Well it seems like Gentoo has one again landed on the front page news for a perceived negative action. The vast majority of the reason behind us is that Gentoo has always been very open about the development process, so you should grow to expect that there will be a lot of bad press with the good. However, it always seems to blindside a lot of people that we are this open about the process.

The first thing I’d like to cover is the supposedly anonymous developer who decided that he would take his issues public without taking the proper procedure in doing it. That’s the kind of maturity that we have in the developer community of Gentoo. This isn’t the first time that this has happened and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Ultimately, its these kinds of actions that I believe are ultimately killing us. It shows that there is a segment of the developers who don’t know how to act in a appropriate manner. Although this is a community project that we all volunteer on, I would expect that we all look at it as a workplace environment. I at least hope that we all know the type of attitude that we should show in a workplace and would bring that kind of professional respect to the table. Now I’ve been guilty of flying off the handle to try and get people to behave in the past but it certainly didn’t last long, as it just wasn’t me, and trying to out ass the ass’s would just give me a greater headache then it was worth.

As we can see though, a lot of us don’t bring that workplace mentality to the project and causes a lot of the problems that we have. Far be it that I’m suggesting a corporate suit and tie setup for us in Gentoo, however I do expect people to act in a manner accordingly. I also know that even in a work environment people goof off around the water cooler and talk about other things. I enjoy talking about random things, and in fact I’m sure I’m the start of quite a few of the stranger ones we have in -dev. Without any real management there’s no reason for people to behave and act like adults instead of spoiled children who want things their way, but won’t listen to the other side because it doesn’t fit in with what you want. Again, many developers are guilty of this, and I’ve walked away from many of you because you simply will not at least attempt to listen to the other side. As well, we’ve had developers walk away from the project for this exact reason. Simply put, we need to take the actual people who deal with the Administration side of things; those who wade through the political bullshit to try and act as mediators and the true leaders of the project and make them the council. I don’t care if these people haven’t developed or maintained anything really in four years or they just committed something in the last five minutes. The council should be the power to stop things like what just happened in their tracts at the moment they need to be.

Instead we have something that should have been nipped in the bud get out of control yet again, because no matter who we have on the council..they don’t have the power or the ability to stand up, be unpopular and tell everyone to shut up, and go sit in a corner. At this current moment in time, I’m sure that a timeout that you all remember as children would put you in the place that many of us have been acting like. Don’t even bother going, but its not me. You are just making an excuse for yourself to not feel guilty, when you know you are. Accept that you are part of the problem and take your timeout in the corner to think about how we all should act.

I’m not doing the call to act polite, I’m doing a call to get the people who should be the ones leading the project in the position to actually do what the council should be about. They never were just a guide for the technical direction for the project and electing people who are only there for the technical knowhow is not going to solve the problems that they are expected to deal with, but have no intention of dealing with. There is also the fact that really, what kind of punishment can we give to someone who is misbehaving? Suspend their access to cvs and its more or less a vacation, so we need to get creative about how we punish bad behavior. We’ve never had a really good system to handle that part of the problem, and is something I hope developer relations thinks about, as I don’t have any ideas of how we can punish for bad behavior.

I would suspect that most people know of ciaranm, as he is a person who is very hard to avoid, and I believe has mastered the ability to get to being the center of attention. He recently filed yet another conflict bug against another person. As he is a former dev I’ve mentioned to him multiple times that he should know better then most users the process for going about getting a resolution to a personal conflict and continues to file bugs to get attention, as its the only reason I can think of that he would avoid a proper process. I believe part of why its done the way its done, because there is no punishment for his behavior or actions as well. While on the bug he had a good reason for getting in contact with the user relations group, he was not innocent in the action as well, and was warned as well. I know a few people who would not mind not to see or hear from him again, as he is considered by many to be a common troll. One who seems to define a lot based on Gentoo I’m sure he’ll be replying to this and calling me a great grand list of 4 letter words and filing a developer relations bug against me. However, I’ve just had it up to here with his antics. Users, no matter who they are should be expected to behave as civilized adults who can hold a two way conversation as well. I don’t believe I’ve ever had one of those with him. I know that no one will stand up and agree with me, as is the way with Gentoo now. People will pm you and go yeah, right on good job ++. When you actually need them to stand up and back you up, the spines suddenly disappear, or simply never existed.

Having a spine is always a good thing, if you are wrong, admit it and move on. We all are human and make mistakes, if we didn’t you’d never learn anything.

Gentoo “making mistakes in the open to prove we are just like you”