Here's the thing -- we
have given some reasons for the delay, some of them even
in this very thread, but people aren't bothering to read for themselves. There are more posts on the subject on
Planet Gentoo, and in the June issue of the GMN, we even link to a Releng member's post on the subject.
Just a day or so ago we found out that the 2.6.24 kernel made the PPC/PPC64 CDs useless, so that had to be fixed, right as we were getting ready to shove everything out the door. We can't alter the
published tentative schedule for each delay because quite simply we can't always
know how long it will take to track the problem down, fix it, redo the media, restage it, and so on. It takes group effort and time to get things fixed, so that gets in the way of updating the schedule. Gentoo is not our full time job. It's a hobby. This means that we can't allocate our free time first and foremost to Gentoo; you'd like it if we could, but that's not reality.
Heck, it'd be nice if we could get a specific person for Public Relations within Releng to keep the community abreast of the situation, insofar as we are able to inform
that PR person of what's going on.
(Anyone out there reading this? Want to step up and participate, bring a public face to the work we do? Do you have time for it? Several hours per week. We're looking for you.)
Let me share some thoughts on why we don't have constant updates on why releases are delayed.
What users don't understand is that if there isn't a reason given for a particular delay, it may be because we are
unable to give it. This can be 1) lack of time to create press releases, or update the
tentative (my, how everyone forgets that) release schedule page, 2) security updates that are kept under wraps until they're fixed, which is appropriate when the situation warrants it, or 3)
personal, private matters.
It's this last one that I'd like to point out to people. There was a death of a very close family member for one of the releng developers; release was put off while this was dealt with. It was originally supposed to remain private, but then someone leaked it and some community members were all over it, some even saying that it should have been made public "for transparency", so that "we know
why the release is late." Ask yourself if this is reasonable.
Let's say that the release gets delayed because I don't have the handbooks done, and none of the other GDP members have access to my precommit files and/or aren't available to do the work. What if I'm having a personal issue, a midlife crisis, or my (hypothetical) medication has run out.
I don't have to give a reason why my part isn't finished yet. It's
personal. And in turn, the rest of the team is under no obligation to divulge the details of my personal life.
This happens more often than people will ever realize, for all of the Gentoo projects and teams. That's just the way it is. There's not always a technical explanation for something that happens, though I
do think that where possible we should strive to be more transparent on the technical level (which is why I mentioned the PPC info earlier). It's just that doing so takes time, and that is something we
do. not. have. As a team, since we're shorthanded, releng's time is better spent trying to just bring the release to you, the users.
Now, I'm the exception, in that I take my valuable time and try to talk with the community. I'm willing to liaise with you, at least thus far. It hasn't burned me out yet. But the other members of the team don't even have the time to write something up, and frankly, with the exception of this post, neither do I, really. I'm going to try to keep updating the tentative release schedule, as I've been doing lately, but I can't promise that there will be a schedule change and accompanying news post every time it happens.
As stated earlier, if you want explanations and reasons for every delay, you need to be working with us, on the inside, as a member of the team.
I can't even keep abreast of all releng developments as they happen; there are simply a lot of disparate responsibilities, even though we have to tie our work together extremely closely. We still don't have enough people to do all the work as fast as it would take to keep the "give us updates" crowd happy.
If you're one of those folks who wants more transparency, unlike some others here I'm not going to say "Go use Ubuntu, because that's occasionally their method of operation." Instead, I invite you to join us, to become a developer, to at least work with us in some capacity to
make that transparency happen.
You want more transparency? Join the team; we need the help. We need
you.
But if people wanna work on it, more power to them ya know.