Gentoo leaves democracy

[1clue]

[...] that is a poor analogy, the relation is not unidirectional, I'm not a consumer, I'm a community member. When I answer a forum post, submit a bug report, etc, etc, I'm producing, not consuming, and that production makes me a shareholder (via sweat equity). Also, the goods involved here are not simply an "operating system", or a source tree ... there is the community!

Cisco has a forum too. When I post there, they should give me voting membership in the company? How ridiculous is that?

1clue ... the "ridiculous" aspect is your inability to grasp the difference between gentoo, a "community" project, and Cisco, a commercial entity. You get there by ignoring the specifics of what's being argued, and so are free to hop from "democracy" (of the sort that comes from "acting together for common mutual benefit") to "voting membership in the company" ... truly ridiculous. Does Cisco also have "for the community, by the community" in its charter?

Have you heard of "appropriate channels?" Are you saying that there is absolutely no other way to voice your opinion to the people who make decisions than the dev mailing list? Again, ridiculous.

Where in that charter do you see any reference of equality between users and devs? Where do yuo see any reference of users having unimpeded access to every communications channel in the organization?

It's pretty clear to me that the move to deny posting privileges to non-developers on that mailing list is to get the discussion back to the original intent of the mailing list: Discussion between developers.

You participate in this forum. So do I. People get value from some of the things you post, and you get value from some of the things others post. Your investment is in the community of forum users, not in the software (either upstream or gentoo-specific) nor in any sort of managerial capacity or any other capacity that keeps the wheels of the distro turning.

I see, can you point me to any official document that delineates these separate domains of investment?

No. Can you point to any official document that proves otherwise? What sort of managerial privileges do you have because you're a forum user? What input do you have in apache.org's software changes? While I lack an official document backing up my claims, the evidence present seems to support my thesis.

Forum posts have value, but not all users post information which has value. Claiming some sort of vote for posting to what amounts to a social media combined with volunteer help desk seems a reach. You guys have made this argument before, and I disagreed with it then too.

Who's "claiming some sort of vote"? I've been arguing for something much more fundamental, and that is: everyone, regardless of their level of contribution, is included as a member of the community, and that membership of this community comes with both rights and duties ... rights in the form of inclusion ("for the community"), and duties in the form of participation ("by the community"). That's not particularly esoteric, and it shouldn't need arguing ... it's one of our "four pillars" of the document (the charter) that establishes our doing anything, for god sake.

We actually agree on something!

Edit: Actually mv is claiming some sort of vote. It's in the first post of this thread, and nearly every post he's made after that.

The thing is, though, that a mailing list specifically for developers should be, in my understanding, specifically for developers. In the entire world of software development and software products (FOSS and non-free) and customer support, one of the most common distinctions is between users and developers. The developer list is there specifically for developers to talk among themselves without all the user noise, in order to help them focus on the task at hand.

[...] but no, car companies pay lobbyists who then dangle "jobs" over the heads of elected (and soon to be re-elected) representatives, who then give them sweetheart deals, and bailouts ... markets don't have anything to do with it.

But markets DO have something to do with it. The jobs and bailouts, no. Vibrancy, so to speak, yes. No users, no vibrancy/activity, no distro.

Only if you are prepared to argue that "monopolies are markets too".

You guys are simply railing at the perceived unfairness that you, hovering on a forum, are not considered as important as someone who develops software which is discussed on the forum.

Nonsense, you would like to typify it as having those qualities, but that is little more than an attempt to reduce the (separate) arguments into one easily digestible smear ...

The software can exist and be used without this forum, but the forum would not be here if there were nothing to talk about. You're saying that people who like to talk about Ford Motor Company and its products are as important as the people who design and build the vehicles, with respect to the existence of the company or the vehicles. I'm not talking about people who actually buy them, only those who talk about them.

You have your self a poor attempt at using a chicken & egg fallacy, but it only works if it was claimed that any of these things (ie, the community) were separable, and so function in the way you describe.

best ... khay

Of course software development is separable from community. I write software on my own, which is never distributed to anyone. Software without community.

There is no smear. Non-developers are not second-class citizens. A clear channel set up for a specific purpose, with restricted write privileges but unrestricted monitoring, is not a lack of democracy. There is no democracy here. Every aspect of commercial software is present except the exchange of money and the restriction of source code. Users use a product, and developers make the product being used. Producers and consumers. Like with anything else, the developers are consumers as well as developers, and the consumers likely develop something else.

I don't even understand your references to a single digestible smear or to a chicken and egg fallacy.

[khayyam]

[...] that is a poor analogy, the relation is not unidirectional, I'm not a consumer, I'm a community member. When I answer a forum post, submit a bug report, etc, etc, I'm producing, not consuming, and that production makes me a shareholder (via sweat equity). Also, the goods involved here are not simply an "operating system", or a source tree ... there is the community!

Cisco has a forum too. When I post there, they should give me voting membership in the company? How ridiculous is that?

[...] the "ridiculous" aspect is your inability to grasp the difference between gentoo, a "community" project, and Cisco, a commercial entity. You get there by ignoring the specifics of what's being argued, and so are free to hop from "democracy" (of the sort that comes from "acting together for common mutual benefit") to "voting membership in the company" ... truly ridiculous. Does Cisco also have "for the community, by the community" in its charter?

Have you heard of "appropriate channels?" Are you saying that there is absolutely no other way to voice your opinion to the people who make decisions than the dev mailing list? Again, ridiculous.

