Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd hazard a guess that you may have hit a bigger problem than your comment indicates. I'm pretty sure there would be great pressure to use `quick and dirty hacks' to get stuff done when devs are nearly always overworked. Actually, they IMHO *are*. Look at the large amount of patches in the tree and the uncountable discussions which are not gentoo specific. And the same happens also in other distros. An really large amount of work could be done easily outside specific distros, but in an more general way. But as long as the devs refuse cooperation with such distro-agnostic (meta-)projects like OSS-QM, there aren't much changes for it becoming better ;-P One little step out could be the OSS-QM project (http://oss-qm.metux.de/) It collects fixes for a lot packages and makes them accessible in 100% automated ways. So in a way it can be seen as an kind of overlay against the upstream. Most of the patches are things that upstream's tend to forget but importand for fully automated builds (eg. proper relocation, clean feature switching, fixing buildfiles, pkg-config, etc) - they do NOT harm the core functionality. So exactly what the vast majority of distro's patches do, but in generic (distro agnostic) ways. The theory sounds very sensible. After looking at that page and some of the links briefly it wasn't clear to me where this is being used. I see a very short list of pkgs being worked on.. and guessing it is because of being short handed there. There's not documentation yet. Feel free to join the maillist/board and improve it ;-) But what wasn't clear is how work comes in and where it goes when it goes out. Well, everyone is free to join the project as an vendor. (vendor = someone who supplies code). Each vendor has it's own namespace, for patches as well as patchsets (patchset = list of patches for an specific version of an specific package). You can see the bunch of patchsets from some vendor as an kind of overlay against the upstream. Combined with CSDB you can fetch source + patchset for an specific package in an specific version completely automatically. PS-The `help' link under `navigation' brings up what appears to be something it is not intended to, and may even be a hack on those pages or something. (The content that comes up may even be sort of off the wall.) The usual wiki vandalism :( cu -- - Enrico Weigelt== metux IT service - http://www.metux.de/ - Please visit the OpenSource QM Taskforce: http://wiki.metux.de/public/OpenSource_QM_Taskforce Patches / Fixes for a lot dozens of packages in dozens of versions: http://patches.metux.de/ - -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Mittwoch, 23. Januar 2008, Enrico Weigelt wrote: * [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd hazard a guess that you may have hit a bigger problem than your comment indicates. I'm pretty sure there would be great pressure to use `quick and dirty hacks' to get stuff done when devs are nearly always overworked. Actually, they IMHO *are*. Look at the large amount of patches in the tree and the uncountable discussions which are not gentoo specific. And the same happens also in other distros. An really large amount of work could be done easily outside specific distros, but in an more general way. But as long as the devs refuse cooperation with such distro-agnostic (meta-)projects like OSS-QM, there aren't much changes for it becoming better ;-P so your ranting is nothing but pushing your little pet project? Distro devs are working together already. When they discuss stuff on the upstream mls and send their patches there. Oh, and have you ever recognized, that a lot of gentoo patches come from other distros? No? -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Enrico Weigelt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Part of the problmem might be too many quick+dirty hacks, another part's the philosophy of taking evrything as it comes from the upstream. It's not trivial to get out of this ;-o First off, your comments seem to be some of the more sensible here. Not that others are senseless just not much actual `what to do' content has come through. I'd hazard a guess that you may have hit a bigger problem than your comment indicates. I'm pretty sure there would be great pressure to use `quick and dirty hacks' to get stuff done when devs are nearly always overworked. One little step out could be the OSS-QM project (http://oss-qm.metux.de/) It collects fixes for a lot packages and makes them accessible in 100% automated ways. So in a way it can be seen as an kind of overlay against the upstream. Most of the patches are things that upstream's tend to forget but importand for fully automated builds (eg. proper relocation, clean feature switching, fixing buildfiles, pkg-config, etc) - they do NOT harm the core functionality. So exactly what the vast majority of distro's patches do, but in generic (distro agnostic) ways. The theory sounds very sensible. After looking at that page and some of the links briefly it wasn't clear to me