In response
January 12th, 2008Daniel,
We’ve talked before about the trustee’s and the foundation before and I know you’ve been in contact with some fairly recently about the situation that the Foundation is in nonexistence. What you are doing is both good and bad. Let me explain….
Its good because you still care about the existence of the organization but in your vision its your way or the highway. That is in part really what the open source moment has as its benefit and downfall. It drives people to both strive harder..but also to fork because to quote some people “that bloke is a real arse and I won’t work with him”. Even returning in a “part time” role would be a disaster after all. I don’t think many have forgotten what happened with the last time you rejoined. That lasted all of about 2 days. There are many reasons for this but I don’t personally see your “open and free” as that in any true sense of the words. If you look you would probably agree with me. As I know there would be a few that you would want to silence immediately as the so called troublemakers for the project. However, they’ve also pushed and help direct portage to have standards that did not exist before that allowed interoperability with not one other, but two other package managers. If under your system…would this of happened, or would these yes…abrasive people of been silenced to not contribute to what makes Gentoo in part what the website says at it heart? The ability to make your own distribution.
We also know that you don’t have to give this chance at all, as you still own the rights to many aspects of what make Gentoo itself and could willingly and forcefully take it if you really wanted to. You’ve not chosen to do that but have in essence issued an ultimatum.
Now onto your points.
1) no disagreement
2)The Foundation will be responsible for providing general guidance and direction for the project and for ensuring that the Gentoo project is moving in a positive direction and has proper leadership.
This is something we like to call the council. There was a reason for the separation of the guidance of the project direction from the legal issues, of which you were at one point agreeable with. They are as you are aware entirely polar opposite sides of the spectrum. You by no means need to be a good developer (write code, maintain 20 packages) to be a good trustee. You do however need to know how Gentoo works, to make sound technical decisions about the direction the project should go and if something is even physically/theoretically possible.
Very seldom do you have a person who is excellent at one, but to have someone who excels at both aspects is far harder to find…as by the fact that as a whole, we’ve been immured with doubts about the ability to make the right decisions about how and where to go. As well as we got momentum another possibility would come along and we’d start all over as it was a “better options”. That is a failing on our part, one that really has cost us far more then anything else in a real sense then any personal orideological issue that we’ve fought over and had been reported to the media.
I can continue on with reasons if you’d like about why the separation from the direction of the technical aspect from the legal is good. I could always mention any decent sized company has legal departments, the board of directors doesn’t do legal and direction the company takes…just checks with the lawyers typically to make sure its A-OK.
3) The Foundation will be responsible for ensuring that Gentoo developers, individual Gentoo users, external Gentoo-related projects and Gentoo-using organizations have a voice and the opportunity to influence the overall technical direction of the Gentoo project in a clear, open and organized way.
We actually have that to an extent now. It just so happens that our more persistent users are or were former developers and as such their voice tends to carry a bit more weight..and they have effected some very solid changes in the way things happen. However, I’m all ears about the grandiose ways in which you have that will give a larger opportunity to the users to decide on matters? Certainly we could expand on the ways in which a user can get directly involved as that’s always been an issue that we’ve had…and correct me if I’m wrong….but I’d say we’re larger then when you left. Its very much like hearing the voices of a million people screaming out and all saying something different. So how do you pick the voice out from the million of voices?
My opinion, Gentoo needs to provide the tools as stated earlier to make your own distro…it has that in ways with catalyst and there’s work going in there for quite a long time to improve it (thanks go to wolf31o2 for this one). We’ve been for as long as I’ve been a member (as a user I’m implying which has been over 5 years now) more in a maintenance mode for the packages themselves. While the tree has grown in packages it’s still something that is a day to day maintenance and isn’t where the “innovation is”. However, that’s one of the major things with becoming a developer…maintain ebuilds. That’s how we recruit..that’s how since I’ve been a user the major way to “help” was to be good enough to maintain ebuilds and code..but only so much as to fix what you maintained…or worked on portage.
Now as well the above is a lofty dream as my skills are bash, sh, some php/python/perl so I can’t bring about the changes and with everyone mostly tied up in package maintaining…those who could would probably not want to, or even if they do…where’s the time after maintaining the packages that you took on as a good gentoo developer.
