: 24 Sep 2004 Posts: 47 Location: Erie PA USA

Drobbins has my support. All things being equal, I believe he has at heart the best interests of Gentoo.

Nerdanel · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:32 am Post subject:

I think Gentoo is currently on autopilot and coasting on sheer inertia, but little problems are being left unaddressed, giving them time to accumulate into big problems. I think something radical should be done. I support the return of drobbins. Things were better when he was at the helm.

zeek · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:46 am Post subject:

Gentoo needs Robbins!

Sodki · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:55 am Post subject:

rambam · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:57 am Post subject:

dano · n00b Joined: 25 Jul 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Hawaii

as a user on and off for the past 3-5 years I would have to say that there has definitely been changes (for the worse) since he left. no newsletter (doesn't have to be weekly), front page updates, online package database is very broken (used to be browseable/searchable), and the general quality of the portage repository (very subjective here). I don't necessarily blame the individuals responsible for the features listed above, rather I believe it's a symptom of a much larger problem. My company just went through a (painful) year of restructuring but in the end we're in infinitely better shape. And it started with an external entity buying a bunch of shares and getting seats on the board.

Besides, he was one of the originators of the project. Look at Apple since Steve Jobs came back. $4/share -> $172/share.

I love Gentoo and I would be sad (and very busy unnecessarily) if it were to really suck or disappear altogether.

-d

M · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 432

No, gentoo doesn't need Robbins, nothing is wrong with gentoo, in fact everything is just fine. I been using gentoo for 3 years now, and for that time I notice just improvements, what are you talking about... What, there is no 2008 stages and no gwn updates and suddenly gentoo is in crisis? And here comes the Robbins to the rescue...

LemurFromTheId · n00b Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 64 Location: Finland

Well, one thing has been proven already: something is seriously wrong. As I'm writing this, 127 votes out of 139 or 91% say 'yes' to Mr Robbins, which strongly suggests that the trustees don't have the trust of the community. Even if everything else is going well — and I am open to the possibility — this in itself is a major problem.

I openly admit I don't know the current situation all that well and and I don't really know what should be done about it either (and I probably belong to the majority, even though everyone seems to have an opinion) but of this I am sure: this should be addressed openly, publicly and with all speed by our benevolent leaders. Mr Robbins deserves an answer, but more than that, the community deserves an answer.

AllenJB · Veteran Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 1285

My big question is what is Gentoo doing about the whole situation, drobbins offer or no? There's like 1 post to gentoo-dev and apparently no mention of the situation anywhere else. I would've expected to see atleast some discussion on remedies by now, but to me it looks like the people who are expected to be discussing this (the Trustee's) are either all awol or have decided to resign because this situation happened in the first place (which seems like a damn stupid reason to resign to me).

From what I've seen so far, while Gentoo may not die totally without resolution of this situation, I think the danger is one day the devs who are working hard on Gentoo will "come to work" and find all the doors locked and the lights switched off.

Gentoo does need leadership, and better than it's had in the past couple of years IMO.

simon_irl · Guru Joined: 07 Oct 2004 Posts: 403 Location: New Zealand

i agree with those who are saying we need more information before we can make a well-informed vote on this one...however, i also regard this fact in itself (i.e the lack of information as to what's going on in terms of gentoo's development and leadership) as suggesting that a change would be good for gentoo. by this i mean that keeping the community informed is an important part of responsible leadership, and this responsibility seems to have been neglected. in a recent thread i asked whether gentoo's missed release and dead website indicated that gentoo was in poor health: i was assured that they did not, and that gentoo was doing fine. now a few days later i see drobbins claiming that gentoo is in crisis and offering to fix things.

i am not claiming that the forum members who were kind enough to answer me were wrong nor that drobbins is right, nor even that the issues are so simple that anyone is simply "right" or "wrong" about them. my point (re information) is merely that it's frustrating trying to learn about gentoo's leadership via hearsay and rumour. why should i have to try to make sense of different claims in these forums, irc, or whatever? as a member of the general public, i should be able to find out about gentoo by referring to an official source of information (e.g. the website). if drobbins is wrong, how am i supposed to know this? i'd love to visit www.gentoo.org and see "the release is delayed because bla bla, which is being taken care of by bla bla, and is now scheduled for bla bla. drobbins has offered to take over and appoint new trustees, and while we think bla bla about this, we also think bla bla bla. in other news..." etc. the fact that the flow of information from that one source (the website) has dried up may be, as i've been told, a poor criterion for judging the health of the distro: but is judging it based on the views of forum members any better? "official" voices may not represent "the community" as well as the cacophony of different voices in here, but they might at least represent the *leadership* of the community, which is after all what we're discussing.

while i'm not voting in this poll (because, as a relatively inactive community member who isn't using gentoo at present, i have even less information to work with than most gentoo users do) i'm inclined to think that if gentoo's leaders (trustees, developers, whatever) don't regard things like the website as having much importance, then i would likely vote for new leaders with different ideas about what looking after gentoo involves. so again, while i agree that we don't have enough information here, i also think that the lack of information is itself a point in favour of change.