where this is being used. I see a very short list of pkgs being worked on.. and guessing it is because of being short handed there. But what wasn't clear is how work comes in and where it goes when it goes out. Are some distros offering these overhauled pkgs or what? (Please excuse me if I'm missing obvious things on the pages) PS-The `help' link under `navigation' brings up what appears to be something it is not intended to, and may even be a hack on those pages or something. (The content that comes up may even be sort of off the wall.) -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:51:33 +, James wrote: You still believe gplv3 is a good thing? I think *GPLv3* is the spawn of Satan, and that's the reason most of the kernel devs did not go for that *horse hockey*! I don't think that I was advocating gplv3, certainly that wasn't my intent, just that (as a user) I wouldn't want Gentoo to use a BSD (or Apache) license. I think I'll try to refrain from further participation in this thread. Sometimes I like to stir things up, but this isn't one of them :( -Thufir -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Naga Toro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That would be two a**holes in that discussion. If you read it you would know that may devs tried to correct drobbins but that he couldn't accept the fact that he wasn't the chief anymore and that things have changed since he left. On the contrary, he never had trouble accepting the fact that he wasn't the chief. And if he hadn't clearly seen how things have changed, he wouldn't have left again. I'm not sure that the best guy to run Gentoo is a guy who wants to be THE chief and not one of the community. The community, with no strong leadership, hasn't done a very good job of moving Gentoo forward. I don't know that drobbins is the /best/ guy to run Gentoo, but I think he's the best one who's stepped forward, willing to give it a try. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Tuesday 15 January 2008, Alan McKinnon wrote: On Tuesday 15 January 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: After looking at some of the discusion at: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-644321.html I saw there that gentoo's charter had been pulled. What does that actually mean? And who is such a charter with? The charter is a legal document filed with the State of New Mexico, it's the document that permits the Gentoo Foundation to exist as a legal entity. Because of unfiled paperwork etc etc the charter is no longer current and valid, and the Gentoo Foundation does not exist as a legal entity. On a code basis, it means that the Gentoo G logo, all ebuilds in the tree and portage itself now are not owned by anyone. Of course this is a dangerous position for those copyrights and logos to be in. I don't want to sound like a European who's been through two world wars (I haven't of course, although at times I can feel as if I have), but the people who allowed that to happen would normally be taken out (not to make a mess on the floor) and shot! Is there a legit way to recover from this position, without take overs, juntas, curfews and summary executions? Who needs to do what? -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The point I was trying to may (and not really a hard sell but just to illuminate moving gentoo into more of an Entrepreneur distro) would be to build the future of Gentoo (or a fork) on a better license model than GPL. Uhm, thanks, but no thanks. Why should GPL be dropped? Just to allow someone to make a quick € or two? No, the GPL is fine as it is. Gentoo should not be rewritten to write around GPL stuff. Michael -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you think that the Industrial Military Complex has not modified you precious GPL code, then we are all in Deep Doo. I don't get you. They'll surely have modified the GPL code. But that's not a problem. If they were going to sell something, they must provide access to the source code. But as they won't be selling anything, they can keep the source code hidden. Nobody, but the Industrial Military Complex, has a right to the source code. Michael -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Naga wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Case in point, portage I have read has a lot of hacks that are hurting development. In the end it works pretty well but it makes it really hard to add more features without messing up something else. So, someone needs to make a decision on what needs to happen with that. Some say rewrite portage, some say switch to C** and some say switch to Plaudus (sp?). This just seems to be one thing I have read about. I'm sure Portage (the program) has allot of hacks in it but I'm also sure that had those who advocate its shortcomings been concerned about backwards compability with older stable versions they would have been more humble in there criticism. Yep, you are likely dead on there. Thing is, now, someone needs to decide what to do next. I wouldn't mind a change that means you