How many users could attract a forked gentoo?

Message

erm67 · Post by **erm67** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 4:34 pm

Forked by drobbins of course ....

xalan · Post by **xalan** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 4:49 pm

Always look before you leap.

chrismcdirty · Post by **chrismcdirty** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:29 pm

If he were to create a forked gentoo, there would have to be a roadmap in place to show me exactly why and how it will be different from current gentoo. Not that I find anything specifically wrong, currently, but I'd like to see exactly what is planned to change, aside from developers' attitudes.

Naib · Post by **Naib** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 7:59 pm

chrismcdirty wrote:If he were to create a forked gentoo, there would have to be a roadmap in place to show me exactly why and how it will be different from current gentoo. Not that I find anything specifically wrong, currently, but I'd like to see exactly what is planned to change, aside from developers' attitudes.

Gentoo doesn't need a roadmap, how can it... oh look new package is out, lets sort an ebuild and debug.

Roadmap is good for 6monthly released distro's so all dev's have a target of what is needed by when for a big rollout, such rollouts are don't exist with Gentoo.

It does need leadership however, look at the GUI-installer some like it, some don't want it... but it isn't needed for gentoo (there is already a means to install it). Someone to say "yer great do it!" or "waste of time, other pressing issues". The people that actually do the work are very good at doing what they think is needed AND crap at actually making it point in a useful place (same in any industry).
Some layer of management is needed to help steer the dev's while the Council does whatever the council does

All well and good Drobbins making a new gentoo BUT unless he can actually pinpoint what cause Gentoo to get into the state is is, his "Funtoo" will go the same way and then what will we have? two watered down distro's with not enough skillbase behind either (as some gentoo dev's will enevitably go to Funtoo) to keep them both afloat and Gentoo really will be dead.

Best thing is draw a line in the sand with Gentoo, temporarily cut the dev's from the council (to come extent) to allow it to sort itself out (if the root-cause is in the council [broken by design?]), bring Drobbins back in (since he seems to still do something like Gentoo) and sort out the management side before re-connecting (fully) with the workhorse which is the dev's and put gentoo back on the map

AllenJB · Post by **AllenJB** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:57 am

Where's the "it's not going to happen so this poll is totally pointless" option?

chrismcdirty · Post by **chrismcdirty** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 2:08 pm

Naib wrote:
chrismcdirty wrote:If he were to create a forked gentoo, there would have to be a roadmap in place to show me exactly why and how it will be different from current gentoo. Not that I find anything specifically wrong, currently, but I'd like to see exactly what is planned to change, aside from developers' attitudes.
Gentoo doesn't need a roadmap, how can it... oh look new package is out, lets sort an ebuild and debug.

Roadmap is good for 6monthly released distro's so all dev's have a target of what is needed by when for a big rollout, such rollouts are don't exist with Gentoo.

Perhaps I used the wrong wording when I said roadmap. What would be ideal is pinpointing everything that he finds wrong with the current incarnation of gentoo, and proposing how to remedy the problem. Not just "I want to fork because some gentoo developers are assholes and I have no power to make them go away", because trollish, egotistical developers are bound to crop up in any development environment. I'd want to see concrete ideas on how changes would make it better than what we have now.

Paapaa · Post by **Paapaa** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 2:44 pm

Forking Gentoo would be a very stupid wasting of development resources.

And really, Gentoo is not dying, Gentoo is not losing a lot of developers, Gentoo is in good health and constantly evolving to a better distribution. I'm sure all these incidents have given Gentoo a lot of publicity. When the FUD spreaders realize that Gentoo didn't die after all, we also get a lot more new users and developers.

shaumux · Post by **shaumux** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:37 pm

I would look at the reasons and the new features in the forked one first.

dahranis · Post by **dahranis** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:58 pm

A gentoo fork... what could possibly be different about it?

System33 · Post by **System33** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:31 pm

dahranis wrote:A gentoo fork... what could possibly be different about it?

package manager?

The only thing that bothers me is perhaps portage, although I donÂ´t have any real complains about it., perhaps speed, --declean and revdep-rebuild (but most of the time itÂ´s just me).

rgk · Post by **rgk** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 11:18 pm

there is no reason for a fork, and drobbins clearly doesn't have the time to do it.

gentoo can clearly work out its problems.

bytenirvana · Post by **bytenirvana** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:01 am

aren't there already forks? eg Sabayon?

