Problems at Gentoo Discussion

[cyrius]

What I disagree with is what he means by statements such as "higher-quality work" and the general "output" DRobbins wanted and apparently still wants from Gentoo. This applies more to what I said than other things, though from DRobbins' blog, I feel he still has the same vision. One thing I just can't bring myself to care about is applicability of Gentoo to a standard "commercial" environment.

My opinion is that i'm not against a commercial approach from Gentoo until it is the same as Ubuntu for sample (Service orientated). That's a key of the success of Linux in a general way. Enterprises need it. They can't rely on full open source distribution. They need support and advice. The relation between some devs and money making is often negative as they are young. But let think that you can win your money as a normal employee to do what you like....
But, I'm fully against the Suse or Redhat approach. The end user doesn't have to pay for it. All tools proposed by gentoo should be developed in Open source. Ok, that's just an opinion and perhaps i'm wrong in this vision.

But anyway, i don't see any negative point of this :

Commercial concerns

Since its inception, there have been many people of various backgrounds involved with Gentoo Linux development. And I wasn't surprised to find that our developers had wildly different opinions of how we should approach the money-making end of Gentoo Linux. Basically, there were two groups of developers: one group was generally opposed to money-making pursuits, while the other group was excited about helping Gentoo Linux become a successful commercial product. This was an expected split; the first group saw commercial involvement as a corrupting influence, while the second saw no such negative associations.

In the Enoch days, I used to waver on this issue and didn't really know the right approach. I recognized the fact that distributions like Debian were truly committed to free distribution of their software. I liked that. Compared to other commercial distributions, they made things easy for the user by providing detailed instructions on their Web site. That was a good thing, and something I wanted to emulate.

At the same time, I really wanted Gentoo Linux to be commercially successful. I struggled to find a balance, but never really found one until recently.

What to do?

So, how are we planning to balance commercial and non-commercial interests? The key is to remember our foundation -- the foundation of Gentoo Linux is Open Source software. Thus, the foundation for all our endeavors must focus on Open Source. It's not good enough to just acknowledge Open Source software, or just to use it. We must also encourage its development and distribution, and never oppose this stance for commercial gain. More importantly, we must never structure our business model so that there's a temptation to restrict the free distribution of our sources. Our development team needs to be open and accessible to the public, and free distribution of Gentoo Linux must not only be allowed, but encouraged. We need to be Open Source advocates, not just in word, but in action also.

If a company wants to use Gentoo Linux for a commercial Linux-based technology, they can just grab the contents of our CVS tree and start using it, since all our work is distributed under the GPL. We don't want to limit the use of our work in any way, except to ensure that all derivative products comply with the GNU Public License.

We'd like as many people as possible to benefit from our work, but we'd also like to benefit as much as possible from your improvements to Gentoo Linux. If you're part of a company using Gentoo Linux as a base for your product, we hope that you'll send any freely-distributable improvements to us so that we can add them to our CVS tree. That way, everyone benefits. We can continue to maintain and improve your additions, and you in turn can benefit from these improvements. We want to foster collaboration between commercial and non-commercial entities. This way, both the sysadmin using Gentoo Linux at his ISP and the corporation building a commercial server product can benefit from each other's improvements and fixes to Gentoo Linux. It's time to promote the free exchange of code between everyone. Only Open Source makes it possible.

Do you think that linus torwald is surviving with no money ? That's in fact the economic open source model. Enterpise pay for it if they want. End user don't pay.

[Nerdanel]

Re: packages that aren't stabilized, someone on Distrowatch thinks python 2.5 is such a problem package.

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue ... 14&mode=52

15 • No KDE 4.0 in Gentoo? (by Omari on 2008-01-14 14:00:40 GMT from United States)
One reason I used to use Gentoo was because the latest software was in the Portage tree, and was integrated into a (somewhat) stable system by being marked stable within a few months.

I stopped using Gentoo in part because new software stayed in testing forever, and bugs weren't fixed. For instance Python 2.5 is still in unstable and it's been out for over a year. Most distros like SUSE and Ubuntu have switched to Python 2.5.

Now they're saying KDE 4.0 might not even be in the tree?

Maybe drobbins can rescue Gentoo, or maybe some other distro (Sabayon?) will step in and fill the void.

(Emphasis mine.)