can not go backwards. I have said M$ needs to cut that cord myself. It may hurt at first but in the long run it will pay off. Like you, I wish I could do more. I would be willing to learn to code if I felt it was worthwhile. I am disabled so I have plenty of time to learn and contribute but after my past experiences on -dev, I won't be repeating that for a VERY long time and only after some things change. The devs complain about not having enough help but when someone wants to learn and help some they sort of shoot themselves in the foot. The best way to help out is to try and join a team/herd. They are much friendlier then the -dev list and in much need of help. The easiest way I think is to join an arch team as an arch tester. That may be true but the past few times on -dev left a bad taste. If I start learning to code and stuff I would want to move up. Right now, I'm not even remotely interested in that. I'll just stay right here where I am. Of course, if I get the same here, I'd go away from here too. Dale :-) :-) :-) -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 20:05:26 +1000, Alan E. Davis wrote: I want there to be a gentoo. I want there to be a well documented and not horribly painful way to install. I like the concept. I completely agree. What's wrong with appropriating the Fedora (or other) install? The arguments against that don't seem to be technical... -Thufir -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:12:09 +, James wrote: 2. Keep licensing more in line with the BSD license for Gentoo centric technology (thus encouraging entrepreneurship as defined by the individual while simultaneously respecting GPLv2 and maintaining compliance with GPLv2. GPLv3 is a poor idea, IMHO. GPLv3 can be made easily available and leave GPLv3 compliance/responsibility up to the individual. In fact software licensing and compliance should always be up to the INDIVIDUAL, IMHO. Absolutely not -- For BSD licensing please use BSD. I see no reason why everything Gentoo related can't be GPL v2 -- after all, the kernel certainly is. I wouldn't want to see entrepreneurs take Gentoo, *improve* it, and then not contribute those improvements back to Gentoo itself. That's what the GPL versus BSD is about, to my knowledge. That being said, it would be fantastic if the Gentoo Foundation found ways to make money :) -Thufir -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:11:11 +0100, alain.didierjean wrote: Daniel Robbins offers to take back Gentoo leadership. What about it ? Read http://blog.funtoo.org/2008/01/here-my-offer.html -- ~adj~ I find it unfortunate that he doesn't simply post his ideas to this list, but I suppose from his perspective that doing so would open a can of worms :( -Thufir -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Monday 14 January 2008, Iain Buchanan wrote: On Mon, 2008-01-14 at 07:35 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: the situation will resolve that same way these things have always been resolved, by one of these or a combination: a. a strong leader emerges with a vision and takes over b. a strong leader emerges with a vision and forks c. common sense prevails and everyone comes to their senses d. a hidden bad egg goes away or dies and suddenly everything calms down e. the project dies and nothing replaces it I think you just foretold the end of the universe too... [snip] But he does have a plan, and thus far seems to be the only one *with*a*plan*. Let's hear what he has to say and respond accordingly. I thought that he outlined his plan in his blog and involves him being given carte blanche to choose who stays, who goes and which way the Gentoo Foundation moves ahead? I guess this is the reason that some of us have expressed concern at this coming back (under these conditions). Baldrick had a plan, and look where that got him. But then he wasn't exactly the visionary leader... Yes, but his was a cunning plan my lord! (for the non-UK readers, Baldrick was a comedy character from a BBC series). I am not sure that a visionary leader is required on the case of Gentoo, in its current lifecycle stage. Visionary leadership is absolutely needed when overwhelming, fast change needs take place. We're not talking of a start up here, or a significantly diverging fork, or scrapping MS Windows and starting afresh. We have a maturing product which needs some (relatively small) developmental change so that it continues to improve. What we also need (I humbly suggest) is to develop strategic direction of the Gentoo product(s) within a business use case context. I believe that Gentoo has the potential to rival most commercial Linux distros out there, but has failed so far to do so. In addition, we have a breakdown of organisational governance because persons with the wrong skillset were appointed in Strategic and Administrative positions. It seems to me that people with the correct skillset were appointed in Technical positions, and the increasing stability of Gentoo over the last few years is an indication of this. In conclusion, what we need is