1clue ... what have "appropriate channels" to do with that I wrote above? I [post=8207526]came into this discussion[/post] in response to Neddy's "[g]entoo has never ever been a democracy", and have been arguing almost singularly the point that "acting together for common mutual benefit" is the constituting factor of a/our community, and that this is what makes for a "democracy" ("the rule of the many") ... all questions of "the procedures, regulations, etc" aside. Now I'm being made to answer to points I've never argued, as though mv and I are one and the same person, making one and the same argument. So, again, ridiculous.

Where in that charter do you see any reference of equality between users and devs? Where do yuo see any reference of users having unimpeded access to every communications channel in the organization?

Duh! ... "for the community, by the community", and there certainly isn't anything which privileges developers in some way. As for "unimpeded access", that isn't a question I need to address, though I might as well say I agree with mv that dev-ml should be open to all ... and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be, nor any positive statement in the charter which states it shouldn't (and legal documents are strictly by positive statement, not by absence).

It's pretty clear to me that the move to deny posting privileges to non-developers on that mailing list is to get the discussion back to the original intent of the mailing list: Discussion between developers.

That depends on whether you think that "dev" stands for "developer" or "development", and whether non-developers can be said to serve no purpose to the latter.

You participate in this forum. So do I. People get value from some of the things you post, and you get value from some of the things others post. Your investment is in the community of forum users, not in the software (either upstream or gentoo-specific) nor in any sort of managerial capacity or any other capacity that keeps the wheels of the distro turning.

I see, can you point me to any official document that delineates these separate domains of investment?

No. Can you point to any official document that proves otherwise? What sort of managerial privileges do you have because you're a forum user? What input do you have in apache.org's software changes? While I lack an official document backing up my claims, the evidence present seems to support my thesis.

I'm speaking of the separation you envisage between one member of the community, and another. That is explicitly non-existent in "the" official document, the charter, so there you have it, proof.

Forum posts have value, but not all users post information which has value. Claiming some sort of vote for posting to what amounts to a social media combined with volunteer help desk seems a reach. You guys have made this argument before, and I disagreed with it then too.

Who's "claiming some sort of vote"? I've been arguing for something much more fundamental, and that is: everyone, regardless of their level of contribution, is included as a member of the community, and that membership of this community comes with both rights and duties ... rights in the form of inclusion ("for the community"), and duties in the form of participation ("by the community"). That's not particularly esoteric, and it shouldn't need arguing ... it's one of our "four pillars" of the document (the charter) that establishes our doing anything, for god sake.

We actually agree on something!

I fail to see how that could be the case, you've argued that we (non-developers) are consumers, and as such are not "included" in domains beyond our involvement. That seems to me entirely contrary to the argument I'm making.

Edit: Actually mv is claiming some sort of vote. It's in the first post of this thread, and nearly every post he's made after that.

Not unless you conflate "involvement" with "some sort of vote", so no, I don't think he's claiming that at all.

The thing is, though, that a mailing list specifically for developers should be, in my understanding, specifically for developers. In the entire world of software development and software products (FOSS and non-free) and customer support, one of the most common distinctions is between users and developers. The developer list is there specifically for developers to talk among themselves without all the user noise, in order to help them focus on the task at hand.

Of the (non-gentoo) lists I subscribe to anyone can subscribe to devel lists, the distinction made is that these lists are for development, and not for user problems.

The software can exist and be used without this forum, but the forum would not be here if there were nothing to talk about. You're saying that people who like to talk about Ford Motor Company and its products are as important as the people who design and build the vehicles, with respect to the existence of the company or the vehicles. I'm not talking about people who actually buy them, only those who talk about them.

You have your self a poor attempt at using a chicken & egg fallacy, but it only works if it was claimed that any of these things (ie, the community) were separable, and so function in the way you describe.

Of course software development is separable from community. I write software on my own, which is never distributed to anyone. Software without community.

Please explain how in this specific case, namely gentoo, "software development is separable from community", your shifting frames of reference in order to make claims about questions that were never under question.

There is no smear. Non-developers are not second-class citizens. A clear channel set up for a specific purpose, with restricted write privileges but unrestricted monitoring, is not a lack of democracy. There is no democracy here. Every aspect of commercial software is present except the exchange of money and the restriction of source code. Users use a product, and developers make the product being used. Producers and consumers. Like with anything else, the developers are consumers as well as developers, and the consumers likely develop something else.

None of that makes sense, the "smear" was the various statements that go "you guys ... you just want, ugghh, equal". As for the rest, I can't keep restating what I've already made clear.

I don't even understand your references to a single digestible smear or to a chicken and egg fallacy.

The "single digestible smear", is in reference to how you conflated both my and mv's arguments, and then start telling us what you assume we guys want ... and the chicken & egg fallacy is in reference to the primacy you give to "software", and so fail take into account that there is a lot that has to exist for that software development to take place (such as infrastructure, financial donations to buy hardware to host that infrastructure, etc, etc, ad infinatum) ... all of this supposes a community (the point being argued) and so your "software can exist and be used without this forum", besides being misdirection, is fallacious chicken & egg stuff.

best ... khay

[Tony0945]

@Tony0945,

If you read that first link I posted, a republic is a form of government where a representative votes on issues on behalf of the populace. In the case of the USA, the representative is chosen by popular vote, and in the case of the President it's chosen by an electoral college loosely guided by the popular vote.