[kernelOfTruth]

meh -

python 2.5 doesn't even let me run bibus <-- so how python 2.5 not being stabilized a problem ?

everything running fine here with python 2.4

if they need python 2.5, they should unmask it, gentoo needs to maintain a bigger and more up-to-date package-list than ubuntu (e.g. bmpx are outdated, ...) what's the deal

distro-bashing anyone ?

[Syntaxis]

My opinion is that i'm not against a commercial approach from Gentoo until it is the same as Ubuntu for sample (Service orientated) [...] I'm fully against the Suse or Redhat approach. The end user doesn't have to pay for it.

Just FYI, this is an unfair smear; it's completely untrue that you have to pay for RedHat or Novell's offerings.

Not only are Fedora and OpenSUSE free to download, they also both provide SRPMs for their RHEL and SLES/SLED "Enterprise" distributions. If you want RHEL without paid support, no problem - just download Whitebox or CentOS. If you want SLES/SLED, download the SRPMS from http://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=ubXOUwNOp9s~

All tools proposed by gentoo should be developed in Open source.

Ubuntu's certainly not a good role model, then - their development is tightly integrated with Canonical's closed-source Launchpad.

[cyrius]

This is the answer of Gentoo council to a supporter of D.Robbins.
I've done some comments but sincerely, do your opinion by yourself.

On Tue, 2008-01-15 at 18:45 -0500, Dirk R. Gently wrote:
> > Thank you trustees for reading this. I am a Gentoo user and really
> > enjoy the Gentoo distribution. Thank you trustees for making this
> > available to me. As it is though, isn't working. Gentoo remains
> > drifting with little leadership. I am a supporter of Daniel Robbin's
> > offer to help get Gentoo into a proper leadership structure. I ask
> > that this be done and I believe this is the general consensus:

It's easy to make a decision when you're not the one who has to live
with it. It's also easy to make a decision when someone else has to do
all the work.

Most developers will agree that we need some sort of direction. Daniel
could very well provide that direction and help Gentoo, tremendously,
but he has given some "strings" to his offer that essentially gives him
complete control of Gentoo. While Daniel is a very great guy and
certainly can be considered a visionary, I do not personally believe
that *any* one person is capable of holding the reins for all of Gentoo.
If Daniel were to stick to the Foundation side of things, focusing on
Gentoo's relationships with other companies, projects, etc. and worked
on promoting Gentoo, I think we all would agree to have him back.
However, his blog post attaches quite a few strings that don't sit well
with the idea of an open and free community. For one, he seems to make
no provisions for the Gentoo Council. This council was elected by the
developer body to represent them. Throwing that out is almost a slap in
the face to the community.

Sure, the Council could use a little direction. Honestly, many people
are afraid to take action because *every* action results in huge flame
wars and complaints. Having someone like Daniel (could be anyone,
really) to provide a vision for Gentoo would be beneficial. However,
the Council should be the responsible party for making sure that Gentoo
is moving in the right direction. There was a separation of the legal
(Foundation) and technical (Council) bodies within Gentoo for a reason.
It allowed the technical side to work unimpeded by the legal side.

> > Gentoo currently has alot of well trained users. I have often seen
> > many good ideas come to the forums but often they stop there because
> > there is a lack of a leadership structure that is able to implement
> > them. Getting something done would require tracking down whom is
> > responsible for the project (not always easy), discovering if that
> > person is still active (or cares) about doing anything, and persuading
> > that person into doing it (right now there is only a lot of talk.)

See, the problem that most people don't realize is that having a leader
won't change this. A leader won't be able to get involved in every
little detail. It's simply impossible with how much we've grown since
2002/2003, when Daniel was still around. Having a leader to provide
*vision* and *direction* is very much possible and something that Gentoo
may well need. Of course, empowering the Council to make these
decisions so they're not afraid of the repercussions could accomplish
the same goal.

What Daniel gives that no other person can truly give is someone to
rally behind. Daniel started Gentoo. As such, he has a unique position
which can *never* be filled by someone else. However, that doesn't mean
that Gentoo *needs* Daniel to thrive. Gentoo simply needs for the
leadership to know that whether people agree or not with their
decisions, that those decisions are respected and followed. After all,
the Council *is* an elected body. Every developer has a chance to voice
his concerns during the nomination period. Every developer has a chance
to vote. Every developer has a chance to run for Council and change
things himself/herself.