leadership in Strategic and Administrative activities, not by default (i.e. through the current devs and trustees), but through a new organisational design. Devs the failed organisational body of the trustees (or its replacement) should of course contribute in all decisions made, but their voice must not be absolute and at the exclusion of the user base. Anyway, from what it seems from Slashdot, DRobbins' blog, and f.g.o there is overwhelming user support for him to return (of course there are some users against the idea). But what about the devs? The support for DR seems to be less enthusiastic as you rise further up the gentoo hierarchy. But then if he is blocked at the critical trustee level, then either b. will happen, or he'll just return to the background... I am happy to contribute to the governance and organisational design of a new Gentoo setup and as James suggested put this forward to the users, devs, trustees. What do you think? Is there mileage in this? -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Dale dalek1967 at bellsouth.net writes: Like you, I wish I could do more. I would be willing to learn to code if I felt it was worthwhile. I am disabled so I have plenty of time to learn and contribute but after my past experiences on -dev, I won't be repeating that for a VERY long time and only after some things change. The devs complain about not having enough help but when someone wants to learn and help some they sort of shoot themselves in the foot. Bad thing is, I have a lot of time that I could put to use. Dale Hello Dale, Things are not that bleak. Have you ever considered learning about embedded Gentoo? There is a separate list, and you put a stripped down version of gentoo on a SBC (single board computer). You get to customize your own mini gentoo, and learn about many of the low level aspects of making software work with hardware. An SBC can be had for around $200 and you can get lots of help from the embedded gentoo list. Perhaps once you learn in that environment, you can contribute without being part of the 'feeding frenzy'? There is much freedom and many needs related to embedded gentoo. Drop me some private email and we can talk more, if you are interested. James -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Thufir hawat.thufir at gmail.com writes: 2. Keep licensing more in line with the BSD license for Gentoo centric technology (thus encouraging entrepreneurship as defined by the individual while simultaneously respecting GPLv2 and maintaining compliance with GPLv2. GPLv3 is a poor idea, IMHO. GPLv3 can be made easily available and leave GPLv3 compliance/responsibility up to the individual. In fact software licensing and compliance should always be up to the INDIVIDUAL, IMHO. Absolutely not -- For BSD licensing please use BSD. I see no reason why everything Gentoo related can't be GPL v2 -- after all, the kernel certainly is. It runs a little deeper than this, particularly when you look at how is doing what. For example There are Dozens of corporations willing to sell 'embedded linux' to you. Yet the core of their offering is the same linux you used (with some tweaks at the kernel, HAL and a few other places). How does Monta Vista get to sell embedded linux without being sued? I really don't think this is the place to discuss licensing but the BSD vs GPLv(2/3) is a hugely complicated issue. Lots of small companies are being quietly sued for building products related to embedded linux. But, none of the large corporations that do the same or worse are being sued? And, oh, just so you know, Monta Vistas original RTOS was a rip off of BSD. (Do your own research) I wouldn't want to see entrepreneurs take Gentoo, *improve* it, and then not contribute those improvements back to Gentoo itself. That's what the GPL versus BSD is about, to my knowledge. Again you miss the point. If some small company builds a product, they are not going to want to stray very far from the linux kernel tree. The most they do is write a device driver. If they have some real 'magic' you just put a second sub $1 micro processor on the circuit board and locate your magic therein. It's as easy as eating pie. Publish your gpl code on the big micro and hide your magic in a small proccessor/DSP/FPGA/PAL. There are many other schemes to get around GPL, including writing your own boot loader. (not as difficult as it sounds). What the GPLv3 is doing is effectively keeping the little guys from building products ~100% based on linux and open source. They have not stopped a single well funded company (or an entire country like China) from using linux and open source as they choose. This is a very huge reason for the current state of affairs for failed technology companies (particularly in the USA), at the present time. The Linux Journal has a big campaign to locate linux inside of products, basically asking folks to 'rat out' companies using linux to make a buck. insert your own conspiracy theory here You still believe gplv3 is a good thing? I think *GPLv3* is the spawn of Satan, and that's the reason