That's just somebody's definition, not what the words mean. The literal meaning of the words in their original languages is the same.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/republic?s=t

Are you really going to argue with the dictionary? Do you actually intend for us to take you seriously?

You made your point. I made mine.
God didn't write the dictionary.

[1clue]

@Tony0945,

If you read that first link I posted, a republic is a form of government where a representative votes on issues on behalf of the populace. In the case of the USA, the representative is chosen by popular vote, and in the case of the President it's chosen by an electoral college loosely guided by the popular vote.

That's just somebody's definition, not what the words mean. The literal meaning of the words in their original languages is the same.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/republic?s=t

Are you really going to argue with the dictionary? Do you actually intend for us to take you seriously?

You made your point. I made mine.
God didn't write the dictionary.

Surely he had nothing to do with the English language either. Nothing could be more messed-up or inconsistent than that.

[proteusx]

Democracy, republic, oligarchy, monarchy, dictatorship, or whatever the regime,
it is immaterial, as long as people are respected and their lives are
fulfilling, happy and prosperous. When the regime becomes incompetent and
corrupt, and senses the anger of its population, the rulers stifle the
justifiably angry voices by means of ridicule, exclusion and censorship.

During my first 8-10 years with Gentoo I cannot recall ever having a serious
complaint. The last couple of years is a completely different story. I have
been keeping a log of my annoyances. During the past year its length is
increasing geometrically. One day I may write it out properly and post it in the
forum.

It seems, sadly, that a few incompetent developers have parachuted lately upon
Gentoo. Here are some examples of their handiwork: Indiscriminate dropping of
packages, openrc, gentoo-sources, gcc, forcing the hardened style on the default
profiles. One feels that nowadays gentoo is run for the convenience of the
"bureaucracy" rather than its "citizens" (I hate the word user). Some gentooers
are unhappy and they voice their complaints; sometimes very strongly. One
cannot seriously expect those errant developers to apologize and mend their
ways, since most certainly they are convinced that they know best and that they
are doing the right thing. Censorship is only to be expected.

As for us, we have nowhere else to go. Fortunately Gentoo still provides the
means to do our own thing. You can choose to follow their "developments"
or ignore them and go your own way without leaving Gentoo completely.

[Proinsias]

For me, this is enough: I will probably switch distribution (hence stopping any explicit or implicit support of gentoo) when the policy really gets in force, and I hope that I will not be the only one.

What would you switch to?

[bammbamm808]

Gentoo is free, complex and superb. This is because of the efforts of volunteers who are doing a great job. No one is forcing anyone to use it, or even asking payment for it. It is quite possible to create your own linux distribution, or customize an existing distro until it is unrecognizable. But sure, demant input and complain, threaten to leave, though you are not a customer.

[1clue]

[...] that is a poor analogy, the relation is not unidirectional, I'm not a consumer, I'm a community member. When I answer a forum post, submit a bug report, etc, etc, I'm producing, not consuming, and that production makes me a shareholder (via sweat equity). Also, the goods involved here are not simply an "operating system", or a source tree ... there is the community!

Cisco has a forum too. When I post there, they should give me voting membership in the company? How ridiculous is that?

[...] the "ridiculous" aspect is your inability to grasp the difference between gentoo, a "community" project, and Cisco, a commercial entity. You get there by ignoring the specifics of what's being argued, and so are free to hop from "democracy" (of the sort that comes from "acting together for common mutual benefit") to "voting membership in the company" ... truly ridiculous. Does Cisco also have "for the community, by the community" in its charter?

Have you heard of "appropriate channels?" Are you saying that there is absolutely no other way to voice your opinion to the people who make decisions than the dev mailing list? Again, ridiculous.

1clue ... what have "appropriate channels" to do with that I wrote above? I [post=8207526]came into this discussion[/post] in response to Neddy's "[g]entoo has never ever been a democracy", and have been arguing almost singularly the point that "acting together for common mutual benefit" is the constituting factor of a/our community, and that this is what makes for a "democracy" ("the rule of the many") ... all questions of "the procedures, regulations, etc" aside. Now I'm being made to answer to points I've never argued, as though mv and I are one and the same person, making one and the same argument. So, again, ridiculous.

Appropriate channels have everything to do with it. I came into this discussion because Neddy is correct. This is not a democracy. That's the entire point of everything I've been saying. A commune is a community too, and based on all its members acting together for the common mutual benefit. On a small scale it is extremely effective. But it also is not a democracy. There is no intrinsic voting or equality of authority in a commune.

The way I see it, every time one developer calls another to invite him over for a barbecue, you guys want to be in on a conference call so you can offer your input. Because anything else will be a violation of your democratic principles that you've grafted into a situation which is completely uncalled for.

Where in that charter do you see any reference of equality between users and devs? Where do yuo see any reference of users having unimpeded access to every communications channel in the organization?

Duh! ... "for the community, by the community", and there certainly isn't anything which privileges developers in some way. As for "unimpeded access", that isn't a question I need to address, though I might as well say I agree with mv that dev-ml should be open to all ... and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be, nor any positive statement in the charter which states it shouldn't (and legal documents are strictly by positive statement, not by absence).

It's pretty clear to me that the move to deny posting privileges to non-developers on that mailing list is to get the discussion back to the original intent of the mailing list: Discussion between developers.

