Should the "Unsupported Software" forum exist?

[ttuttle]

I'm getting a little sick of the idea of an "Unsupported Software" forum.

Without it, the Gentoo Forums are nicely categorized, and this post--which is about desktop environments, specifically luminocity which is part of GNOME--would go in Desktop Environments.

But with this forum, everything that's not 100% sanctioned by Gentoo, even if it is properly labelled as "unsupported", gets dumped in a corner where few people are likely to see it. If you read down the list of threads, they're all different things, each of which really belongs in another forum but is here because someone's afraid Gentoo as a distro will be blamed if it doesn't work. I think most of these threads should be in the regular forums rather than separated. (For example, my post about Powermgr [some software I wrote to glue together power management functions] should have stayed in Kernel and Hardware, since that's what it's about. The recent post about "Luminocity" [GNOME's bleeding-edge testing window manager] should be in Desktop Environments, since it's about GNOME.)

Incidentally, it also makes it harder to keep up on topics you're interested in, because you have to check two places: first you have to check the normal forum, such as Desktop Environments, and then you have to dig through Unsupported Software, trying to figure out if any of the threads are related to what you're looking for.

On the other hand, I guess "Unsupported Software" has become somewhat of a bustling place to find cool, bleeding-edge things that are far from being included into Portage. I just think it would be better to organize the forums entirely by topic and deal with supported/unsupported by saying ::ahem:: "This software is supported by Gentoo; you can talk to John Q. Developer if you have problems" or "This software is unsupported by Gentoo; you're on your own".

Comments? Thoughts? Rebuttals? Flames?

Edit: title was too long, fixed

[ansient]

We need a general linux forum. OTW is too OTW, and unsupported software is too general.

[ttuttle]

[Deathwing00]

One of the reasons the Unsupported Software forum exists it's because Gentoo developers do not support that software, it's usually test software or provided by users. Thusly, as that sofware is NOT officially supported by developers, it cannot fit in any of the official support forums.

[syg00]

[pjp]

[ttuttle]

[ansient]

[amne]

These are the Gentoo Support Forums. Please emphasize the words Gentoo and Support. We're a linux distribution and the primary objective of these forums is supporting our users with problems that deals with the software officially supported.

Having unsupported software in the support forums isn't good for some reasons: People tend to mix up Gentoo specific problems with Gentoo's, people blame Gentoo for being broken even though it's not Gentoo's fault, people have wrong expectations (such as Gentoo supporting Reiser4 on the Live CDs), developers got annoyed as well with unsupported stuff in the support forums.
That's why we decided to move it out. Theoretically we could just have moved it to OTW, but since we respect the fact that many people try to improve Gentoo by providing their ebuilds, we created the US forum. So please don't view the US forum as a stigma but as a sign of respect to our community.
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[wdreinhart]

It's necessary.

People want to discuss software that Getnoo doesn't package. The moderators don't want to deal with confusion caused by discussing non-gentoo-sanctioned software in any of the categorical forums (desktop, multimedia, etc). Without an unsupported software forum all those threads will be dumped into OTW and immediately buried under tons of politiical garbage.

[masseya]

I would like to provide some history here for those who may not be aware of how exactly the Gentoo Linux support forums evolved on this particular topic. Way back when the forums were first created the main forum was called "All Things Gentoo" and it quickly became a giant mess of all sorts of random questions, chit-chat, and general mayhem. This called for a change to make things more useful. This forum was moved from the top to the bottom of the index page, but it still was the highest traffic forum on the board by quite a bit. (I *think* it was larger than all the other forums combined.)

Then came the idea of a major overhaul to the organization of the forums. Included in this overhaul was the idea of a general linux forum. I was originally in support of this. However, the basic arguments against it were: 1) We're the Gentoo Support forums and we don't want to have to support things from other distributions, which this forum would basically allow. 2) It would become the new "All Things Gentoo" forum and receive virtually all the traffic because people were too lazy/uninterested in the other new forums (which, incidentally are mostly as you see them now). 3) There are many other traditional resources to answer traditional or general questions.

The main reasons to support the idea of a General Linux forum were: 1) There were a lot of questions about 'general' things because Gentoo attracted a lot of people who were really new to linux and interested in the idea that they could compile the whole system to be super fast. (The birth of the Gentoo Ricer, some would say.) 2) There were a lot of good fragmented resources for things like this, but why not put everything that even remotely related to Gentoo in one place? There was no other resource that put everything in one place and become the one stop shop for very solid tech support on anything linux related. (LinuxQuestions.org was about two years old and at the time was not, IMHO, as well organized and informative as it is today at five years old.) 3) With OSS based on shared knowledge, it seemed a little wrong to say "Your question for support isn't welcome here" to anyone.

With most of the reasons for the idea of a General Linux forum being idealistic and most of the reasons against it being very practical, I was basically one of the few that wasn't persuaded to nix the idea. I believe when we finally got down to doing the reorg, this was my only complaint and I was one of few people with any kind opposition. Today, I am against the idea for various reasons, most of which can be summarized by simply saying flat out that I was totally wrong before.

I suppose I should specifically address the previous points I made in support of such a forum. Once you look at the kinds of questions that we got on the forums, it became apparent that basically every single one of them could fit really well into the topic based forums we had. The other resources online about general linux questions were certainly not bad and they had the added benefit of already having solid answers to a great number of questions. (LinuxQuestions.org is now arguably the best forums based resource for any generic linux question on the planet.) Finally, the concept of shared knowledge is important with OSS, because without it we wouldn't have people who would go off and start new and better projects based on previously shared knowledge. The Gentoo Linux forums drew the line at not answering questions that aren't in some way related to Gentoo Linux. As a result, we have become a very solid and focused tech support board. A number of people simply got (or already had) accounts on other linux support forums, including LinuxQuestions.org, to help answer their general questions. It turns out that the interenet is large enough for both a general linux support board and more specific distribution support boards.

There was also a Newbie forum that received a lot of general questions. This forum was removed in favor of having topic based forums that strictly stuck to their topics (in part because people were genereally kind and helpful to newbie type questions in all the other forums anyhow..). Even to this day that has been a major theme on the forums. I think if we were to have kept any "general" forum, it would have been that one. I encourage you to read the thread to find out more about why it no longer exists. Though, neither does Guest posting. (Most interesting to me are the comments about how there are rarely flames on these forums. Ah, the good old days... )

So what do you do if you have a general linux question and you want support?

Well, there are a number of options.

1) Post it in Other Things Gentoo for nostalgia's sake. This is the forum formerly known as "All Things Gentoo" which was by far the largest on the site. (It's roughly 6th largest now.) I don't actually recommend this since we'd probably move your post to OTW if it doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with Gentoo.

2) Post in OTW and pray. I rarely visit this forum, but I suppose it's possible to get some support here.

3) Begin the process of writing a solid document on the topic. Documentation, Tips and Tricks contains various things that are application specific and not directly related to Gentoo. If you wanted to research your question fully and make a doc, then you could post here.

4) Check the Frequently Asked Questions and find out if there's already an answer for your question or if you could research your question and write a FAQ about it.

5) Check out another resource. The Gentoo Linux support forums are going to be strictly about Gentoo Linux support for the forseeable future.

On the topic of the Unsupported Software forum, amne's comments are dead on. Basically, if you are trying to develop or use something that's Gentoo related, but not an official part of Gentoo or Portage, like for example your own kernel patch set. That would be the place to go. It's there because we know you can't reasonably be expected to use OTW and there were too many people getting confused by what is officially supported and what isn't to allow these postings in the main support forums.
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