I'm sorry to say that. But you can resume it by : "I'm the leader and would be happy to have new ideas to save my legitimaty and i decide despite of the fact i didn't create it and have no idea. But you can be sure that i will protect the poor little developper and be a great manager"
Every developer has a chance to vote.... ok, what about the users that support it too by using it, post buggs, talk about gentoo in their environnment ?
And the Council says that he knows what is an open source project. Damned.

> >
> > Serious change is needed, and the value of Gentoo is necessary to many
> > people. Please foundation, accept Daniel's offer for the better of
> > the entire community. I just read his offer and time is important.
> > If current trustees who are inactive please contact them and let them
> > know of the proposal.

What makes you say that "serious change" is needed? Sometimes a little
change goes a *very* long way.

The supporter means : "Get out, Gentoo need a reorganisation"
This answer means : "Good luck, i stay"

We're looking into all of the options, including taking Daniel up on his
offer. We plan on considering each and determining the best long-term
outcome for Gentoo. No matter what we decide, I strongly encourage
Daniel to contribute to Gentoo. After all, he *is* the original
visionary of Gentoo. Even without any form of "official" status within
the ranks, his insights and ideas will *always* be considered, many
times much more heavily than other people's, simply because of who he is
and what he has done for Gentoo.

Wouah, and he is offuscated after that Daniel posted it on his blogg. Seriously, Daniel is too gentle.
Something that they don't understand : Daniel is Gentoo. That's it. (have a look on the philosophy, the foundation chart, the gentoo site in fact)
I call that "The inverse arts".

The trustees and developer pool are well aware of Daniel's proposal.
We've been discussing it internally, but are moving the discussion to
this list so it gets wider exposure.

Realize that certain aspects of Daniel's proposal leaves a very bad
taste in many developer's mouths. For example, Daniel posted his
proposal on his blog. He didn't email the trustees, council, pr, or any
other Gentoo organization. He posted a blog entry. While this likely
accomplished what I believe is Daniel's real goal, to get something
going and to provoke Gentoo into action, it lends one to wonder about
his motives. After all, he could have just as easily posted to any of
the previously mentioned aliases, or even to our private -core internal
list. Daniel has access to send to that list, as far as I am aware.

> > Thank you Daniel for letting me know of this. I was not aware that
> > the Foundation has missed yet another required duty to make the
> > community/distribution run. I just read this and I am upset because I
> > wish I had seen this sooner. I wrote the trustees and support your
> > proposal. I ask though, if the trustees cannot be reached (that last
> > post mentioned only two seem to be active) what can be done? Does
> > anyone have the active email addresses of the trustees. Perhaps a
> > email campaign by the Gentoo users can help.

Just a bit of history pertaining to this. We were made aware, via
Daniel's blog, actually, of our status with New Mexico. I personally
signed and faxed the paperwork for the New Mexico filing back in August.
As far as I knew, everything was taken care of with the Foundation. We
were *totally* unaware that our status had changed for the worse and not
the better until Daniel's recent blog posts.

So, it isn't that we didn't do anything. It's that we (likely) didn't
do it correctly. As such, we're trying to resolve the issue via what we
consider the best means. We're investigating all of our potential
solutions and will be enacting one soon.

I hope that this clears up some things.

-- Chris Gianelloni Release Engineering Strategic Lead Games Developer

To resume what i understand :

The council is agree to have the advice of Daniel (Remember that the Council is not the Gentoo Comunauty as it doesn't include users, just devs) but anyway, they disagree that he can take decision. The Council decide. The Council is not agree that daniel could take the leadership as they want to do it. That's it.....
The Council legitimate itself because of a Devs elections .... But the gentoo's users... we continue to not care as they know nothing and are not important.
The Council is offuscated by the way it has be done : Daniel's blogg. But as we saw in this post, Daniel tried last year to back again and was clearly push to the outside.
The Council say that Daniel wants to keep all for him. But, in fact Daniel wants to have trustees with him named by him cause he thinks that a reorganisation is necessary.He certainely realized that it won't be possible with this group of persons.
One step is done : "Daniel is a great guy" ... Really, because a lot of "It seems", "I remember" (no clue and no facts) said not !

[cyrius]

@Syntaxis
Ok, thanks, i was in late and didn't successed to well informed myself then on those points.

