Gentoo fork???!

Message

kikawala · Post by **kikawala** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:12 am

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/06/26/0 ... 06&tid=185

iamlarryboy · Post by **iamlarryboy** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:34 am

I have read most of Zach's rant and it disturbs me. Much of what Zach is complaining about seems to be dealt with by the Gentoo top-level management structure proposal. However, the most important part of his claims, the "business" part, are not. I of course will hear D. Robbins out as well.

Regardless, I think the Gentoo project needs to CLEARLY establish what is bussiness and what is not. This should, hopefully, prevent these claims frum being made in the future.

The way I see it this whole affair is nothing but bad news. I hope and pray it all works out.

TheCoop · Post by **TheCoop** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:37 am

i wonder if the stuff about the management reorganising was done before or after drobbins read this article...

Reformist · Post by **Reformist** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:40 am

Shocking. Interesting nonetheless... I would also like to hear if Daniel Robbins has anything to add/comment upon.

bsolar · Post by **bsolar** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:47 am

This is the announcment in gentoo-dev.

This reply from Daniel Robbins is interesting, just a quote:

Daniel Robbins wrote:I will not make any attempt to correct your account of events, even though
they contain numerous gross exagerations, innaccuracies, massive "spin," and
false insinuations that I am ripping people off, just in my initial scan of
what you wrote. Littered with lies, and slanderous, certainly.

nemiak · Post by **nemiak** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:53 am

I can empathize with Zachary T Welch's reasons for a fork.

I have been using Gentoo on all my work and home systems for more than a year and i wouldn't want to use any other existing distribution -
but the seemingly closed nature of Gentoo development and the behaviour of some of Gentoo's management does disturb me (especially the exclusive/secret mailing lists, and the less than crystal clear commercial status of Gentoo organisations).

It is sad that Gentoo has such a vibrant, involved and supportive community - a community that does not get nearly enough consideration from Gentoo management, in my opinion.

I will reserve the right to change my opinion after hearing a response from Gentoo and Daniel Robbins, but this is not the first time a developer has been driven from Gentoo.

bsolar · Post by **bsolar** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:57 am

Moved from Other Things Gentoo.

bcavalieri · Post by **bcavalieri** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:09 am

zzzzzzz I read the whole rant http://www.zynot.org/info/fork.html

I have been using Gentoo for production servers and the company I work for is rolling out Gentoo servers in many schools around the U.S.

And would never consider using an os built on someones anger than on sound principles. If that person were to get angry again, where would Zynot be?

-Bill

LJ · Post by LJ » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:10 am

I was a little curious about that myself. Hopefully the gentoo top level management will be a little more open with what they do. The mailing list should be open and I think a little more QA needs to go into gentoo before it's really ready for production machines.

There does need to be some way or another to ensure portage tree and ebuild integrity.

Mnemia · Post by **Mnemia** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:17 am

This post to gentoo-dev by avenj seems relevant to me.

Gentoo is going to go non-profit soon.

This, if true, makes me feel a lot better about most of the issues raised in that rant. I think that mostly this "fork" is about greed and clashes of ego, but there are also real issues for the Gentoo leadership to grapple with. Chief amongst these is the for-profit status of Gentoo and its relationship with other entities such as Gentoo Games, etc. I think that if we had a non profit foundation I'd at least *feel* a lot better about the motives of everyone involved. I think something like the Mozilla.org/Netscape relationship could be ideal, with the for-profit side working together with the open source project.

bcavalieri · Post by **bcavalieri** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:17 am

nemiak wrote:I can empathize with Zachary T Welch's reasons for a fork.

I will reserve the right to change my opinion after hearing a response from Gentoo and Daniel Robbins, but this is not the first time a developer has been driven from Gentoo.

Developers come and go, I've seen people leave commercial company's with the same complaints. The number one reason usually is that they put to much weight into their ideas, or are not patient enough for their ideas to catch on.

Does Gentoo or Daniel Robbins need to reply? I don't need to hear anything, Gentoo speaks for itself, and the community will make the decision.

I don't think Gentoo Management should be more open with what they do, I was a debian user for a long time, but since so much was open to discussion, never seems like anything was happening.