So please…I’d like to hear how you can direct a beast with 9 different heads all going in different directions…I pointed out two.Maintainer-ship of ebuilds and catalyst for building your own distro’s can all be led to one spot?
4) Legal paperwork will be filed properly and on-time and the Foundation will maintain a proper level of transparency with the community.
This is as I mentioned before a failing of our end. No excuses can be made for that and there’s a lot to prove on that end as it was an entire wash.
5) The Foundation will help the Gentoo community to be a positive and pleasant environment for all participants.
Who defines what is a positive and pleasant environment? It’s been tried a few ways and they’ve had various levels of success. Some are greater failures then others but they were attempts. I’m sure a few people would say that I don’t contribute to a positive and pleasant environment…so should I go? Or how about Ciaranm who many people dislike but while he’s disliked you can’t say that he hasn’t as a user contributed to many improvements to gentoo as a basis, and created/leads a very popular alternative to portage/emerge that is feature compatible with emerge, and extends functionality. Should he be banned because of personality differences?
What you are talking about really is two different things here as I see it. 1) everyone needs to be flowery and we need to be communal and 2) its my way or the highway
1) For this how do you expect to be fair and just to everyone? You simply can’t and to be truly open as you so wish to be…we need to let every voice be heard..just like in a communal environment. Guess what, very few communal area’s lived to this day because we’re all people and we fail as people. Sure you can go and hand everyone out something special to smoke to mellow them out but that doesn’t fix the issue at all.
2)You’re not a benevolent dictator….nor can anyone be one
It’s great to dream, but those who dream never set foot in reality of what the situation is right now. You dream of what gentoo can become and what it was….the reality is that we are not a legal entity in any sense of the word and have no true right to the “Gentoo” anything at this point, its by your good graces that we’re even allowed to use the name at all….for that we are all thankful but in the openness you want…I say no to you being the benevolent semi-parttime dictator with minions who will follow your orders as if they are the word of god.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
You have some will to write long diatribes about nothing. I, as a Gentoo fan and user can say one thing only: Daniel made the Gentoo what it was and while Daniel was on board Gento was a worth effort. Now it’s a wreck. Just keep on writing crap, dude.
Alex
January 12th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Gentoo was in far better shape when drobbins was in charge years back.
The current leadership is incompetent and has failed it again and again.
Please come back, drobbins!
January 12th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
all this “come back robbins” stuff tastes political. a return to single-minded leadership could limit gentoo at this point.
January 12th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
lol shitty reasons (sry) imo to satisfy yours and your friends stubbornness without the single /care for the project!
Give the project back to DRobbins!
January 12th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
It seems to me the current problem is a lack of defined leadership. As even Mr. Robbins himself admits, Chris Gianelloni (wolf31o2) has been carrying the ball in a lot of areas. It seems to me proper power needs to be given to him as a coronated leader if you to try to resolve some of these problems.
Thanks
Steven
January 12th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
From a psychological point of view I think you hardly have choice.
Obviously the Gentoo community wants changes and - wether based on good reasons or just emotional ones - a majority believes, that DRobbins is the best shot to bring the right changes.
If you refuse to give him a chance, the community will undermine the councils authority anyway. As a result you get anarchy and a lot of people loosing their faith in Gentoo’s reformability.
However, I’m not a psychologist. Maybe what I wrote is stupid, too.
January 12th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I posted an answer in the forums:
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-4718339.html#4718339
It includes some weird ideas about how to get gentoo more stable and reliable (peoplewise). Please note those are just some random thoughts I got when reading your post.
January 12th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Oh c’mon, Steven Edwards… giving Chris Gianelloni power over Gentoo would be like giving Dick Cheney power over the Girl Scouts of America. He’ll piss on everyone’s cookies and you’ll be left with a bunch of sobbing virgins.
January 12th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I have been an active Gentoo user for 4 years. Now, generally speaking, I have absolutely no love for Daniel Robbins. His personality and leadership style, in my opinion, are simply not a good fit for the 2008 version of the Gentoo community.
However. Over the past year, the current Gentoo leaders have shown themselves to be unusually incompetent. Documents have not been filed on time. GWN has not been published for months. There was no 2007.1. Packages.gentoo.org was down for weeks (for a project with so many talented security people, why did it take so long to fix a trivial injection vuln in a critically important piece of infrastructure???) And, of course, the project is continuing to hemorrhage experienced developers.
