Distrowatch: "Gentoo in crisis"

playfool · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:39 pm Post subject:

While I greatly enjoyed playing and learning daily creating Love-sources I'm entirely sorry I ever was talked into releasing it upon the world - I've seen nothing by pain, insults and personal attack for it, even years after I stopped working on the project, older and wiser not because of the treatment and guidance of others but in spite of it. I think that kind of behaviour is common in Gentoo, it's often extremely elitist in terms of picking on people who honestly are trying to tinker their way to knowledge, instead of pointing out flaws or politely requesting certain actions like "please don't do so and so" a large number of developers and users alike whip out the guns from the word go.

I have grown to consider my years a Gentoo user wasted and some of the saddest times in my life simply because the community doesn't work, it hasn't for a long time. The wakeup call came long ago and everyone ignored it, today we just accept that things suck and have comitees to figure out who to blame, who to elect to dispense punishment and we wait to see to leaves in anger, frustration and hurt this week - all so we can grasp onto the misty remains of a community that once was.

We have to realise we are hurting each other, ourselves and ultimately the dream that was Gentoo. Is it any wonder Gentoo went from being the fastest growing distribution with the most energic userbase and the most friendly developers to being the laughing stock of the larger Linux community?

aidanjt · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:44 pm Post subject:

gentoo-dev · Apprentice Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 172

playfool · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:01 pm Post subject:

aidanjt · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:11 pm Post subject:

I think in a world where we need to police our streets is evidence enough that humans generally are not capable of such a thing, the internet is even worse where opinions are thrown around like 10c candy bags.

jonnevers · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:22 pm Post subject:

dhave · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:46 pm Post subject:

I'm sorry about the ill feelings among the developers, and I hope there can be some reconciliation. For my part as an end-user, however, Gentoo serves me very well. Occasionally there's a glitch with an ebuild, but that's to be expected, and the problem is always addressed within a few hours.

My only basis for comparison is the two years I spent using Slackware, which remains an excellent distro. Like Gentoo, Slackware appeals to people who want to learn more about what's going on under the hood. Unlike Gentoo, Slackware is much more the province of a single chief developer, though he has added a select group of helpers. Like Gentoo, Slackware users encounter occasional glitches when a new package conflicts with existing configurations, or when there's an oversight on the part of the package builder(s). As with Gentoo, these problems are addressed very quickly.

I think the comparison between Gentoo and Slackware shows that the same sort of glitches will occur regardless of whether a distro is overseen by a single architect, who presumably gets along reasonably well with himself

, or is maintained by a large community of developers who have professional and personal disputes with one another.

In short, I'm very happy with Gentoo, but I don't expect perfection. I hope that the disagreements among the developers can be worked out -- broken human relationships are more serious than a broken distro, in my view -- but I don't sense that the whole project is in crisis.
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Kasumi_Ninja · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:30 pm Post subject:

The content of this article worries me. What I found really strange and sad is seeing Daniel Robbins leaving so soon. After all there would be no Gentoo without him. DR leaving this quickly also signals to me that there is something wrong in the internal communications of Gentoo. I don't believe he put in all that effort to become a developer in order to flamer other developers. Bottom line is what are we going to about this? A ruthlessly internal research looks to me the best way to go. Blind denial certainly not. There are three possible outcomes of this investigation:

1 Things are wrong and needs to be changed
2 Things are ok no change is required
3 Things are ok, but improvements are necessary

The results of this investigation should (off course) be made public. My experience with corporate communication learns that if you don't provide an adequate answer soon this will damage Gentoo.
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Naib · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:41 pm Post subject:

jonnevers · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:02 pm Post subject:

Something just occurred to me (again, actually). And I don't mean to step on anyone's toes but "we" are still going on and on about this ex-developer.

has anything changed or begun to change because of this situation? people outside Gentoo are definitely taking notice now... where is the internal attention? We should have already stopped picking on his personality and moved forward to better the development environment.

imo, it appears that he does mean a lot to development as no one can seem to let it go. so where is the positive outcome from this situation?

moesasji · Apprentice Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 263

Something is being done according to the last post on planet.gentoo.org
Let's hope that it is not a solution that only works on paper.

bugg_tb · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:33 pm Post subject:

Earlier today slashdot noted the article and forums threads about gentoo in crisis. Personally i've used it for years and even when I move away I still end up coming back. It has its problems but so do all distros, ups n downs etc.