-Bill

ptman · Post by **ptman** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:19 am

I think he should have waited for GLEPs (Gentoo Linux Enchancement Proporsal, or something like that, sorry for my english), as they seem to become the ultimate way in which users of Gentoo can affect choices of the management.

nemiak · Post by **nemiak** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:20 am

If Gentoo goes non profit, that and the recent re-organisation of Gentoo management may satisfy me.

Less cloak-and-dagger stuff with the exclusive mailing lists would be nice too.

Gentoo gains alot from the support of the Gentoo community - the least Gentoo can do is be open.

bsolar · Post by **bsolar** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:25 am

This is another dev that left some time ago and complained about Daniel Robbins (posted just FYI).

Mnemia · Post by **Mnemia** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:28 am

nemiak wrote:If Gentoo goes non profit, that and the recent re-organisation of Gentoo management may satisfy me.

Less cloak-and-dagger stuff with the exclusive mailing lists would be nice too.

Gentoo gains alot from the support of the Gentoo community - the least Gentoo can do is be open.

I completely agree. I will be more than happy with such a resolution of all this nonsense. I like Gentoo for how good a technology it is, but taking care of this overdue business can only be good for the project (and hence all of us) in the long run.

I agree that maybe the -core list should at least be readable by regular users. An ideal solution in my book would be to make the list invite only for posting (to reduce the extraneous noise) but make it readable to everyone (to increase openness and community support for the decisions of the leadership). If this is seen as a problem for business reasons, then maybe a seperate company should be formed for commercialization of Gentoo.

nalin · Post by **nalin** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:32 am

So in the case of gentoo is an "evil" fork a good thing or a bad thing? In seriousness, linux users are already faced with a plethora of distributions, the vast majority of which are extremely similar save some of the paths and installation interface, and the manner in which installation and updates are accieved (perhaps im oversimplifying).

The ugly proliferation of distro specific rpms aside, would it necessarily be a bad thing for another distro to adopt portage (albiet a distro that would likely steal some share of users), as it seems if anything that the fork, not unlike a better designed rpm system, would lead to a proliferation of content and better availability of programs in general. Though I realize that forks are not good, a distro by definition is nothing more them a collection of programs (though I like to think of gentoo as something more...nice people in the forums, hands-on-ed-ness, and one hell of an intemidating install...).

I think there is a large difference between forking emacs or the kernel or something that is inherently code based in its entirety, and something that represents ideas about how to package other code, and to a lesser extent utilizes new code.

I dont know, am really not trying to be flamed, I love gentoo, and thing a more constructive (albiet more ambitions) project might have been to build a new distro based on portage. Im not by any means knocking the developers or the community, rather I am trying to understand the threat/potential of this development...

nemiak · Post by **nemiak** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:35 am

Mnemia wrote: I agree that maybe the -core list should at least be readable by regular users. An ideal solution in my book would be to make the list invite only for posting (to reduce the extraneous noise) but make it readable to everyone (to increase openness and community support for the decisions of the leadership). If this is seen as a problem for business reasons, then maybe a seperate company should be formed for commercialization of Gentoo.

I agree, i would be happy if the -core list was readonly or moderated for regular uses.

A community organisation needs to have transparent and accountable leadership - openness is vital

lurid · Post by **lurid** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:39 am

First I have to say that I love Gentoo. I feel its the best distribution of GNU/Linux avalible. That being said, I've seen things all over the place about disliking the managment. Regardless of how good the product is, the comments made in the reasoning for the fork article are unique in experience, but not in tone. I've personally come across a lot of dissension amoung users at the way in when the Gentoo devs do things.

I hate to highlight things like this, but there is a clear example of the egotistical attitudes of Gentoo devs here (and the corresponding garbage political crap that ensued). This doesn't imply that everyone involved with the development of Gentoo is a bad person, but my personal experience as well as reading about others experiences makes this "reasoning for a fork" article all the more believable.

Naturally it will be some what biased and one sided, as all storys are when both sides are in disagreement. I take whats written with a grain of salt, however I see where he is comming from. I've never had a personal one-on-one correspondance with drobbins, but I get the sense of an almost RMS style arrogance about him. And I see that this follows through with other devs as well.

