Gentoo leaves democracy

[mv]

Perhaps not everybody here is following dev-ml regularly.

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.

This is not about moderation or filtering spam (which so far never was a serious problem on that list) but about completely taking away non-developers the voice to be able to be involved with developers decisions.
Background is clearly that some developers do not want to be criticized anymore. (The "attacker" being the cause of this has left dev-ml, but this seems to play no role for the decision).

The decision has already been made by the council and is already going into technical implementation.
The non-democratic tendencies which came with certain developers in the previous years have won.

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.

[Ant P.]

Ah, more ML drama... must be a day ending in -y again. There's a good reason I've never gone near those in the past dozen years.

[bunder]

you still have gentoo-user

you still have irc (unless you're banned like i am)

you still have bgo (unless you're ignored like i am)

you still have fgo (for now)

/shrug

edit: thanks for the new sig neddy

[mv]

you still have [...]

... user support for users. These have all nothing to do with the actual decision making.
From participation in the latter, non-developers are getting excluded now even in such a way that they cannot even raise their voice anymore.

[Juippisi]

I dont really care about the politics as long as the distro works. However,

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.

I think this would be a loss that many users will notice...

[asturm]

you still have [...]

... user support for users. These have all nothing to do with the actual decision making.
From participation in the latter, non-developers are getting excluded now even in such a way that they cannot even raise their voice anymore.

I haven't participated in the ml discussion, but the idea is that all you have to do for access is ask a developer to put you on the whitelist.

There's also #gentoo-dev where you don't have voice until a dev giveth it and that's a pretty low barrier either.

[Naib]

This isn't really anti democratic... The device ML is for developers to discuss thing. It is still RO for the rest

The only really downside is it could become an echo chamber for like minded ideas. I am thinking libAV as default sort of rubbish. This however was initially discussed on the ML and still occured. It was then countered by users on the forums and bgo

[mv]

I dont really care about the politics as long as the distro works

Windows is also "working".
The main difference is the underlying (technical and non-technical) policy and philosophy.

[Mr. T.]

The list seems to be [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting developer-oriented and expert user mailing lists.

Some members have trouble communicating? The communication between members should be improved!

See also:

• Hierarchy of contribution in Open Source

Edit: The main problem is that contributing to Gentoo projects is difficult. Among alternative projects, few have been completed but those projects have resulted in forks.

[mv]

the idea is that all you have to do for access is ask a developer to put you on the whitelist.

You need a mentor even to point out a technical error in an argument. If this is happening there is something very wrong.

pretty low barrier

If such a barrier is necessary to avoid real spam, it needs no discussion. Also moderation of a list is a different topic. Even blacklisting in certain situations is discussable. But to introduce a barrier to hinder non-developers raising voice "by default" is a different quality.

[Jaglover]

Good, democracy sucks.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
—John Adams, 1814

[NeddySeagoon]

mv,

Gentoo has never ever been a democracy.

In the early years, drobbins was the benevolent dictator, at least if you fitted in he was benevolent.
When drobbins left, the Top Level Project leads, who used to assist in the leadership continued without drobbins.
That failed and the elected council was created as a replacement.

The whole time, Gentoo has moved in the direction its been taken by those doing the work, not by any democratic process.

To reverse the decision, join as a dev and as GLEP 39 used to say "vote the bums out".
That's democracy in action.
Its that very democracy that got us to where we are today.

The problem with leaving is that you can only do it once and it reduces your influence.

Personally, I don't like the move and will be happy to work toward seeing it fail/reversed.
I think it will only serve to make the lists harder to follow as everything will move to -project, then devs will need to read project or only see the tip of the iceberg of the discussion.

I have considered sponsoring users but that's supporting the decision.

So, stick around, try the experiment, post lots on -project, make the experiment fail, join as a dev and "vote the bums out".
It can only be useful if devs whitelist non devs.

[Zucca]

I don't really follow the ml discussions, but I know it's not a nice move.
But as [post=8200226]bunder said[/post], we have many other channels. Is blocking one of them really the end of the journey?

I think bgo is good place to suggest improvements. Sadly, it seems more of an rule that "radical" ideas for improvements on bug lists (not just Gentoo one) get maked as NOTABUG or WONTFIX. A proper channel for users and devs should be then preserved.

Also dev-ml should stand for development mainling list, NOT developer mailing list. Future will tell which way it is.

[NeddySeagoon]

Zucca,

I think the -dev ML will wither and die.
Everything will move to -project so that discussions are in one place.
I've seen similar outcomes other places but then, I'm old and cynical.