MoonWalker · Guru Joined: 04 Jul 2002 Posts: 510

xahodo · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:30 am Post subject:

Well, Drobbins return is nearly fine with me... except that a few questions are unanswered.

Who will he install as trustees?
What will he do with gentoo when he's president of the foundation?
What will he do once things are up and running again?

NOTE: I'm only a user, and rarely have a need to visit the forums, irc or the mailing lists. But I do care what happens to gentoo.

percy · n00b Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 8

Kosa · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:38 am Post subject:

Presently, I am moving my servers to Ubuntu, simply because I lost my faith in Gentoo. It looks like pilots are away and autopilot is slowly taking plane down. I do not need information, feeling is enough for me. Staging looks dead, GWN is dead, p.g.o had been dead for many days before someone posted explanation and it took months to get it into current state (pretty unusable without search anyway).

Btw. need of information is a bad sign too - it means that trustees/council/whatever do not speak with community.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:47 am Post subject:

Grahammm,

There are lots of new posts in this thread I would like to respond to but it would just become too confusing.

The Gentoo Foundation and Gentoo Council were deliberately set up as two separate bodies. I recall that drobbins had a hand in that decision as he left the first time. They have responsibilities in different areas:-

The council looks after Gentoos Technical direction. For example, it arbitrates when developers want to do something but cannot agree that one method is superior to all others, so that they can just do it. The council is transparent. It holds regular meetings in #gentoo-council which anyone may attend and recently, speak. Logs and summaries are also posted.

The Foundation is charged with looking after Gentoos Legal interests and holding Gentoos assets. I'm not aware if its supposed to be as transparent as the council but it doesn't appear to be in practice. However, nobody should conclude that the Trustees are doing nothing because it appears they are not communicating. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Gentoo is full of people with technical interests, the council had to be elected as there were more people interested in serving than seats on the council. The election for new Trustees was never held as there were too few nominees to fill the seats. Agian, this reflects interests within Gentoo.
The trustees need to be interested in law and management. There are fewer people in Gentoo with those interests.

Given the split in roles between the council and trustees, both bodies need to agree to drobbins conditions as there are conditions that fall under both bodies. drobbings can't just 'fix it' unaided, so who will and how ?
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

MoonWalker · Guru Joined: 04 Jul 2002 Posts: 510

NeddySeagoon,

thanks for the clear description of Foundation vs. Council
_________________
/Joakim

Living on earth is expensive, but it includes a free trip around the sun
every year.

Grayman · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:08 pm Post subject:

Hello

I have been using Gentoo for several years now, dual booting with XP, trying out different distros and always coming back to Gentoo (I'm a control freak on the comp). However I have started to be concerned that while the technical side may be running well enough at the moment (and grateful for that!), there are other signs of things going wrong. That bless'ed front page is just a symptom of a lack of interest in some areas.

It is possible that the tiny snowball might become a wall of snow in time - and it is possible that Daniel might not be the fix that Gentoo needs, but at the moment I get the feeling (and YES it is just a feeling garnered from reading on the forums...) that things are slowing down, that Gentoo is not as good as it might be.

My vote would be to get Daniel back in - he started the project - maybe he can get it all fired up and boogying again !

Grayman

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:20 pm Post subject:

Grayman,

"... maybe ..." is exactly my point.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

agnitio · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 17 Apr 2004 Posts: 136

I've been a dedicated gentoo user for years now and it's the only distribution that has let me do things the way I want.

This recent development concerns me, as does the risc of this discussion blowing the issue way out of proportion. I feel that I don't have enough information about how things worked with robbins behind the wheel, but as others have mentioned there's a feeling that gentoo is lacking direction.

For me, I feel this is the time to step up, as I've said I've been a dedicated user, but I have not contributed much, other than the occational bug report here and there. I want to know what I can do to help this situation, I'm sure that Gentoo will live on one way or the other, and I'm equally sure that I want to be a part of it, what can I do?
_________________
Magnus Ahlberg - http://www.svart-katt.se

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:36 pm Post subject:

agnitio,

The situation is not a recent development, its been developing since drobbins left the first time.
What is new is that this developing situation has been raised as an issue that needs to be fixed quickly.

But does it ?
Its existed for several years.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

AllenJB · Veteran Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 1285

MoonWalker · Guru Joined: 04 Jul 2002 Posts: 510