[berferd]

This is the answer of Gentoo council to a supporter of D.Robbins.
I've done some comments but sincerely, do your opinion by yourself.(snip)

I think D.Robbins made a mistake by urging people to join gentoo-nfp. The response to the two people that chimed in on that list are emblematic of the problems in the Gentoo project right now. One got flamed to a crisp and the other was rewarded with the long screed you posted. People looking to contribute have no desire, time or inclination to get dragged into protracted flamewars or to digest lengthy diatribes with very low signal to noise ratio.

[Genone]

This is the answer of Gentoo council to a supporter of D.Robbins.

Ehm, nope. It is a reply from an individual dev who currently isn't a council member, so definitely not an official reply from "the council".

To resume what i understand :

The council is agree to have the advice of Daniel (Remember that the Council is not the Gentoo Comunauty as it doesn't include users, just devs) but anyway, they disagree that he can take decision. The Council decide. The Council is not agree that daniel could take the leadership as they want to do it. That's it.....
The Council legitimate itself because of a Devs elections .... But the gentoo's users... we continue to not care as they know nothing and are not important.
The Council is offuscated by the way it has be done : Daniel's blogg. But as we saw in this post, Daniel tried last year to back again and was clearly push to the outside.
The Council say that Daniel wants to keep all for him. But, in fact Daniel wants to have trustees with him named by him cause he thinks that a reorganisation is necessary.He certainely realized that it won't be possible with this group of persons.

Sorry, but you completely misunderstood that mail. Might be a good idea to learn what the council actually is before making claims what it thinks/says. And the council won't decide anything here, currently it looks like just Grant will have to make the decision in the end, though he'll probably do whatever the dev community decides. And the current plan of the dev community as far as I am aware is to talk to Daniel and see if we can come to some sort of agreement (in Germany we'd probably call it "Koalitionsverhandlungen").
As for why we (the dev community) are reluctant about the current offer, that's mostly due to a lack of details (and the ridicoulous timeframe). Or would you (in real life) vote for a president that simply says "I'll change everything", but doesn't say anything about in what way he'll change things?

[Bill Cosby]

Or would you (in real life) vote for a president that simply says "I'll change everything", but doesn't say anything about in what way he'll change things?

If the president already has been president and has even a good record at that, and if this president is even the founder of my country with all it's principles, then hell yes!
It is way better to judge people based on their deeds, rather than on their words, anyways.

There are people who are good at talking but won't do anything, and do you actually believe DR has some evil plan to lead Gentoo to destruction? He seems to have the motivation, and most of the time this is worth more than an abstract concept (of course we need that too, but it is more or less secondary to the motivation).

[cyrius]

hm, nope. It is a reply from an individual dev who currently isn't a council member, so definitely not an official reply from "the council".

Yes, i apologize.
But it seems he is not the simple and anonymous developer as you say. He was in your council one year ago.
He certainely took the habitude to answer for the council and reflects the point of view of your team then.

Sorry, but you completely misunderstood that mail. Might be a good idea to learn what the council actually is before making claims what it thinks/says.

Sorry, claim it officially to inform the Gentoo Communauty. It will be courtesy and transparent for all the communauty.

And the council won't decide anything here, currently it looks like just Grant will have to make the decision in the end, though he'll probably do whatever the dev community decides.

Oki, What about the Gentoo users ? They have nothing to say ? That's a point of view.

And the current plan of the dev community as far as I am aware is to talk to Daniel and see if we can come to some sort of agreement (in Germany we'd probably call it "Koalitionsverhandlungen").
As for why we (the dev community) are reluctant about the current offer, that's mostly due to a lack of details (and the ridicoulous timeframe).

Yes,devs. What about the gentoo users point of view ?

r would you (in real life) vote for a president that simply says "I'll change everything", but doesn't say anything about in what way he'll change things?

Me, certainely not. I said the same in this post when i proposed a vote by devs and gentoo users. But anyway, that's nonsense cause Daniel is Gentoo. Without him, you never done what you have done. Whitout you, he never done what he has done.

Can you give the definition of "Flamewars" please ?

[AllenJB]

hm, nope. It is a reply from an individual dev who currently isn't a council member, so definitely not an official reply from "the council".

Yes, i apologize.
But it seems he is not the simple and anonymous developer as you say. He was in your council one month ago.
He certainely took the habitude to answer for the council and reflects the point of view of your team then.