most of the kernel devs did not go for that *horse hockey*! That being said, it would be fantastic if the Gentoo Foundation found ways to make money :) It will never happen as longs as myths such as the ones you espouse reign supreme, IMHO. The reason that Gentoo and all of those souls that develop and support it is floundering on near financial failure, is the tenants (goals) that others have brain washed onto the masses, IMHO. The very best way (IMHO) to promote democracy and freedom is for the people to have a way to make money as entrepreneurs and small business people. Keeping Linux bottled up, via the GPL is just plain nuts! Besides that, Linux only bottled up for the little guys, HP, IBM, and thousands of other companies used linux every day in products or high end services, such as phone/networking gear. Who is suing them? Hell, the US DOD uses Linux like crazy... Who are we kidding with the entire GPL schrade? (Keep the serfs where they belong, methinks). James -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Monday 14 January 2008, James wrote: Absolutely not -- For BSD licensing please use BSD. I see no reason why everything Gentoo related can't be GPL v2 -- after all, the kernel certainly is. It runs a little deeper than this, particularly when you look at how is doing what. For example There are Dozens of corporations willing to sell 'embedded linux' to you. Yet the core of their offering is the same linux you used (with some tweaks at the kernel, HAL and a few other places). How does Monta Vista get to sell embedded linux without being sued? The GPL does allow to sell your product (as opposite to giving it away for free). Why should Montavista be sued if they respect the GPL? As long as they distribute the source code with their products (which admittedly I don't know), they are fine. Just because the sources are not downloadable from their site, does not mean that they should be sued. I really don't think this is the place to discuss licensing but the BSD vs GPLv(2/3) is a hugely complicated issue. Lots of small companies are being quietly sued for building products related to embedded linux. But, none of the large corporations that do the same or worse are being sued? It seems to me that the difference is not between small or big companies, but rather between those who obey the GPL and those who do not. Recently, someone noticed that ASUS (not exactly a small company) had not published the full sources for their eee pc OS on their site; they were notified, and subsequently they added that code. Read the full story: http://cliffhacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/asus-eeepc-first-impressions-and-gpl.html http://cliffhacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/asus-eeepc-some-sources-posted.html Other companies have been sued or notified, but not just because they were big or small, but because they failed to obey the GPL (xterasys, monsoon, fortinet, d-link...you can find tons of cases just by googling a bit), someone even admitted their faults, In some cases, the companies were declared guilty. Again you miss the point. If some small company builds a product, they are not going to want to stray very far from the linux kernel tree. The most they do is write a device driver. If they have some real 'magic' you just put a second sub $1 micro processor on the circuit board and locate your magic therein. It's as easy as eating pie. Publish your gpl code on the big micro and hide your magic in a small proccessor/DSP/FPGA/PAL. There are many other schemes to get around GPL, including writing your own boot loader. (not as difficult as it sounds). What the GPLv3 is doing is effectively keeping the little guys from building products ~100% based on linux and open source. They have not stopped a single well funded company (or an entire country like China) from using linux and open source as they choose. Why should they have been stopped? This is a very huge reason for the current state of affairs for failed technology companies (particularly in the USA), at the present time. The Linux Journal has a big campaign to locate linux inside of products, basically asking folks to 'rat out' companies using linux to make a buck. insert your own conspiracy theory here Making money, even lots of money, with linux is not prohibited. What is wrong is when someone does not obey the GPL, and that's what LJ wants to do: to discover companies that try to benefit from the work of the linux community without giving anything back (I think you are referring to the linux incognito initiative here). You still believe gplv3 is a good thing? I think *GPLv3* is the spawn of Satan, and that's the reason most of the kernel devs did not go for that *horse hockey*! That being said, it would be fantastic if the Gentoo Foundation found ways to make money :) It will never happen as longs as myths such as the ones you espouse reign supreme, IMHO. The reason that Gentoo and all of those souls that develop and support it is floundering on near financial failure, is the tenants (goals) that others have brain washed onto the masses, IMHO. The very best way (IMHO) to promote democracy and freedom is for the people to have a way to make money as entrepreneurs and small business people. Keeping Linux bottled up, via the GPL is just plain nuts! Besides that, Linux only bottled up for the little guys, HP, IBM, and thousands of other companies used linux every day in products or high end services, such as phone/networking gear. Who is suing them? Nobody, because they obey the GPL. Or should they be sued only because they are big companies? Hell, the US DOD uses Linux like crazy... Who are we kidding with the entire GPL schrade? (Keep the serfs where they belong, methinks). They are just *using* linux. What laws are they breaking? Why should they be sued? -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
May I suggest you split the discussion if you continue about licensing, so we can keep a clear topic on Daniel's come back ? Thanks Etaoin Shrdlu a écrit : On Monday 14 January 2008, James wrote: Absolutely not -- For BSD licensing please use BSD. I see no reason why everything Gentoo related can't be GPL v2 -- after all, the kernel certainly is. It runs a little deeper than this, particularly when you look at how is doing what. For example There are Dozens of corporations willing to sell 'embedded linux' to you. Yet the core of their offering is the same linux you used (with some tweaks at the kernel, HAL and a few other places). How does Monta Vista get to sell embedded linux without being sued? The GPL does allow to sell your product (as opposite to giving it away for free). Why should Montavista be sued if they respect the GPL? As long as they distribute the source code with their products (which admittedly I don't know), they are fine. Just because the sources are not downloadable from their site, does not mean that they should be sued. I really don't think this is the place to discuss licensing but the BSD vs GPLv(2/3) is a hugely complicated issue. Lots of small companies are being quietly sued for building products related to embedded linux. But, none of the large corporations that do the same or worse are being sued? It seems to me that the difference is not between small or big companies, but rather between those who obey the GPL and those who do not. Recently, someone noticed that ASUS (not exactly a small company) had not published the full sources for their eee pc OS on their site; they were notified, and subsequently they added that code. Read the full story: http://cliffhacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/asus-eeepc-first-impressions-and-gpl.html http://cliffhacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/asus-eeepc-some-sources-posted.html Other companies have been sued or notified, but not just because they were big or small, but because they failed to obey the GPL (xterasys, monsoon, fortinet, d-link...you can find tons of cases just by googling a bit), someone even admitted their faults, In some cases, the companies were declared guilty. Again you miss the point. If some small company builds a product, they are not going to want to stray very far from the linux kernel tree. The most they do is write a device driver. If they have some real 'magic' you just put a second sub $1 micro processor on the circuit board and locate your magic therein. It's as easy as eating pie. Publish your gpl code on the big micro and hide your magic in a small proccessor/DSP/FPGA/PAL. There are many other schemes to get around GPL, including writing your own boot loader. (not as difficult as it sounds). What the GPLv3 is doing is effectively keeping the little guys from building products ~100% based on linux and open source. They have not stopped a single well funded company (or an entire country like China) from using linux and open source as they choose. Why should they have been stopped? This is a very huge reason for the current state of affairs for failed technology companies (particularly in the USA), at the present time. The Linux Journal has a big campaign to locate linux inside of products, basically asking folks to 'rat out' companies using linux to make a buck. insert your own conspiracy theory here Making money, even lots of money, with linux is not prohibited. What is wrong is when someone does not obey the GPL, and that's what LJ wants to do: to discover companies that try to benefit from the work of the linux community without giving anything back (I think you are referring to the linux incognito initiative here). You still believe gplv3 is a good thing? I think *GPLv3* is the spawn of Satan, and that's the reason most of the kernel devs did not go for that *horse hockey*! That being said, it would be fantastic if the Gentoo Foundation found ways to make money :) It will never happen as longs as myths such as the ones you espouse reign supreme, IMHO. The reason that Gentoo and all of those souls that develop and support it is floundering on near financial failure, is the tenants (goals) that others have brain washed onto the masses, IMHO. The very best way (IMHO) to promote democracy and freedom is for the people to have a way to make money as entrepreneurs and small business people. Keeping Linux bottled up, via the GPL is just plain nuts! Besides that, Linux only bottled up for the little guys, HP, IBM, and thousands of other companies used linux every day in products or high end services, such as phone/networking gear. Who is suing them? Nobody, because they obey the GPL. Or should they be sued only because they are big companies? Hell, the US DOD uses Linux like crazy... Who are we kidding with the entire GPL schrade? (Keep the serfs where they belong, methinks). They are just