So unless the Gentoo Council, Trustees, Foundation etc. get their collective asses in gear, I would seriously consider supporting drobbins — because his non-benevolent dictatorship could hardly be worse than the current mess.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
“We actually have that to an extent now. It just so happens that our more persistent users are or were former developers and as such their voice tends to carry a bit more weight..and they have effected some very solid changes in the way things happen.”
That is so far from reality I don’t know how to make you see it. Gentoo is going through a crisis, Foundation is suspended and what not; and there is not even an update on Home Page! Is that what you call transparency? While it is good that hard-line contributors get to have heavier bets, is it not essential and important to convey all the situations to people who use Gentoo?
Duh…
January 13th, 2008 at 4:45 am
mieses wrote:
>a return to single-minded leadership could limit gentoo at this point
“limit gentoo” ??? “at this point” ??? Someone would think Gentoo is currently thriving and Daniel is trying to impede that. Please.
A third Alex wrote:
> I have been an active Gentoo user for 4 years. Now, generally speaking, I have absolutely no love for Daniel Robbins.
I like when people are so determined about things they have no experience with whatsoever. It’s called prejudice (aka bigotry). Daniel Robbins stepped down when you came in, third Alex. Gentoo was something then, rising daily on the distrowatch. Now it’s nothing. It does not even exist.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Been quiet about this myself. Mostly because I am not sure the best way to go myself. I follow every Gentoo list that the users can join. I know Daniel made some bad moves when he first came back. Specially considering his status when coming back. Been using Gentoo for 6 years now. I have to say regardless of the choice’s made on this, Gentoo as a whole was running a lot smoother back when Drobbins was running things. Not saying that can’t happen with out him. From what I see though everything is just surrounded in politics now. No one dares to make a move. If they do there attacked for it and most of the time it will never happen after that or even even worse the developer may quit. Gentoo has lost some of it’s best developers over the last few years. Yes some will leave from time to time, the issue is so many have left in a short period. As said many times before good ones are hard to come by. I can see Gentoo moving forward without Drobbins myself,Only real problem I see in this is Gentoo as a whole is failing to communicate with it’s community. Like for one, website redesign. I have seen people step up to redo the website I _think_ two times over the years now. Not once has it happened. I follow the mailing lists and I still have no clue. Even if the person doing the work stopped. Why did the next person not pick up where the left off and get it up. The politics are just stopping anyone from getting things done at this point IMO. It’s like watching CPAN!
This should be less about having Drobbins back and listening to some of the users, and finding a way to get things done in a more orderly fashion. In no way trying to attack any of the devs/trustees/council members. Grateful for you guy/gals spending your free time on this. Keep up the good work. Just would like to see a few changes from a users point of view.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
1) “For this how do you expect to be fair and just to everyone? You simply can’t and to be truly open as you so wish to be…we need to let every voice be heard..just like in a communal environment.”
Sure you can be fair to everyone, you just need to focus on to most fundamental aspects of community. Things like removing barriers to communication and participation, while at the same time allowing flexiblity and extensability. It is possible. And you need to learn the difference between community and commune, they are not the same.
“Guess what, very few communal area’s lived to this day because we’re all people and we fail as people. Sure you can go and hand everyone out something special to smoke to mellow them out but that doesn’t fix the issue at all.”
Do you mean community or communes? Because the Community of Information Technologies seems to be still around. Certain elements within it have surely come, gone or changed but the concept of Information being either protected or disseminated still seems to be in full effect.
2) “You’re not a benevolent dictator….nor can anyone be one”
It sounded to me like he is asking to be a President of a Foundation while laying out his intentions in a pretty open forum. I mean how much more open can you get than the World Wide Web?
“It’s great to dream, but those who dream never set foot in reality of what the situation is right now. You dream of what gentoo can become and what it was….”
You are say that what was once a dream the some how became a reality can not be repeated as is so frequently when dreams become reality.
“the reality is that we are not a legal entity in any sense of the word and have no true right to the “Gentoo” anything at this point, its by your good graces that we’re even allowed to use the name at all….”
And why did that happen?
“for that we are all thankful but in the openness you want…I say no to you being the benevolent semi-parttime dictator with minions who will follow your orders as if they are the word of god.”