Oh dear, looks like Gentoo needs to start mandating that anyone ever associated with the project puts a disclaimer on absolutely anything they write down. This is like saying that because I'm English, I automatically speak for the entire population of England whenever I open my mouth.

[Insanity5902]

There are people who are good at talking but won't do anything, and do you actually believe DR has some evil plan to lead Gentoo to destruction? He seems to have the motivation, and most of the time this is worth more than an abstract concept (of course we need that too, but it is more or less secondary to the motivation).

It isn't that he has an evil plan, he is putting conditions on his return, and the people in charge of gentoo have reservations about those strings without knowing all the details.

While the example of the president was a good one on our end, look at it through the eyes of the dev's and especially the council.

Lets say there is a Company named Zulu. Zulu consists of two governing bodies, one which runs the legal aspect of the company, and the 2nd which is in charge of the product the company delivers. The product is working, the board is working through it's issues, and the product is selling. But Zulu as a company no longer exits b/c the legal board failed to complete it's mission. Should Zulu bring in a single person that is singly in charge of both legal and the product, doing with either as they choose, yes they want the company to suceed, but why should the product board give up all they have down and work toward becase the legal side had a minor melt down.

That is the case here, the Gentoo Foundation is where the problem exits, not the Council. These are two separate entities, the Council is basically in charge of the distrubution ... which is way Gentoo isn't dying or failing or going to go away. The Gentoo Foundation was in charge of IP, logo's, bank accounts, etc. Are we hurt that the legal side of things fail to the wayside ... yes, but why does that warrant a single person to come in and completely change everything of every aspect ......

There is also the fact how he went about it, he went straight to the public (his blog) and stated his intentions there, he didn't go to the trustees, the council, the dev, or any mailing list where an authoritative figure sits, he took it straight to the public. I am sure he had his reasons, but the matter of fact is, respect is key. Going to one of these list and stating his intentions and offers there would of gone a long way first.

I am still learning more, and I might of confused a few names, but the gist of it is there. Go read this if you haven't already, it might help clarify some things http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-nfp/msg_01273.xml

I am all for Daniel's help, but there needs to be a meeting between all involved and a common ground and goal needs to be defined.

[kernelOfTruth]

Gentoo needs to attract more companies building products based on it:

see zonbu

Suggestion: overall quality of the distro might need to raise a little

[Insanity5902]

Oki, What about the Gentoo users ? They have nothing to say ? That's a point of view.

The Gentoo Users do voice an opinion on the forums, it should be taking under consideration. The authoritative figures are suppose to make decisions for the community and prosperity of Gentoo.

Every elected board doesn't consult on everything to every member. People keep relating this to the USA, and another example would be , we choose a House and Congress to take our interest at heart and make decisions for us.

The same thing is going on here. The council's and committee's here are former peers who should be taking our best interest and making decisions from there. I believe every single person who has been involved in this issue knows what the community thinks it wants. There are been polls, and threads, and blogs, and comments on blogs. I think everyone "body" position on this is clear. The Community thinks it wants Daniel back, there is no questions about it.

I keep saying the "community thinks" because that is all we can do. We , the community, are basing our opinions of of very few facts, and lots of very high opinionated opinions. We don't know what is all going on, yes that is a problem, bug bring in one person to take over what has been set up over the past 3 years is extreme. The community doesn't know everything it needs to make a sound decision. But those who do have all the information, also know our opinion.

They have been given that authority, and now we can voice our opinion and hope they take it into consideration.

At first I was all for Daniel coming back, but the more I read, and the more I sit back and look, it isn't such a clear decision, there are a lot of things to consider and a lot of things at stake.

[douglas_goodall]

From what I have seen here, several things are obvious.

1. Trying to relate to the trustees is of little or no value. They let the legal aspects of the enterprise fall apart.

2. Trying to go to the dev elopers is of little or no value because they are acting like children. The care of gentoo
is too important to leave it to a bunch of anarchists who publicly say they are transparent, but carry on secretly
and jealously guard their power and position, to the obvious detriment of the project and with obvious disregard
for the non-dev community members. They go on and on with their broken record fear mongering about what new
management might do, when the real fear is about what the devs have actually done and where things have actually
come to.

Daniel had little practical choice in the matter. He is operating openly, unlike the trustees or the devs.