Again, I don't dislike Gentoo or its community, but these kinds of backyard shenanigans can only hurt the reputation of Gentoo as a whole. It was stated over and over in the fork article that drobbins is definately interested in for-profit business, and if this is the case, then I believe that he should act as such. That being: ethical, responcible, open, and fair. This man did a great deal of work for Gentoo and was basically kicked to the curb.

I have to cry 'foul' on this one, guys.

DrkPlague · Post by **DrkPlague** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:01 am

as a developer who was about to enter the gentoo ring, this has made me think twice about helping. I don't really want to get into personal politics, but I know that I will be watching this along with a lot of the development community. At this point all we can do is wait and see what happens yto our beloved distrobution.

antik · Post by **antik** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:02 am

kikawala wrote:http://slashdot.org/articles/03/06/26/0 ... 06&tid=185

Something rotten in Gentoo kingdom...

Skip.za · Post by **Skip.za** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:02 am

I'm really not worried. If drobbins is a complete raving control freak it does not really affect me as I'm not a developer. As long as the project remains under GPL and continues to move forward I'm happy regardless of managerial style.

It really only affects the developers who come into contact with drobbins and if he is as bad as the guy who is forking is claiming he is then there will be a mass exodus of developers and Gentoo will stagnate and eventually die.

So until that happens I'm sticking with ye olde Gentoo.

bcavalieri · Post by **bcavalieri** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:02 am

lurid wrote:
Naturally it will be some what biased and one sided, as all storys are when both sides are in disagreement. I take whats written with a grain of salt, however I see where he is comming from. I've never had a personal one-on-one correspondance with drobbins, but I get the sense of an almost RMS style arrogance about him. And I see that this follows through with other devs as well.

I have to cry 'foul' on this one, guys.

1) I have had correspondance with Mr Robbins, and found him polite and prompt.

2) Mr Welsh seems to think all of us Gentoo users owe him for everything that is Gentoo. He was a contributer like hundreds of other people. While each contribution is very important, when you start thinking you are "IT" when it comes to a project, then its time for that developer to pack their bags and move on.

3) I want no knowledge of whats being chatted about between the developers. I get this almost xfiles like feeling from some of the posts about the private list. Like I mentioned in some above posts, why would we want to slow down development, by having people who aren't going to be doing the work, constantly shooting wholes in it before its even done.

Let them work, Gentoo has been growing in leaps and bounds, and that won't continue if each time the developers bounce ideas off each other a flood of fud consumes them. And if a developer's idea doesn't get accepted, and they can't handle it, then watch for another fork, I'm sure Zynot is going to have the same problems, and you will see a XYZnot.

And if want a feature bad enough, pay for it, or do the work yourself and submit it as a patch. I have sponsored work for Etherboot, when I couldn't get a change made quick enough by the developers, I found one that would for not much money. And like magic I had what I needed.

-Bill

Hypnos · Post by **Hypnos** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:16 am

bcavalieri wrote:Let them work, Gentoo has been growing in leaps and bounds, and that won't continue if each time the developers bounce ideas off each other a flood of fud consumes them. And if a developer's idea doesn't get accepted, and they can't handle it, then watch for another fork, I'm sure Zynot is going to have the same problems, and you will see a XYZnot.

I second that. While it's disappointing to learn that there are personal animosities (justified or otherwise) among the Gentoo developers, what matters ultimately are the value of the distribution and the forward momentum (which gives some indication of future value). Gentoo exhibits both of these at present in my estimation, so let's wait and see, and enjoy their work in the meantime.

asimon · Post by **asimon** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:17 am

lurid wrote:It was stated over and over in the fork article that drobbins is definately interested in for-profit business, and if this is the case, then I believe that he should act as such. That being: ethical, responcible, open, and fair.

Unless your comment was ironical it doesn't make sense to me. Isn't is well known that one makes more money if he's unehtical, irresponsible, closed, and surely not fair? I think this can be easily verified by regulary reading the business part of the news paper.

Have fun,
Andreas

bsolar · Post by **bsolar** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:33 am

asimon wrote:Isn't is well known that one makes more money if he's unehtical, irresponsible, closed, and surely not fair?

I expected this, given your avatar...

Gentoo fork???!

Gentoo fork???!

Oh oh.

GLEP

Re: Gentoo fork???!