That depends on whether you think that "dev" stands for "developer" or "development", and whether non-developers can be said to serve no purpose to the latter.

Having browsed some of this mailing list, it seems to me to only contain topics of interest to developers and the day-to-day communication necessary for many developers to communicate.

You participate in this forum. So do I. People get value from some of the things you post, and you get value from some of the things others post. Your investment is in the community of forum users, not in the software (either upstream or gentoo-specific) nor in any sort of managerial capacity or any other capacity that keeps the wheels of the distro turning.

I see, can you point me to any official document that delineates these separate domains of investment?

No. Can you point to any official document that proves otherwise? What sort of managerial privileges do you have because you're a forum user? What input do you have in apache.org's software changes? While I lack an official document backing up my claims, the evidence present seems to support my thesis.

I'm speaking of the separation you envisage between one member of the community, and another. That is explicitly non-existent in "the" official document, the charter, so there you have it, proof.

And yet there are developers and users, and the privileges are different. There you have it, proof.

Forum posts have value, but not all users post information which has value. Claiming some sort of vote for posting to what amounts to a social media combined with volunteer help desk seems a reach. You guys have made this argument before, and I disagreed with it then too.

Who's "claiming some sort of vote"? I've been arguing for something much more fundamental, and that is: everyone, regardless of their level of contribution, is included as a member of the community, and that membership of this community comes with both rights and duties ... rights in the form of inclusion ("for the community"), and duties in the form of participation ("by the community"). That's not particularly esoteric, and it shouldn't need arguing ... it's one of our "four pillars" of the document (the charter) that establishes our doing anything, for god sake.

We actually agree on something!

I fail to see how that could be the case, you've argued that we (non-developers) are consumers, and as such are not "included" in domains beyond our involvement. That seems to me entirely contrary to the argument I'm making.

Everyone who uses Gentoo Linux is a consumer of Gentoo Linux. That includes developers and users both.

Do you argue that absolutely every forum user should be allowed to alter source code in the official repositories by default? Do you believe every forum user should have access to the bank account? Do you believe that every user should be enabled to make legally binding contracts between Gentoo and other organizations, provision websites to be paid for by Gentoo funds?

There is by unspoken necessity a separation of privileges between different categories of "community members." If that's not completely obvious to you then I guess we don't have much more to talk about.

Edit: Actually mv is claiming some sort of vote. It's in the first post of this thread, and nearly every post he's made after that.

Not unless you conflate "involvement" with "some sort of vote", so no, I don't think he's claiming that at all.

Read the forum topic. "Gentoo leaves democracy". Democracy is a form of government involving voting. Look at the first post. "So I feel the need to make public here that it was practically decided to destroy democracy in gentoo:
Allow write access to dev-ml only to developers and perhaps to a few explicitly allowed by developers. " Democracy. Voting. Influence over developer's decisions. "The non-democratic tendencies which came with certain developers in the previous years have won. " Voting. Power. Control.

The thing is, though, that a mailing list specifically for developers should be, in my understanding, specifically for developers. In the entire world of software development and software products (FOSS and non-free) and customer support, one of the most common distinctions is between users and developers. The developer list is there specifically for developers to talk among themselves without all the user noise, in order to help them focus on the task at hand.

Of the (non-gentoo) lists I subscribe to anyone can subscribe to devel lists, the distinction made is that these lists are for development, and not for user problems.

Unless the list has been misused as a political tool for people not necessarily even interested in the software in question to cause confusion. In those cases, the dev list is locked down at least for awhile.

The software can exist and be used without this forum, but the forum would not be here if there were nothing to talk about. You're saying that people who like to talk about Ford Motor Company and its products are as important as the people who design and build the vehicles, with respect to the existence of the company or the vehicles. I'm not talking about people who actually buy them, only those who talk about them.

You have your self a poor attempt at using a chicken & egg fallacy, but it only works if it was claimed that any of these things (ie, the community) were separable, and so function in the way you describe.

Of course software development is separable from community. I write software on my own, which is never distributed to anyone. Software without community.

Please explain how in this specific case, namely gentoo, "software development is separable from community", your shifting frames of reference in order to make claims about questions that were never under question.

OK guilty on that. Certainly software can be written without community but the specific software we're discussing here, the software used to glue upstream sources together into a distro, is a collaboration between developers and the subset of the community of users who actually care about the specific topic.

But there are other avenues of input which are actually more appropriate than a dev mailing list. Rather than putting proposed changes to something into a mailing list where it will get lost in the clutter of other discussions, that sort of thing should be in a bug report/feature request database. Which we can all get access to by simply asking for an id. That's the appropriate place for all relevant discussion, because everything related to the topic is saved together, in one place.

There is no smear. Non-developers are not second-class citizens. A clear channel set up for a specific purpose, with restricted write privileges but unrestricted monitoring, is not a lack of democracy. There is no democracy here. Every aspect of commercial software is present except the exchange of money and the restriction of source code. Users use a product, and developers make the product being used. Producers and consumers. Like with anything else, the developers are consumers as well as developers, and the consumers likely develop something else.

None of that makes sense, the "smear" was the various statements that go "you guys ... you just want, ugghh, equal". As for the rest, I can't keep restating what I've already made clear.

I don't even understand your references to a single digestible smear or to a chicken and egg fallacy.