[slonocode]

That is the case here, the Gentoo Foundation is where the problem exits, not the Council. These are two separate entities, the Council is basically in charge of the distrubution ... which is way Gentoo isn't dying or failing or going to go away. The Gentoo Foundation was in charge of IP, logo's, bank accounts, etc. Are we hurt that the legal side of things fail to the wayside ... yes, but why does that warrant a single person to come in and completely change everything of every aspect ......

People know there are separate entities. Clearly many many users feel alienated and feel that there is a large disconnect between them and the developers. While technically gentoo is still functioning from a code standpoint they feel the community is regressing. They feel the management so to speak(devs,council) can't come to agreement about most things so most things just simply don't get decided at all. So when they hear arguments about how they should just shut up and let the same people whom they feel alienated from come to a decision...obviously they are rather unimpressed.

[Rad]

2. Trying to go to the dev elopers is of little or no value because they are acting like children. The care of gentoo
is too important to leave it to a bunch of anarchists who publicly say they are transparent, but carry on secretly
and jealously guard their power and position, to the obvious detriment of the project and with obvious disregard
for the non-dev community members.

'scuse me?! That "bunch of secretive and jealous anarchists" does the work I care most about!

On a personal level, they also used to help me a lot and directly when I wanted to contribute something as well. I did not feel as though they wanted to keep me "out" of their realm.

I'd like to hear about your experience though- please name where they guard (abuse) power and position, and what about what DRobbins said would help it...

[AllenJB]

I talk to the developers frequently in #gentoo, #gentoo-chat and #gentoo-dev-help among other channels and have always found them to be happy to help.

If you want to discuss things, discuss things. Don't make demands or simply post yet another post that essentially says nothing more than "accept Daniels offer now". Also remember that many developers aren't interested in politics. That is not to say they will not participate, but choose not to unless they feel they have something constructive to add. They are far more interested in technical development - the reason they became a developer in the first place. And if you want to talk to them about technical development, again, suggest, don't dictate. What you see as a simple feature or task may in reality be more complex or have repercussions that you can't see.

[bmichaelsen]

http://tsunam.org/2008/01/16/user-relations/#comments

[Frodo42]

And the council won't decide anything here, currently it looks like just Grant will have to make the decision in the end, though he'll probably do whatever the dev community decides. And the current plan of the dev community as far as I am aware is to talk to Daniel and see if we can come to some sort of agreement (in Germany we'd probably call it "Koalitionsverhandlungen").
As for why we (the dev community) are reluctant about the current offer, that's mostly due to a lack of details (and the ridicoulous timeframe). Or would you (in real life) vote for a president that simply says "I'll change everything", but doesn't say anything about in what way he'll change things?

Thank you for posting this information ... I really hope that some kind of sensible negotiations will take place and that a good solution will be found that most if not everyone find acceptable.

I have to say that after having spend some time reading planet.gentoo.org these last two days and such my view of things have become much more balanced, I much better understand the many different reason different devs have to be skeptic of Daniels offer, hopefully most of these reason can be cleared (or proven to be just if that is the case) during these talks/negotiations and I have hope that this will all end up for the best of Gentoo which is what we all want.
I do agree that this is surely going to require more time than the timeframe that says the 18th, but an offer to negotiate things is hopefully enough that Daniel will accept that as a reply.

I feel a bit sorry for Grant, I sure wouldn't want to be in his shoes right now, no matter what he does many people will probably end up hating him for it. I hope he is able to handle it.

[cyrius]

FYI
http://lwn.net/Articles/265006/

[cyrius]

FYI
http://www.osnews.com/comments/19148
Welcome to Genthree ?
My opinion is :
Anyway, i hope not. And i really hope they will find an agreement together.
Gentoo needs everybody on board. Not only a Council, a dev, a Trustee or the creator.
They have to find the right equilibrity together and solve thoses noisy things that is scratching this adventure since many years :
Immature, personnal interest and so on and act in the interest of gentoo to refind a shining place in the users concerns. (Children, Developers, simple users, enterprise world)
The concurency is not the same as it was 5-4 years ago....
A good step as i believe was the graphics installer for sample that should make gentoo more accessible to simple users.
A serious roadmap should be elaborated in this way,an evolution in the organisation too that contents everybody involved in the roadmap.
Gentoo, minds have to evoluate to make the difference.
I like this distribution.