Kinda like what you are doing here trying to dictate your choose on a matter that should be left up to those very “minons”, who by the way have never to my understanding ever operated of voiced to opinion of following drobbins in such a blind manner.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:40 am
Dear all,
I have been using Gentoo for 5 years, but with the time and all the big mess I started switching to Debian & Kubuntu. I must say that some years ago, Gentoo had a good reputation, things worked so nice, I was even proud of my systems running Gentoo.
Now a days, I just have my parents computer running Gentoo, doing no update what so ever for a year, and it’s just because I haven’t had the time to change it and they don’t need more.
There were some times when saying “I run Gentoo” was Cool, and everyone would look at me with admiration, saddly now when someone tells me he’s still using Gentoo I can only think: “Poor guy”.
I certainly belive Mr. Robbins could make Gentoo Cool again, but even if he failed, I belive things could never get worst as the current situation. I think that that stribing Gentoo comunity who made the best Documentation ever for Linux and was alive, proud and willing; has been reduced to echoes in the past.
Please let Mr. Robbins try again; but this time support him, it makes no sense that someone leads anything if all the people directly under him don’t support him!
Gentoo, I wish you the best, saddly I can only expect the worst…
Jimmy
January 14th, 2008 at 5:09 am
It seems the situation is similar to the compiz/Beryl split. The compiz group wanted to get the foundations right (i.e. DR Robbins), while the Beryl group wanted to take compiz to new places. There was no satisfying both until they recognized this. Following their lead, here’s what I propose:
1) Give Gentoo core back to DR Robbins
2) Create “Gentoo Extras” and give this to the current committee.
3) Neither group has to talk to the other for their usual work and both clear
4) The only reason both need to meet is to ensure compatibility between both releases.
Debian/Ubuntu followed a similar arrangement (although there was no conflict). Debian was in trouble — perpetually stuck with stale repositories and slow releases even of backports (GNOME was two versions behind). Ubuntu focused on the bleeding edge and feed back to Debian, but Ubuntu wasn’t possible without Debian’s foundations. Once Ubuntu was created, Debian became stronger, which in turn made Ubuntu stronger, which in turn made Debian stronger. A virtual cycle, with all winning.
Right now, there’s still enough interest in Gentoo to keep revive it through pooling your efforts, but if things keep going the way they are, Gentoo faces one these four futures:
1) Gentoo will be forked.
2) Gentoo will die.
3) Gentoo will be outpaced by a competing distro with Gentoo-like features.
4) Gentoo will live on the way XFree86 does. It’s there, but few people care about it any more.
None of us want any of these options, and I don’t think Gentoo deserves them.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:35 am
To direct a beast with 9 different heads all going in different directions you need some one with some authority who ties all heads together or slays 8. I only see Robbins as a candidate.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Hi everybody,
Gentoo has not choice……Daniel Robbins must return as a Gentoo Leader!!! it is the only way that Gentoo return as a big project in the Linux world. Please no more bla bla.
Good Luck Daniel….
regards,
Daniel Mery
January 14th, 2008 at 9:25 am
I recommend looking up the poll on the forum. Most of the community may not be as well-informed as for instance a developer, but with 90% voting YES! to Daniel’s offer.. they (we) have clearly spoken.
Power to the people.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:16 am
The original leader returning to be a leader again is a good thing IMO. Most of USERS would rather believe drobbins AGAIN, than stay forever with the current state of affairs. [*]
Linus Thorvalds, Patrick Volkerding, Theo de Raadt, Daniel Robbins - you may not love them, but you surely know what they are known for. At least that’s what the users do. Are you surprised then they want to welcome drobbins back?
Return the project back to its author or PROVE THAT YOU CAN DO IT BETTER!
[*] Otherwise the XFree86 analogy seems most appropriate.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
As a relatively long-time Gentoo user (joined the forums in April 2002), I am elated to hear that Daniel Robbins has offered to return to take the helm of Gentoo. He, as the creator of Gentoo, had the vision to start it and the strength to get it to the point it was when he stepped down from his leadership position. In no way do I favor dictatorships and in no way do I think that DRobbins tenure as Gentoo Lead constituted a dictatorship! Don’t confuse vision with dictatorship. (A board of directors never has a vision - it has a consensus, occasionally.) Welcome back, Dan!