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Etaoin Shrdlu shrdlu at unlimitedmail.org writes: The GPL does allow to sell your product (as opposite to giving it away for free). Why should Montavista be sued if they respect the GPL? As long as they distribute the source code with their products (which admittedly I don't know), they are fine. Just because the sources are not downloadable from their site, does not mean that they should be sued. Ummm, I guess you are new to a space that I have worked in for a very long time. Let's make this simple. Why don't you just pose as a company that need MV's EL (embedded linux) and ask for a listing of all of the wonderful thing you can do with MV EL that are superior to the public offerings of EL. Then ask them from their sourcecode to these 'enhancements'. They are not alone, they are just one of the companies selling a RTOS based on EL. It seems to me that the difference is not between small or big companies, but rather between those who obey the GPL and those who do not. Naive, you are! Big companies have lawyer, lobyist and often politicians in their pocket. Over the years most people, at least in countries that pretend to have democracy, have seen this. Remember how the Democratic politicians and state where going after MS and then most of the issues got settled by republican. Yet the EU still slapped MS with lawsuits and punitive damages? If you think small companies are treated just like big one, you are very naive and no amount of evidence will change your mind. Just ask most anyone that's been in small business before. Recently, someone noticed that ASUS (not exactly a small company) had not published the full sources for their eee pc OS on their site; they were notified, and subsequently they added that code. Read the full story: http://cliffhacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/asus-eeepc-first-impressions-and-gpl.html http://cliffhacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/asus-eeepc-some-sources-posted.html You are talking about device drivers here, not products that have a hidxden OS and use linux as the RTOS inside the product. Verifying what is acutally inside of a close (RTOS) system is difficult, at best, and often impossible it the firmware engineer wants to make it difficult for other to analyze. There is a group of firmware engineers that have publically stated that they write for free any device driver for any company using EL. To paraphrase that person, the problem is not finding coders to write device drivers, it's convincing companies to open source their drivers or allow their products to inter-operate with OS drivers Other companies have been sued or notified, but not just because they were big or small, but because they failed to obey the GPL (xterasys, monsoon, fortinet, d-link...you can find tons of cases just by googling a bit), someone even admitted their faults, In some cases, the companies were declared guilty. true, but it does not affect the point I'm trying to make. What you are talking about is a drop of rain, in an ocean. Again you miss the point. If some small company builds a product, they are not going to want to stray very far from the linux kernel tree. The most they do is write a device driver. If they have some real 'magic' you just put a second sub $1 micro processor on the circuit board and locate your magic therein. It's as easy as eating pie. Publish your gpl code on the big micro and hide your magic in a small proccessor/DSP/FPGA/PAL. There are many other schemes to get around GPL, including writing your own boot loader. (not as difficult as it sounds). What the GPLv3 is doing is effectively keeping the little guys from building products ~100% based on linux and open source. They have not stopped a single well funded company (or an entire country like China) from using linux and open source as they choose. Why should they have been stopped? I'd just like the charade to end. GPL keeps the serfs on 'massa farm' It does not stop billion dollar entities from doing whatever they want with EL or any other OS (open source) software. This is a very huge reason for the current state of affairs for failed technology companies (particularly in the USA), at the present time. The Linux Journal has a big campaign to locate linux inside of products, basically asking folks to 'rat out' companies using linux to make a buck. insert your own conspiracy theory here Making money, even lots of money, with linux is not prohibited. What is wrong is when someone does not obey the GPL, and that's what LJ wants to do: to discover companies that try to benefit from the work of the linux community without giving anything back (I think you are referring to the linux incognito initiative here). OK, then why does the GPL not make a simple rule change. If you have grossed over 1 million dollars on your linux product or service, then you have to open source your code. That way the little guys can make