The "single digestible smear", is in reference to how you conflated both my and mv's arguments, and then start telling us what you assume we guys want ... and the chicken & egg fallacy is in reference to the primacy you give to "software", and so fail take into account that there is a lot that has to exist for that software development to take place (such as infrastructure, financial donations to buy hardware to host that infrastructure, etc, etc, ad infinatum) ... all of this supposes a community (the point being argued) and so your "software can exist and be used without this forum", besides being misdirection, is fallacious chicken & egg stuff.

best ... khay

If that's a smear, then yes I made it. You're still wrong. There is no implicit or explicit permission for every forum user to have write access to every possible mode of communication within the Gentoo organization. That's not how ANYTHING works.

[Tony0945]

God didn't write the dictionary.

Surely he had nothing to do with the English language either. Nothing could be more messed-up or inconsistent than that.

At last we agree!

[mv]

What would you switch to?

Probably a large distribution, since it is better supported by some vendors and requires less manual work. Perhaps Ubuntu or Fedora; or Debian unstable or rolling release. I have also thought about arch, but this is too small and from what I've heard requires even more manual work than gentoo.

[Ant P.]

@Tony0945,

If you read that first link I posted, a republic is a form of government where a representative votes on issues on behalf of the populace. In the case of the USA, the representative is chosen by popular vote, and in the case of the President it's chosen by an electoral college loosely guided by the popular vote.

That's just somebody's definition, not what the words mean. The literal meaning of the words in their original languages is the same.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/republic?s=t

Are you really going to argue with the dictionary? Do you actually intend for us to take you seriously?

Look up the dictionary definition of "developer" while you're at it.

[Mr. T.]

This reflection on democracy is inappropriate in a forum talking about GNU / Linux. Most people exchange here to have a functional system and not to claim their freedom.
Freedom and capacity may be distinct.

[khayyam]

[...] the "ridiculous" aspect is your inability to grasp the difference between gentoo, a "community" project, and Cisco, a commercial entity. You get there by ignoring the specifics of what's being argued, and so are free to hop from "democracy" (of the sort that comes from "acting together for common mutual benefit") to "voting membership in the company" ... truly ridiculous. Does Cisco also have "for the community, by the community" in its charter?

Have you heard of "appropriate channels?" Are you saying that there is absolutely no other way to voice your opinion to the people who make decisions than the dev mailing list? Again, ridiculous.

[...] what have "appropriate channels" to do with that I wrote above? I [post=8207526]came into this discussion[/post] in response to Neddy's "[g]entoo has never ever been a democracy", and have been arguing almost singularly the point that "acting together for common mutual benefit" is the constituting factor of a/our community, and that this is what makes for a "democracy" ("the rule of the many") ... all questions of "the procedures, regulations, etc" aside. Now I'm being made to answer to points I've never argued, as though mv and I are one and the same person, making one and the same argument. So, again, ridiculous.

Appropriate channels have everything to do with it. I came into this discussion because Neddy is correct. This is not a democracy. That's the entire point of everything I've been saying. A commune is a community too, and based on all its members acting together for the common mutual benefit. On a small scale it is extremely effective. But it also is not a democracy. There is no intrinsic voting or equality of authority in a commune.

1clue ... no, they have nothing to do with what I wrote, you're not responding to specific points but collapsing everything into your pre-conceived idea of what x,y,z mean, and then holding that ideation up as my own. I've already explained in what way "the rule of the many" is constituted, and how this neither implies or requires "voting", or complete abandonment of the division of labour, etc, etc ... so your entire argument is little but a strawman. Neddy is only right in the sense that gentoo is not a de facto democracy, but that is not what I was arguing, I'm arguing that what makes it a democracy is the "working together for common mutual benefit", and that as gentoo is essentially a community project (as defined by its charter) parties are either doing that (and only that) or they are in violation of that principle. It is you that has taken this to mean that all parties are given commit rights, access to the bank account, etc, etc, and it is you who have the mistaken ideation that this equates to absolute "equality", and so try to dismiss the "common", "mutual", etc, as an impossible ideal ... in typical strawman fashion.

The way I see it, every time one developer calls another to invite him over for a barbecue, you guys want to be in on a conference call so you can offer your input. Because anything else will be a violation of your democratic principles that you've grafted into a situation which is completely uncalled for.

Yes, "the way you see it", only your way of seeing it is in essence nothing more than a strawman ... the way I see it is that if a form of political organisation doesn't guarantee me the exact same amount of barbecue ribs as everyone else gets then I'm going to whine about how bad reality is, and how this violates my rights ... because I'm all about entitlement.

It's pretty clear to me that the move to deny posting privileges to non-developers on that mailing list is to get the discussion back to the original intent of the mailing list: Discussion between developers.

That depends on whether you think that "dev" stands for "developer" or "development", and whether non-developers can be said to serve no purpose to the latter.

Having browsed some of this mailing list, it seems to me to only contain topics of interest to developers and the day-to-day communication necessary for many developers to communicate.

It doesn't matter what your perception is ... and that perception doesn't answer to the statement it's supposedly in response to ... not to mention that "communication necessary [...] to communicate" is a tautology.

You participate in this forum. So do I. People get value from some of the things you post, and you get value from some of the things others post. Your investment is in the community of forum users, not in the software (either upstream or gentoo-specific) nor in any sort of managerial capacity or any other capacity that keeps the wheels of the distro turning.

I see, can you point me to any official document that delineates these separate domains of investment?