January 14th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Does anyone really have the right to stop the creator of the project from returning? Its his project. Without him it would not even exist. I think morally he has the right and even those people who do not like him should vote him back.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Gentoo needs a vision - drobbins’ vision.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Gentoo will die. The reason is that the current leadership is incompetent.
If you need vision, look at Paludis.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
it goes to show why gentoo is in shambles. you wrote all of that, instead of doing your duties. Give Daniel what Gentoo Needs.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I can’t believe the position of the people who seem to be in charge of gentoo, he is the founder for god’s sake. It seems to me that all that is left is a bunch of powerhungry windbags who don’t know when its time to step down and admit they messed up. Have some decency and give it back to him.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
As a user, I would follow the devs if they chose to start a fork. The gentoo concept is too important and unique to have no competition.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Gentoo can’t get any worse than it is today so something needs to happen before it totally fades away… Robbins for president!
January 16th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Gentoo is a wonderful distro, I like it so much thet I can’t think about any other that might give me the same pleasure in using it.
I think the problem is that a distro is a huge effort and needs peopole really personally commited into it.
Gentoo lacks a vision of the “next step” and if Daniel Robbins has the strenght and will to make some innovative steps , well, let him try.
I don’t think that today Gentoo is bad, on the contrary, but still it has lost the dreaming part of it.
It’s not a tech problem, it’s a problem about will and soul.
I want to thank all the develoers that made Gentoo what it is today, you made an enormous and wonderful job, you ALL have been just great.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Gentoo is working fine: it’s much better (to use and to maintain) than when I started using it less than 2 years ago. The social side needs work I agree, but that’s nothing to do with the technical side. As for the legal side, it was common knowledge on the publically available nfp list last summer, that there was no longer a Foundation. No elections were held for a new set of trustees, and the Software Freedom Conservancy[1] said there’d be a waiting period of at *least* 60-90 days.
Given that the consensus was that was what the next step would be, it made perfect sense from where I was sitting as an onlooker, that Gentoo devs would go back to getting the new release out, and Gnome stable, as well as all the other work they do, and leave it til the new year.
Gentoo hasn’t stopped working. It’s just in a transitional phase. I agree there needs to be significant work done on user involvement and long, depressing flamewars on the m-l. That’s got nothing to do with the technical or the legal side, and certainly doesn’t require handing over all the Community’s work to any individual, however popular, or his new organisation.
As for vision, that’s the beauty of Gentoo: it doesn’t impose a single vision on anyone. Devs work on what they want, users tweak and change what they want.
@Anil Wang If you switched it the other way round, ie leave Gentoo core as-is, and drobbins can setup funtoo as “Gentoo-extras”, I’d agree. It’d make a lot more sense wrt comparisons with Debian and Ubuntu; he could bring in the sabayon folk too.
[1] http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/about/team/board/
http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/members/
January 16th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
As an outside observer that just uses Gentoo, put Daniel back in charge. The revoking of the non for profit should be enough proof that the current system is in dire need o change. Daniel might have a bit of old school Jobs, and new school Theo in him, but those people and their projects are highly successful.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
From a legal perspective I think Mr. Robbins is a last great hope unless a hero comes forward by the 18th. It’s no longer a matter of what will make the process work, the time for that is passed. You’ve got to understand, Mr. Robbins doesn’t want to run it he wants to keep the plug from being pulled. You decide..
January 16th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
All your points are horrible. You’re hardly making an argument, do you realize? Gentoo is a complete wreck. It needs someone to take the reins of power and steer it back to a strong, stable position. I don’t mean to offend all the people who worked hard on Gentoo, but honestly, where the hell is this project going now? I’m all for Daniel coming back. It was his creation in the first place.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
If you want Gentoo to be more than an academic tool for learning linux, give it back to Daniel. Gentoo was fun, powerfull and straight forward with Daniel. Now it look like a dancer making one step forward and two steps backward…
I thing we have seen that Gentoo without Daniel long enought to make jugement…
Take your place back Daniel, make Gentoo a major distro again…
January 20th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Daniel, I say to hell with them all. Let it die. Always it will be known that Gentoo was at its peak of glory while you held the reigns. Your legend lives on without taking a chance at defiling that good name by jumping back on a sinking ship to rescue people who don’t want to be saved. The buck started and stopped with you.