[steveL]

Do you think that linus torwald is surviving with no money ? That's in fact the economic open source model. Enterpise pay for it if they want. End user don't pay.

Torvalds had a full-time day-job (nothing to do with Linux) for at least the first ten years of Linux development. I agree he should be earning more off it. As for enterprises paying, you're wrong. They usually pay for support, or if they're large they just employ system admins. They never pay a penny for any GPL software unless they want to modify it and not release the changes, which isn't that common. In fact many use it for network services (eg Hotmail, Windows Update(! I know I couldn't believe it either!), or Google all use Linux) and never release modifications since technically it's on one company's system. That's what the new Affero-GPL is about.

Occasionally a corporation will "donate" a developer to a FOSS project. They're doing that as it helps their business, iow they make a profit on that. But the vast majority of business usage of Free software doesn't send any money back to the people who write it. For a collaborative effort like Gentoo it's not such an issue, simply because all the people who contribute do it so that it can better for their usage.

Gentoo is already used in enterprises employing system admins, as well as in scientific computing and research. I'm sure there are many others uses of it I know nothing about, besides the standard desktop, server and embedded stuff. Anyone know?

[kernelOfTruth]

Do you think that linus torwald is surviving with no money ? That's in fact the economic open source model. Enterpise pay for it if they want. End user don't pay.

Torvalds had a full-time day-job (nothing to do with Linux) for at least the first ten years of Linux development. I agree he should be earning more off it. As for enterprises paying, you're wrong. They usually pay for support, or if they're large they just employ system admins. They never pay a penny for any GPL software unless they want to modify it and not release the changes, which isn't that common. In fact many use it for network services (eg Hotmail, Windows Update(! I know I couldn't believe it either!), or Google all use Linux) and never release modifications since technically it's on one company's system. That's what the new Affero-GPL is about.

Occasionally a corporation will "donate" a developer to a FOSS project. They're doing that as it helps their business, iow they make a profit on that. But the vast majority of business usage of Free software doesn't send any money back to the people who write it. For a collaborative effort like Gentoo it's not such an issue, simply because all the people who contribute do it so that it can better for their usage.

Gentoo is already used in enterprises employing system admins, as well as in scientific computing and research. I'm sure there are many others uses of it I know nothing about, besides the standard desktop, server and embedded stuff. Anyone know?

isn't the Pixar Movie "Cars" rendered on Gentoo Machines ?

[steveL]

I don't know why people are saying the Trustees failed: my recollection is that it was openly discussed on the nfp list that there was no Foundation last summer. There was no election for the new term of office, and the Software Freedom Conservancy had said Gentoo would have to wait at least 60-90 days to join.

It seemed right, since everyone who talked about it seemed to favour the SFC as the way forward, to leave it for the autumn term and come back to in the New Year. After all, Gentoo doesn't need the Foundation to run beyond protecting the brand (which belongs to drobbins in any case) and its copyrights (which revert to the authors but are all under GPL2 so there's no issue using the code) and in any case only applies to the US: it hasn't stopped working since last summer has it?

Oh yeah there's a very minimal income (less than $8000 per annum.) We could raise more than that in a fundraiser, and no money has gone missing afaik. The critical equipment isn't even owned by Gentoo.

Anyone who read the publically available list knew the circumstances.

Yeah the newsletter was a bit of a let-down. But that's the only actual failure imo and it hasn't exactly made a difference to any of my machines. I hope you're all going to actually write and submit suitably spell-checked articles in proper GuideXML format (it's pretty simple; a lot easier than HTML) now that someone has taken on the new monthly newsletter.

See also http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/members/

Gentoo needs to sort out the social interaction. I agree on that, especially when it comes to the dev m-l and user-involvement. And yes a new legal container needs to be setup at some point. The SFC seems a lot like the intention of the original Foundation, only professionally administered, and with no diktats beyond what the Council would democratically agree on. And they are trying to sort out the m-l. If the devs decide to go with drobbins' offer in some shape or form (since I hear there is actual discussion on-going, in contrast to the laid-down terms) that's cool; I'd definitely like to see his approach to user-dev interaction on the m-l. But if they don't, that's fine too, so long as the tree and portage are maintained as they have been throughout this supposed crisis.

It's not our choice though, and I don't think it should be since it won't affect our working conditions.

edit: ooh nice one, kernelOfTruth! :-)