Anyway a couple of articles later slashdot carries this article about Open Source Projects Surviving Poisonous People. Perhaps Gentoo Devs could all read it and possibly learn from a few of its notes...

Just a thought

Tom
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Conan · Guru Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 360

Hello, my name is conan and I am an [strike]alcoholic[/strike]arm chair general.

dhave · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:07 pm Post subject:

GNUtoo · Veteran Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 1919

The Unknown · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 6:46 pm Post subject:

This panic crap is useless,panic spreads panic like disease.People start basing opinions on other peoples opinions its destructive and counter productive.
This often reminds me of the turn of the century,here in the USA it was said that all of the software that businesses use would stop because it only contained dates up to 2000.People and media grabbed a hold of that and there was wide spread panic.People were buying guns and food and bomb shelters and pulling there money from banks and shit, they thought the world was going to collapse on that day!Well guess what happened on 1/1/2000.The sun came up, stores opened banks opened just like any other normal day. The developers and admins knew what had to be done and worked hard on it all year ,maybe 2 I dont` know to prevent that from happening. So really we just need to use are heads and not ears,stick together and stand tall. I cant imagine a large and well established distro dropping of the face of the earth.Has that ever happened? Gentoo has been grouped and ranked with the oldest for as long as I`ve been around. So peace to you all...I`ll see you around

metacircular-evaluator · n00b Joined: 09 Jan 2007 Posts: 8

With paludis as far as DR goes ist following wrong:
It is developed by an ex-deveoper and hosted on a non-Gentoo infrastructure
BUT
it is (or will be) a central package in Gentoo (as it is a package manager)
AND
the copyright was not transferred to the Gentoo foundation as Daniel says it should
be for such a central development.

EDIT: The postings of DR regarding a very important package as a package manager should be
developed under Gentoo foundation on Gentoo infrastructure:
1) http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-dev&m=117289871505401&w=2
2) http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-dev&m=117290415103606&w=2
3) http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-dev&m=117290483613220&w=2
4) http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-dev&m=117291784223007&w=2
5) http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-dev&m=117295322017777&w=2
and last post:
6) http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-dev&m=117302797928791&w=2

My opinion: The developers should have followed Daniel fully then these problems would not
occur.
Reading again his postings makes me clear: Daniel was right.

My hope: He is very busy for a fork of this distro. Taking with him good devs to his new development.

moesasji · Apprentice Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 263

@Metacircular-evaluator: there is a slight misunderstanding here.

The discussion was not about Paludis, but about PMS. This is a document which describes the functionality that a package-manager should have to be compatible with the tree. As a this functionality is basically what describes the functionality of Gentoo as a distro it is very strange that this document is drafted by somebody who is not a gentoo-dev and does not have the copyright transferred. And that was what Daniel appeared to be pointing at. And that it was not possible to have a look at a draft.

So Paludis itself can very well be developed by anybody outside gentoo. No problem with that.
The confusing part is that the draft of PMS appears to be written by the same person as who develops Paludis.
(even though multiple persons appear to be involved)

peka

aidanjt · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:44 pm Post subject:

wah · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:12 pm Post subject:

metwo · n00b Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 69

Naib · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:39 pm Post subject:

minskpower · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:28 pm Post subject:

Naib, dude, you didn't read the whole thread did you? Daniel went for a little crusade against the ex-dev whose name is better not spoken and in the process was proven wrong with respect to current gentoo policies (ie the guy wasn't quite up to speed with it) by a couple of devs who also disagreed with other stuff Daniel said. After that, he decided to quit.
So you see, it wasn't just one man that burned him at stake while slowly chopping with the axe. There were more

As for the deep crisis of Gentoo, naaah. One early spring flame does not a war make. Too much noise over nothing, politics disputes come and go, Gentoo is still here.

ohc · n00b Joined: 24 Dec 2003 Posts: 2

I had just finished watching a Google talk by some devs from subversion and then saw the Distrowatch article. There are several lessons that the subversion guys learnt that can be applied here. So here it is, watch it and you'll see what i mean, though I think the title is a little insensitive ;)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645
It's 54 minutes long and occasionly entertaining, but there is a serious message that applies here.

Just for clarification, I'm a keen user & lurker, but not a developer. I have been using Gentoo for a number of years and would hate to see it go the way of the dodo, maybe enough that I'll get off my backside and join in.

Cheers all

ohc