Dirk.R.Gently · Post by **Dirk.R.Gently** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:37 am

Ban the Council. eek, hope that get me banned

. Good gawd the council couldn't even file the necessary paperwork the keep a charter going. Essentially what we have is kids in a classroom left alone without a teacher. Really smart kids, but just running about, not that focused. And this thing about the FSF is a joke, I understand the whole lawyer bit of it, but it sounds like to me they are handing off leadership.

mark_alec · Post by **mark_alec** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:02 am

Dirk.R.Gently wrote:Ban the Council. eek, hope that get me banned . Good gawd the council couldn't even file the necessary paperwork the keep a charter going. Essentially what we have is kids in a classroom left alone without a teacher. Really smart kids, but just running about, not that focused. And this thing about the FSF is a joke, I understand the whole lawyer bit of it, but it sounds like to me they are handing off leadership.

You mean the Foundation. The Council are not involved in this.

alistair · Post by **alistair** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:10 am

Dirk.R.Gently wrote:Ban the Council. eek, hope that get me banned . Good gawd the council couldn't even file the necessary paperwork the keep a charter going. Essentially what we have is kids in a classroom left alone without a teacher. Really smart kids, but just running about, not that focused. And this thing about the FSF is a joke, I understand the whole lawyer bit of it, but it sounds like to me they are handing off leadership.

It was the councils responsibility?

Januszzz · Post by **Januszzz** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:08 am

And really, Gentoo is not dying, Gentoo is not losing a lot of developers, Gentoo is in good health and constantly evolving to a better distribution. I'm sure all these incidents have given Gentoo a lot of publicity. When the FUD spreaders realize that Gentoo didn't die after all, we also get a lot more new users and developers.

Good to hear that

I'm sure Gentoo won't die in near future, there are many who would like to take it over

Old quote say that in every story there is a piece of truth. FUD is not from air, its from developers/users who didn't agree with mainstream. So I would say that there are some discrepancies in the community.

Gentoo is Portage - not so much more. For me standard utilities are fine but if I could find better tools I would use them. Well - still everybody uses emerge instead of paludis, I suppose mainly because it hasn't ever reached stable stage. As a systems administrator I need to expect sth marked stable, not exactly more binary than emerge... As I read some extreme flame war a while ago about this subject I add that those discrepancies are about not "existing" software...

Janusz

Dirk.R.Gently · Post by **Dirk.R.Gently** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:49 am

mark_alec wrote:You mean the Foundation. The Council are not involved in this.

Yes, a little late, the Foundation. Also not the FSF but the Software Freedom Conservancy. lordy lord

defenderBG · Post by **defenderBG** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:26 pm

bytenirvana wrote:aren't there already forks? eg Sabayon?

sabayon is not gentoo....
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-41 ... 0f59bd89bc

AllenJB · Post by **AllenJB** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:50 am

defenderBG wrote:
bytenirvana wrote:aren't there already forks? eg Sabayon?
sabayon is not gentoo....
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-41 ... 0f59bd89bc

That doesn't mean it can't be considered atleast a partial fork. It does replace a fair amount of packages from Gentoo with its own versions.

AllenJB · Post by **AllenJB** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:53 am

Januszzz wrote:Gentoo is Portage - not so much more. For me standard utilities are fine but if I could find better tools I would use them. Well - still everybody uses emerge instead of paludis, I suppose mainly because it hasn't ever reached stable stage. As a systems administrator I need to expect sth marked stable, not exactly more binary than emerge... As I read some extreme flame war a while ago about this subject I add that those discrepancies are about not "existing" software...

Janusz

I disagree. Gentoo is a distribution and a distribution is the sum of its parts. Gentoo is the sum of methodology + package tree + community. Gentoo using palaudis instead of portage is still Gentoo, but as soon as you take away or massively alter the package tree or any number of aspects regarding Gentoo's community, then it stops being Gentoo.

Unne · Post by **Unne** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:48 pm

AllenJB wrote:
Januszzz wrote:Gentoo is Portage - not so much more. For me standard utilities are fine but if I could find better tools I would use them. Well - still everybody uses emerge instead of paludis, I suppose mainly because it hasn't ever reached stable stage. As a systems administrator I need to expect sth marked stable, not exactly more binary than emerge... As I read some extreme flame war a while ago about this subject I add that those discrepancies are about not "existing" software...

Janusz
I disagree. Gentoo is a distribution and a distribution is the sum of its parts. Gentoo is the sum of methodology + package tree + community. Gentoo using palaudis instead of portage is still Gentoo, but as soon as you take away or massively alter the package tree or any number of aspects regarding Gentoo's community, then it stops being Gentoo.

... + infrastructure + branding + history + reputation + philosophy. Etc. etc. I agree that a fork would probably be a wholly different kind of beast in many ways other than having a different package manager.

