I’ve been a mere spectator to the recent controversy surrounding the revocation of the Gentoo Foundation’s NFP status and I really wasn’t convinced one way or another. Daniel Robbins’ most recent post though, polarized me.
It’s been said a countless number of times already, but I’ll say it again – whether or not the Gentoo Foundation is legally recognized in the state of New Mexico (a really small part of the world, let me remind you) has no effect whatsoever on the technical functioning of Gentoo as a whole. There’s a lot of activity, people are still committing to the tree and progress is made every second. The users may not be aware of that, presumably because developers don’t “care enough”. Ok, you spoke, we heard, and we’re taking steps to bridge the divide. The newsletter has been resurrected, the PR team has a new lead etc. etc. But that’s an issue completely orthogonal to whether or not the Gentoo Foundation is legal, so please treat it as such.
Let me quote a para from Daniel’s post here:
Also, if what Grant said is correct – that the Foundation is basically stuck with developers and just developers as voting members, then it will be very hard to fix the user/developer disconnect in the Gentoo community via the Foundation as it currently exists. This would mean that the Foundation is pretty much stuck in a rut, unable to fulfill its responsibility of looking out for the health of the entire Gentoo community as a whole.
Again, I fail to understand how the legal status of the foundation affects the “health of the Gentoo community” as a whole. The foundation is simply a figurehead body that allows us to receive donations and have a bank account. If the *council* was left in a rut, now that would be something to be worried about. But it’s not, and things are therefore, goody good on the technical side.
How can you reasonably expect a person who engages in a one-way conversation all the time to “fix communication” between developers and users? How about the manner in which the person announces important things such as an offer to rejoin Gentoo as president – through a blog post? I’ve never seen something so thoroughly unprofessional – could you not even engage in a conversation regarding your concerns on the appropriate mailing list?
Sorry Daniel, but your pessimism is only angering the developers and users further – and you’re doing more harm than good.
To the users: things are beginning to settle down, I believe all the important paperwork has been filed and the foundation will regain its legal status soon (and as a bonus, as if it were never revoked). Things are fine, there’s no need for “drastic changes”. Don’t believe us? Too bad for you then, go use Debian.
“Angering users”???Are serious? Users have already expressed their demands and they want Robbins back!Probably you want to stay with the minority who support the current failed state and…all the rest users piss off and go to debian? nice PR skills dude ^^; Why u guys just don’t give up anyway?You have already lost the users support…You know what angering users? The fact that you guys wanna prove that everything is OK (except the the foundation stuff ofc) just because you say so.Users have a better method to prove that project just not going anywhere… their own experience.
This is so true … and at least for those herds i’m involved in, people are very happy with the communication and support they get in the IRC channels or per mail
Here’s a comment from a happy Gentoo user. I’ve always found Gentoo support (bugzilla) top-notch. Portage is updated regularly with new features and the latest software makes it in the tree quick.
To the users: … Things are fine, there’s no need for “drastic changes”. Don’t believe us? Too bad for you then, go use Debian.So what does this tell me as a Gentoo User? Is it: “If you are not satisfied with the current state then shut up and go for another distro.” ? I like that kind of attitude.imho guys like you are responsible for communication problems between developers and users.
Hi Anant,I almost completely agree with your post. However I think Daniels post was a Good Thing(tm) as it brought back life into areas of gentoo that were lacking. I also think they made clear that PR etc. are not “optional”. In short term, this is not critical, longterm huge problems arise if they are overlooked.Anyway, I liked the “offer” by DRobbins because of the shakeup it created. I would not have accepted it with the strings attached, I guess – esp. not after the followup posts.’To the users: … Things are fine, there’s no need for “drastic changes”.’ Oh, yes there was. However, things already changed and continue to do so. Just looking at planet gentoo shows this.This is Good and there is absolutely no reason to deny it. ‘Don’t believe us? Too bad for you then, go use Debian.’Yuck. Bad karma for you. You are not helping anyone when you think and talk in ‘us’ vs. ‘them’. Also believe belongs in the church, but not in dev-user-relations in any distro.Have Fun,Björn
Hi. I’m a Gentoo user, 3 years running. I’ve been very satisfied, though slightly worried lately. Not about the future of Gentoo, as everybody else seems to be, but about the present.Take Mister First Comment. Demands!?! Who the ____ do you think you are, telling people what to do? People who work to Gentoo better every day, unlike you; you whine and make the rest of us look bad. Mr. Robbins came out of nowhere and offered an ultimatum, blowing an administrative mishap WAAAY out of proportion, in what seems like a petty power-grab. If you have demands like that, take them to someone who’s easily impressed by bullshit. I’m glad the current devs aren’t.
Look mate am not speaking for majorities or minorities but well… http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-644321.htmlI think it’s not strange that i translate such an outcome like “users demand”, is it?So, yeah it’s pretty clear what users want.Now about your precious devs, from the time Daniel (yeah the one who came from nowhere rofl) started this project, made it an highly competitive distro and left with the thought that those who leave behind will be responsible to move forward the project, from that time actually nothing changed.You know this is so stupid what is happening right now, really.You changed a project that we knew that was rapidly grwing and users were really excited to work with to something that hell knows what it is and now the devs telling us “our way or high way”?I’m sorry but something is really wrong here. Those who should leave are those guys who brought the project to this condition. Gentoo grown with users’ help and suddenly don’t need them? Come on…
This image describes this pretty well, I think.
Well, I hope I’m not as much a minority as some would make it seem.. I see Gentoo as having some pretty serious challenges to address *and* I don’t think Robbins coming back is the way to address them. So I guess overall I think we’re on the right track, and certainly the sky is not falling. Also, though there are valid criticisms that may or may not be being addressed, people at all levels of Gentoo are taking action. Personally, I’m searching to expand my role as a “contributing user” and not sure what that will look like yet.
I too want to support the current Gentoo, quality has fluctuated at times but the talk of drobbin’s return is just reactionary revisionism. I remember things being *less* stable back then.My recommendation is a Gentoo PR team, ala Amarok’s Rokymotion or KDE, that’s easy to join and consists of non-developers. Developers want to develop, not write newsletters, but there’ll be a disconnect if no one does it.
If that’s the official line, then goodbye I’m off to use ubuntu!