No. Can you point to any official document that proves otherwise? What sort of managerial privileges do you have because you're a forum user? What input do you have in apache.org's software changes? While I lack an official document backing up my claims, the evidence present seems to support my thesis.

I'm speaking of the separation you envisage between one member of the community, and another. That is explicitly non-existent in "the" official document, the charter, so there you have it, proof.

And yet there are developers and users, and the privileges are different. There you have it, proof.

Not unless you want to argue that "developers are not, and can not be, users". Your argument depends on both classes of things being mutually exclusive, when they are clearly not. As for "privileges", and "difference", the argument only functions if you take there to be only two possible classes, with two distinct gradations of those classes, with "difference" being the boundary between those respective classes ... however, power is distributed, to a greater or lesser degree, throughout the community, as I said, people "vote with their feet", and by doing so express their power/privilege.

Forum posts have value, but not all users post information which has value. Claiming some sort of vote for posting to what amounts to a social media combined with volunteer help desk seems a reach. You guys have made this argument before, and I disagreed with it then too.

Who's "claiming some sort of vote"? I've been arguing for something much more fundamental, and that is: everyone, regardless of their level of contribution, is included as a member of the community, and that membership of this community comes with both rights and duties ... rights in the form of inclusion ("for the community"), and duties in the form of participation ("by the community"). That's not particularly esoteric, and it shouldn't need arguing ... it's one of our "four pillars" of the document (the charter) that establishes our doing anything, for god sake.

We actually agree on something!

I fail to see how that could be the case, you've argued that we (non-developers) are consumers, and as such are not "included" in domains beyond our involvement. That seems to me entirely contrary to the argument I'm making.

Everyone who uses Gentoo Linux is a consumer of Gentoo Linux. That includes developers and users both.

That is entirely semantics, you've gone from "you and I are consumers" (which presumably means developers are "the" producers) to "everyone [...] is a consumer", omitting that somewhere in the scheme of things some group of persons likewise produce ... the problem is, how you're slicing and dicing this particular problem makes absolutely no sense. Oh, and hey, how about following the thread of the argument, and responding to that, rather than shifting the frame of reference for the sake of providing some truism?

Do you argue that absolutely every forum user should be allowed to alter source code in the official repositories by default? Do you believe every forum user should have access to the bank account? Do you believe that every user should be enabled to make legally binding contracts between Gentoo and other organizations, provision websites to be paid for by Gentoo funds?

Again, strawman ... but yes, I also think that everyone should get the exact same amount of porridge ... and by exact I mean down to the sub-atomic level, that's how we make absolutist ideation function in the real world (or someones idea of it).

There is by unspoken necessity a separation of privileges between different categories of "community members." If that's not completely obvious to you then I guess we don't have much more to talk about.

You know what else there is, there is by unspoken necessity a separation of physical bodies in cartesian space, and these separate bodies share nothing similar in nature, and by such demarcation we can say that it is absolute tom-foolery to designate them as having anything in common, or sharing any attributes whatsoever, they exist in completely separate categories ... but you probably don't understand what I'm saying, because there no longer exists a shared language, or frame of reference, by which such communication could happen.

Edit: Actually mv is claiming some sort of vote. It's in the first post of this thread, and nearly every post he's made after that.

Not unless you conflate "involvement" with "some sort of vote", so no, I don't think he's claiming that at all.

Read the forum topic. "Gentoo leaves democracy". Democracy is a form of government involving voting.

I see, so the ancient Greeks (who gave us the term) didn't in fact have a democracy, given they elected via lots?

If that's a smear, then yes I made it. You're still wrong. There is no implicit or explicit permission for every forum user to have write access to every possible mode of communication within the Gentoo organization. That's not how ANYTHING works.

Not how your particular stawman works, no, but then this particular strawman is the product of your own ideation so I don't feel any need to counter it.

best ... khay

[1clue]

@khayyam,

"Democracy" is, by definition, a system of government in which all the citizens vote either directly or indirectly. Everywhere you look for an official definition, there is that word "vote." Edit: I incorrectly used the word "all." In fact many democracies have existed where only members of a certain class have a vote. Ancient greece is an example.

"working together for common mutual benefit" isn't a direct quote from the communist manifesto but it could just as well be. In fact, googling that phrase the first page shows me posts from "South St Petersburg Blog" or biological studies of organisms. Edit: And one reference to "cultural Maoism" which I didn't mention before but supports my point anyway.

This is what I'm talking about by definitions of words. You have this image in your head about what democracy means. It's wrong.

This thread is about "Gentoo leaves democracy" (read the title at the top of your browser window). YOU may not be talking about democracy, but if you're not talking about democracy then you are off topic.

I'm going to take a page from Tony0945. I made my point, you made yours. If we keep talking then nothing more will come of it because anyone who disagrees with you is a strawman, and you refuse to accept the definitions of words that everyone else accepts.

[John R. Graham]

Don't fall for the etymological fallacy.

- John

[Tony0945]

Don't fall for the etymological fallacy.

- John

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

[1clue]

I guess I need to say one more thing.

@khayyam,

This "working together for common mutual benefit" phrase you keep posting, it is not about democracy at all. Every google result I have in the first 3 pages which is not about some sort of animal/biology study is rooted in communism. It's either marxism, stalinism or maoism.

All three of these forms of socialism had some things in common:

1. They were a "worker's paradise."
2. Every citizen was equal.
3. Some citizens are more "equal" than others.
4. The ruling class got filthy rich.
5. The working class didn't.
6. The ruling class decided how EVERYTHING worked, down to the most minute detail.
7. The working class had absolutely no voice in their government.