I think you should look at this like a really great quality sports car that got in a wreck so severe, that it’s just cheaper to total it out than to try to repair it. And even if you manage to press out all of the dents and bends, the structural integrity is already compromised; it will never be as great as it was. You will only prolong the inevitable, and hang on to the fading dream.
Who needs this crap? Not me. Certainly not Daniel. And neither do all of those involved with this project. For a distro to be clouded by so much dirty politics… and even the community is in shambles. Only splintered pockets of resistance remains; the very backbone- the community is divided. You’d unite some and alienate others.
Let them sink. Let them take the project down and falter away in their stubborn pride. Sit on your comfortable chair, drink a beer, and laugh as you watch them gasp for air. As sad as I am to see it go, I get satisfaction in watching stubborn people trip on their own shoes.
Rest in peace, Gentoo. You touched many lives, and changed the expectations we have for the way a good os with a good community should be. Thank you for having been in our lives. You will always be remembered.
January 20th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Gentoo needs drobbins more than it needs you. Step aside please.
January 21st, 2008 at 5:28 am
Gentoo seems to be against innovation these days. Instead of being the bleeding-edge distro which ran faster than the others (due to the patches for gcc, which are now default in all distros) it’s a semi-organised pile of ebuilds for installing packages.
What happened with initng? Not enough support from the devs (remember them saying “But _I_ only start my computer once a month”)
What happened with baselayout2? The developer (Uberlord) left because he was having his wings clipped.
What happened to smooth-scrolling in Gtk+? The patch was removed (annoying, but understandable) and then users were told “If you want it, _you_ go ask the gtk developers to put it in default”. Helpful.
There is no support provided to innovative features provided by the users. Failed ebuilds *still* stop all the following emerges. We *still* have to do etc-update (or dispatch-conf) when XML-based solutions have been suggested. Ebuilds are written in a hurry, sometimes with missing (or incorrect) USE-flags, and I now get more failed-compiles than ever before.
Maybe drobbins is the answer. Maybe he isn’t. He has at least proposed a change to the current way of doing things, and things were better in his day.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:47 pm
In response to post 11
# Alex Says:
January 13th, 2008 at 4:45 am
…Gentoo was something then, rising daily on the distrowatch. Now it’s nothing. It does not even exist…
This is either ignorant of disingenuous.
The distrowatch page hit count is not a good indicator of the stock price of gentoo by any means. It is a ranking of the popularity of the page at distrowatch.com. There is no reason for gentoo users, new or old, to use this website, as portage provides that information. So as gentoo proliferates, experienced gentoo users will teach new gentoo users to user portage, the forums, and perhaps google. Not distrowatch.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 am
One simple comparison, Ubuntu. It’s has a leader (main head, whatever you want to name it), has vision. Is he a dictator? Who cares. The project is moving, introducing exciting features to distributions, raising the usability standards, supporting Open Source software and freedom.
No matter the distribution, you’ll find one, or in some cases various heads in charge. But most cases usually a bigger one will take the final decisions at the end.
While packages has been keep usually up to date (thanks to devs for that), the project needs direction, needs to take decisions. If the current trustees can’t deal with that efficiently, then allow Daniel to try to fix it.
Again, with just ebuilds Gentoo will not survive.
* I also consider the XFree86 analogy too.
January 24th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Josh,
Preach on brother.
For all these zealots who think DRobbins could do better, well what the heck stops him from a) joining and becoming a dev and making contributions just like the rest of us. if we liked his ideas we’d vote him into council or trustees or both; b) taking a snapshot of the tree and making an overlay or another distro that these zealots could join; … I could keep going on but I’m afraid that I’m making too much sense.
And yes, you were indeed correct. Best as I can recall/tell when DRobbins left there were 1/3 of the developers that we currently have. Times have changed, Gentoo has changed.
And wow, if everyone hated Gentoo, as so many of those posting here and on funtoo claim… then why do we still have thousands upon thousands of users?
Gentoo devs… keep it up, the work is valued and kicks ass and all those people who use Gentoo at home, at work, in their data center, around the freakin globe, well we all think YOU ROCK!