[mv]

The problem with leaving is that you can only do it once

This recent decision about dev-ml is the tip of an iceberg which formed more and more especially in the previous months: Gentoo is going into a direction I do no longer want to follow. Everything becomes less and less about user and choice and went the way of a bureaucracy (in the negative sense). For instance, the original reasons for most of the rules of pms are long forgotten; USE-flags and even whole packages are nowadays removed under the pretext of "simplicity for the user" (of course, without asking the user whether he wants that protective simplicity) and for obeying rules which make no sense.
What to do in the face of these developments is of course a question of personality. Becoming a developer to fight politically is not my type. Your utter calmness is of course legendary, but I am not sure whether just waiting and seeing things getting worse and worse is the right answer.

[John R. Graham]

... The main problem is that contributing to Gentoo projects is difficult. Among alternative projects, few have been completed but those projects have resulted in forks.

I personally have not found that to be the case. Or, perhaps more accurately, I don't find it too (or inappropriately) difficult. Also note that Gentoo Forums is a Gentoo Project, too. There are higher barriers to entry to some forms of contribution, lower (or virtually none) for others.

Regarding direct code contributions, I never file a bug without an attached proposed solution. The vast majority of times, these are accepted, but when rejected, they come with an explanation, occasionally brusque, but mostly polite and supportive, but always containing relevant technical detail. There's a big different between, "This is broken / too hard / sucks," and, "I've found this issue; here's a proposed solution with attached implementation."

- John

[szatox]

USE-flags and even whole packages are nowadays removed under the pretext of "simplicity for the user" (of course, without asking the user whether he wants that protective simplicity) and for obeying rules which make no sense.

I suppose overlays could reasonably easily solve this problem.
Gentoo is said to be community-driven, so why shouldn't we live up to the promise? You don't have to be anointed a developer to vote with your overlay.

However, I do see one significant obstacle regarding overlays: I have no idea what stuff they offer.
I like the ideas of layman and eselect-repo but I don't know why would I want to enable any of those overlays. We basically never get exposed to all that good stuff waiting for brave adventurers to discover it. If we can fix this single thing, I believe Gentoo would sprout into a whole new Gentoo forest.
We really need to learn some marketing.

[NeddySeagoon]

mv,

I don't intend to do much. I won't help make it work by white listing anyone.
Well, maybe wiljr, just to see if there is a blacklist too :)

I will vote against the six council members who failed to vote this down.
I might even campaign for others to do the same but voting against something is only useful if there is an alternative to vote for.

I won't stand for council to try to fix it.
a) I don't have the technical skill set
b) I can't afford the personal liability exposure

[Mr. T.]

@John R. Graham: a user must learn complicated processes to perform trivial tasks. Moreover, a user may not receive help and may not have the required qualifications.
A user can be stuck in this situation: learn this and that (complicated stuff) then expose this and wait an answer. No answer! ... Let's try again or try differently.

[mv]

I like the ideas of layman and eselect-repo but I don't know why would I want to enable any of those overlays.

To get a listing of the content, you can use eix-remote or https://gpo.zugaina.org/
The more serious problem I see with overlays is that there is no established way to verify that such overlays are not compromised:
Even if some overlays are signed and you can verify the signature (which perhaps might become technically simpler by projects like gemato), you have to trust it without being able to verify more than the author's gpg identity which might even be a complete fake.

[mv]

@NeddySeagoon: Thank you for your honest reply. It is good to see that Gentoo still has members of honor.

[NeddySeagoon]

mv,

I stand by my advice earlier, stay around and become a part of the solution.

[Zucca]

++

[John R. Graham]

++ too.

[John R. Graham]

@John R. Graham: a user must learn complicated processes to perform trivial tasks. Moreover, a user may not receive help and may not have the required qualifications.
A user can be stuck in this situation: learn this and that (complicated stuff) then expose this and wait an answer. No answer! ... Let's try again or try differently.

helecho,

Many thing that are complex can be simply stated. Some examples:

• Build a nuclear power plant.
• Launch a 1 ton payload to geosynchronous orbit.
• Install a package from source in a complex dependency environment.

The devil, as they say, is in the details. Once you investigate further, you may well find reasons for the much of the complexity. Several things you've said recently have led me to believe that you don't perceive the necessary complexity and that you don't understand the problems. Just one example:

The bash ebuilds are also restrictive.

As you learn Portage better, you will probably realize the bash is the least of Portage's problems (or perhaps not a problem at all). Bash implements a Turing complete programming language, so almost by definition, it's not restrictive. But perhaps you meant something different. Ugly? Excessively terse? Not your favorite language? (It's not mine.) I could agree with all of those without thinking that it's even in the top 10 problems with Portage.

- John