I don't see a fork as necessary. Given the apparent perpetual developer shortage, splitting the community in half would be rather harmful. Seems likely either the fork would die or Gentoo would die pretty quickly.

Etal · Post by **Etal** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:24 pm

Naib wrote:Gentoo doesn't need a roadmap, how can it... oh look new package is out, lets sort an ebuild and debug.

Roadmap is good for 6monthly released distro's so all dev's have a target of what is needed by when for a big rollout, such rollouts are don't exist with Gentoo.

On the contrary, I think a roadmap is something Gentoo badly needs. In the years we've used Gentoo, we have become accustomed to the idea that Gentoo is versionless. As a result, everything is based on things laid out years ago.

What I'd wish to see is for someone to come in, find everything that works well with Gentoo, and everything that could be better. And after that, tear everything down, and change the things that have been considered the "core" of Gentoo.

This would, of course, be a lot of work. However, in the open-source world, this happens. Look at the KDE project, for example. A new version of Qt was released, and now they are basically rewriting most of it from scratch. They set the roadmap to release the KDE 4 in late October, and by the end of October it will be released.

The kernel also forked, and will fork. According to Linus Torvalds, there is no Linux 2.7 simply because there hasn't been a major change that broke everything. As soon as that happens, a new branch will fork.

Daniel Robbins would be the ideal person to start this change, since he was the one who originally came up with this idea of Gentoo. If he were to make a major change, I definitely would be for it.

Unne wrote:Seems likely either the fork would die or Gentoo would die pretty quickly.

If the fork doesn't die, Gentoo could only die if it were superceded.

steveL · Post by **steveL** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 8:53 am

AM088 wrote:
Naib wrote:Gentoo doesn't need a roadmap, how can it... oh look new package is out, lets sort an ebuild and debug.

Roadmap is good for 6monthly released distro's so all dev's have a target of what is needed by when for a big rollout, such rollouts are don't exist with Gentoo.
On the contrary, I think a roadmap is something Gentoo badly needs. In the years we've used Gentoo, we have become accustomed to the idea that Gentoo is versionless. As a result, everything is based on things laid out years ago.

The fact that Gentoo is versionless is one of its major benefits, in that a reinstall is not required. But profiles can change quite a bit.

What I'd wish to see is for someone to come in, find everything that works well with Gentoo, and everything that could be better. And after that, tear everything down, and change the things that have been considered the "core" of Gentoo.

What you mean like baselayout, version 2 of which is about to be stabled?

This would, of course, be a lot of work. However, in the open-source world, this happens. Look at the KDE project, for example. A new version of Qt was released, and now they are basically rewriting most of it from scratch. They set the roadmap to release the KDE 4 in late October, and by the end of October it will be released.

The kernel also forked, and will fork. According to Linus Torvalds, there is no Linux 2.7 simply because there hasn't been a major change that broke everything. As soon as that happens, a new branch will fork.

Doesn't sound like they have much of a roadmap tho..

Daniel Robbins would be the ideal person to start this change, since he was the one who originally came up with this idea of Gentoo. If he were to make a major change, I definitely would be for it.

Well I'd prefer to know what the change is before I say I'd vote for it.
I really don't see the point in a distro trying to have a roadmap; 98% of its software is written by others, so it's not like there's much to have influence over. If Gentoo were binary, then releases would make sense, and there would need to be deadlines on getting functionality in. It isn't though, and while it would be cool to have certain new functionality ready for a release, it isn't essential. We're all just working off the portage tree, so that's where energy should be directed IMO.

erm67 · Post by **erm67** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:31 am

steveL wrote: I really don't see the point in a distro trying to have a roadmap; 98% of its software is written by others, so it's not like there's much to have influence over. If Gentoo were binary, then releases would make sense, and there would need to be deadlines on getting functionality in.

The roadmap must not necessarily include the version of the single packages, could generically indicate the steps toward a future Gentoo. For example a roadmap for Gentoo could be (completely random and absolutely not related to reality):

new ebuild format standard by sep 07
new binary package format standard by sep 07
new portage tree structure by oct 07
all ebuild converted by nov 07
new package manager by dec 07
Sabayon and Gentoo merge by jan 08
binary release by feb 08

Every project could benefit from a roadmap IMHO.

rambam · Post by **rambam** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 1:04 pm

erm67 wrote:Forked by drobbins of course ....

He seems to have a severe entitlement complex and appears to have returned to Gentoo after failing at all his other ventures.

How many users could attract a forked gentoo?

If drobbins creates a forked version of gentoo would you install it?

How many users could attract a forked gentoo?

Re: How many users could attract a forked gentoo?