Forgive my use of the past tense. Maoism still exists today in China. I'm still waiting for it to implode.

Khayyam, if you want the regular forum users to have a voice in how things go in Gentoo, then I suggest you change your words and your approach. Right now, users DO have a voice. The material you appear to use as guidance will leave us with none.

[Tony0945]

All three of these forms of socialism had some things in common:

1. They were a "worker's paradise."
2. Every citizen was equal.
3. Some citizens are more "equal" than others.
4. The ruling class got filthy rich.
5. The working class didn't.
6. The ruling class decided how EVERYTHING worked, down to the most minute detail.
7. The working class had absolutely no voice in their government.

Sounds like neoliberalism to me, i.e. The US political system since circa 1970.

[khayyam]

"Democracy" is, by definition, a system of government in which all the citizens vote either directly or indirectly. Everywhere you look for an official definition, there is that word "vote."

1clue ... sorry, how does one "vote either directly or indirectly"? ... and what is an "official definition", you mean the short hand of the concept provided by a dictionary? ... and if so, what does that make of Spinoza's Tractatus Politicus, and many other texts, ancient and modern, in which the subject is not treated in the short hand, these are all completely irrelevant to the subject (subject, that is, not definition) involved? You are a perfect example of a know nothing, you have no background in political/social science, other than maybe a civics class when you were 14 or 15yo, and yet you are going to bring in the heavy guns and make it seem as though such things are simple (if we'd all only stick to the "official definition", haha). I, on the other, have PhD in which this very subject (epistemology in politics, law, etc) is the focus, and I'm a published author with a book, and some 30 or so peer reviewed articles in journals (again, on this very subject) ... but, hey, what do I know.

I was going to cover this earlier regarding your "constitutional republic" but I thought I'd save you the embarrassment, however, seeing as you're so shameless, what the hell. So ... the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R) was also a "constitutional republic", and given your admonition to use "official definitions" when discussing such things, its safe to say that the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R have, or had, the exact same political system "by definition".

"working together for common mutual benefit" isn't a direct quote from the communist manifesto but it could just as well be. In fact, googling that phrase the first page shows me posts from "South St Petersburg Blog" or biological studies of organisms. This is what I'm talking about by definitions of words. You have this image in your head about what democracy means. It's wrong.

I have tried to use the most precise, yet comprehensible, language throughout this discussion, and so when I say that this is what "constitutes" democracy, I mean it in an exact sense ("to establish"), you are now taking this, willy-nilly, as though it's some sort of definition, and try to use it to taint me with the c-word, well, no, you've obviously not read the communist manifesto ... and for the record, I'm an anti-communist and anti-marxist.

This thread is about "Gentoo leaves democracy" (read the title at the top of your browser window). YOU may not be talking about democracy, but if you're not talking about democracy then you are off topic.

geeeez ... I'm obviously wasting my time here.

best ... khay

[proteusx]

What would you switch to?

Probably a large distribution, since it is better supported by some vendors and requires less manual work. Perhaps Ubuntu or Fedora; or Debian unstable or rolling release. I have also thought about arch, but this is too small and from what I've heard requires even more manual work than gentoo.

All of those distros are compulsory systemd.
At least here we have the choice.
And with a little work you can overcome dev ineptitude.

[1clue]

"Democracy" is, by definition, a system of government in which all the citizens vote either directly or indirectly. Everywhere you look for an official definition, there is that word "vote."

1clue ... sorry, how does one "vote either directly or indirectly"?

Your PhD should tell you this one. A pure democracy is one where voters vote directly on every issue. An indirect vote is where common voters elect a representative and that representative votes on every issue.

... and what is an "official definition", you mean the short hand of the concept provided by a dictionary?

That's what I'm using.

... and if so, what does that make of Spinoza's Tractatus Politicus, and many other texts, ancient and modern, in which the subject is not treated in the short hand, these are all completely irrelevant to the subject (subject, that is, not definition) involved?

I haven't read those books and so I'm unwilling and unable to comment.

You are a perfect example of a know nothing, you have no background in political/social science, other than maybe a civics class when you were 14 or 15yo

Approximately correct even if the ages are wrong. Search engines work for everyone.

, and yet you are going to bring in the heavy guns and make it seem as though such things are simple (if we'd all only stick to the "official definition", haha). I, on the other, have PhD in which this very subject (epistemology in politics, law, etc) is the focus, and I'm a published author with a book, and some 30 or so peer reviewed articles in journals (again, on this very subject) ... but, hey, what do I know.

Good for you. You have the freedom to post your opinion, and I have the freedom to post mine.

I was going to cover this earlier regarding your "constitutional republic" but I thought I'd save you the embarrassment, however, seeing as you're so shameless, what the hell. So ... the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R) was also a "constitutional republic", and given your admonition to use "official definitions" when discussing such things, its safe to say that the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R have, or had, the exact same political system "by definition".

What embarrassment? The USA has elements of democracy in it, whereas the U.S.S.R. had not nearly so much. Tell me how much voice the common worker had in the government of the U.S.S.R. compared to the voice of an American?

After all, this thread is about democracy and the voice of forum users in the decision making process of Gentoo, right?

"working together for common mutual benefit" isn't a direct quote from the communist manifesto but it could just as well be. In fact, googling that phrase the first page shows me posts from "South St Petersburg Blog" or biological studies of organisms. This is what I'm talking about by definitions of words. You have this image in your head about what democracy means. It's wrong.

I have tried to use the most precise, yet comprehensible, language throughout this discussion, and so when I say that this is what "constitutes" democracy, I mean it in an exact sense ("to establish"), you are now taking this, willy-nilly, as though it's some sort of definition, and try to use it to taint me with the c-word, well, no, you've obviously not read the communist manifesto ... and for the record, I'm an anti-communist and anti-marxist.

I'm not trying to taint you with anything. There's nothing wrong with different social or political philosophies, other than whether they work or not in real practice. Personally I'm anti-socialist with respect to governments of nations, but not so much for small communes like the Amish use in the USA. Edit: BTW I'm aware of the difference between social theory and government. In the Amish case it's a social/economic socialism with a single patriarch who makes most of the decisions about the community and who acts as a proxy between the commune and the outside world.. A small farming commune can be extremely effective. The language you're using is being used most from within social theories where the common person has little or no say in their political process. You're using these words to support a claim that forum users should be able to post in absolutely every conceivable communications thread hosted by Gentoo. I find that to be logically inconsistent.

Edit: In fact, I find it logically inconsistent that forum users being able to send to a dev mailing list would be considered democracy at all, which clearly is not anything you claimed in the first place. This inconsistency is the only reason I posted on this thread at all.

If you really have your PhD in the fields you claim then you surely could roast me on knowledge of these systems. However anyone who can watch TV knows full well that such knowledge does not make you always right, nor does it make everyone with such education follow the same political path, or even reach the same conclusions about events.

And yes, I have read the communist manifesto, and the United States constitution, and the declaration of independence. And other relevant documents. Both during my civics classes and several times after.

This thread is about "Gentoo leaves democracy" (read the title at the top of your browser window). YOU may not be talking about democracy, but if you're not talking about democracy then you are off topic.

geeeez ... I'm obviously wasting my time here.

best ... khay

IMO we are both wasting our time here. I've talked on this thread far more than I originally intended. I already said I'm throwing in the towel, and here I am posting yet again.

I hope we can simply agree to disagree, and get on with life.

[Tony0945]

What embarrassment? The USA has elements of democracy in it, whereas the U.S.S.R. had not nearly so much. Tell me how much voice the common worker had in the government of the U.S.S.R. compared to the voice of an American?

Pretty much the same. In the USSR, voters had a ballot with only one party representing the ruling class. In the USA, voters have a choice of two parties both representing the ruling class.
Often, the rich through their foundations, "donate" millions to BOTH parties. Since the fall of the USSR, the USA and the Russian Federation have the same system, kleptocracy.

[1clue]

What embarrassment? The USA has elements of democracy in it, whereas the U.S.S.R. had not nearly so much. Tell me how much voice the common worker had in the government of the U.S.S.R. compared to the voice of an American?

Pretty much the same. In the USSR, voters had a ballot with only one party representing the ruling class. In the USA, voters have a choice of two parties both representing the ruling class.
Often, the rich through their foundations, "donate" millions to BOTH parties. Since the fall of the USSR, the USA and the Russian Federation have the same system, kleptocracy.

Yes and no. Technically there was a ballot in the USSR, but the opponents were frequently shills, or if they were a real candidate the people in power would stuff the box with very little effort to hide the fact.

So far in the United States political arena, opponents of the head of government are not as likely to be found floating face down in a river.

WRT rich people buying influence I think this has gone on since the first day there was a government. WRT kleptocracy, I can't argue much.

What the founding fathers of the USA failed to take into account is the quality of candidates we would be faced with. It's difficult to chose one over the other when every candidate -- even in the primaries -- is a thief and a bald-faced liar.

[dmpogo]

I guess I need to say one more thing.

@khayyam,

This "working together for common mutual benefit" phrase you keep posting, it is not about democracy at all. Every google result I have in the first 3 pages which is not about some sort of animal/biology study is rooted in communism. It's either marxism, stalinism or maoism.

All three of these forms of socialism had some things in common:

1. They were a "worker's paradise."
2. Every citizen was equal.
3. Some citizens are more "equal" than others.
4. The ruling class got filthy rich.
5. The working class didn't.
6. The ruling class decided how EVERYTHING worked, down to the most minute detail.
7. The working class had absolutely no voice in their government.

Forgive my use of the past tense. Maoism still exists today in China. I'm still waiting for it to implode.

Khayyam, if you want the regular forum users to have a voice in how things go in Gentoo, then I suggest you change your words and your approach. Right now, users DO have a voice. The material you appear to use as guidance will leave us with none.

Your knowledge of 'socialism' is, well, .... a bit of the mark, to put it mildly.

[Yamakuzure]

What would you switch to?

Probably a large distribution, since it is better supported by some vendors and requires less manual work. Perhaps Ubuntu or Fedora; or Debian unstable or rolling release. I have also thought about arch, but this is too small and from what I've heard requires even more manual work than gentoo.

All of those distros are compulsory systemd.
At least here we have the choice.
And with a little work you can overcome dev ineptitude.

It is not only that.

The "big distros" are exactly that. Distributions.

This means that somebody has thought about what you need, and set up everything for you to use what they thought would be right.

Martin, you'll miss the flexibility of being your own Distribution Vendor with Gentoo within 5 minutes. Tops.