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Jil Larner jil at gnoo.eu writes: May I suggest you split the discussion if you continue about licensing, so we can keep a clear topic on Daniel's come back ? I only use licensing as an example (that I'm willing to defend as long as it takes) to support the notion of vehicles to generate revenue around the 'gentoo engine'. After all, if you look at Daniel's recent past, he's been searching for ways to use Gentoo, to *make money*. Several folks have pointed out that the majority of people believe that using (gentoo) linux to make money is a good idea. Daniel has been with lots of ventures in the recent past. Gentoo is his next 'bidness'. (ok that's settled?) Many folks suspect that Daniel wants control of Gentoo, to make money the way he envisions. He has not said why he would go to all of this trouble to be the technical, spiritual and financial leader of Gentoo (this makes the devs and others nervous). If fact it has been suggested in some of these discussion threads (particularly on the forums) that turning gentoo towards a profitable business model is exactly what's on Daniel's mind. Exactly what this entails is unclear. If Gentoo is to turn commercial then the relevance of licensing is paramount, IMHO. I only get my digs in, to get the serfs thinking about their financial future, related to Gentoo and it's future licensing issues. That the reason for the examples and the FOTITUDE to wake up the serfs that the GPL is hurting them the most. The GPL does not hurt large corporations. Maybe, just maybe, the GPL needs a financial test before it affects a company? (Just one idea for thought). After all, a company that grosses less than one million dollars, most likely does not have anything (code) that anyone else cannot easily generate. Gentoo is in play, do you understand this? Ever heard of T Boone Pickens? Daniel realizes that Gentoo has value. That's why he wants to return and rule in an autocratic fashion. He has not asked to be the technical guru (leader of the tribes) and hand the financial decision making to others (something a benevolent benefactor would do). He wants *CONTROL of EVERYTHING* He has insulted the devs that get in his way. Go read the 14 pages on the forum and you get a pretty clear picture, that he is not this *benevolent benefactor* that the masses believe he is. If he was, he would return, humble get on 'the team' and let folks who have experience and connections run the financial affairs of Gentoo, to the benefit of the all devs and the user alike. Why else would Daniel let the foundation sink? I sure anyone in the know could have sent in the few hundred bucks to keetp gentoo legally established. This crisis has been orchestrated to force a decision, plain and simple. It's going to become the fiefdom of somebody and my vote (voice) is that the serfs (users) and the devs take this puppy and decide how to make money with it (Plain and simple). If you give it back to daniel, he has greater rights legally that if the thing just dies. If it dies lots of folks can pick up the code, rename it and start a fork that can be GPL or commercial, IMHO. The GPL get's in the way, IMHO. Handing it over to Daniel with ~100% non publish control is a recipe for the serfs and the majority of the serfs to get the privilege of remaining on massa's farm, IMHO. Why else do you think the real discussions are going on behind closed doors? come on, use your brain here.. (or at least go read the 14 pages on the forum and then come back with a clue). God, I sure hope I'm wrong.. James -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
James [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: (or at least go read the 14 pages on the forum and then come back with a clue). Maybe this has already been posted here... but: What 14 pages on what forum? -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Monday 14 January 2008, James wrote: If it dies lots of folks can pick up the code, rename it and start a fork that can be GPL or commercial, IMHO. The GPL get's in the way, IMHO. Handing it over to Daniel with ~100% non publish control is a recipe for the serfs and the majority of the serfs to get the privilege of remaining on massa's farm, IMHO. Why else do you think the real discussions are going on behind closed doors? Even if Daniel does wrest control of Gentoo from the non-existant Foundation and change the license on Gentoo's copyright works, very little actually changes. He can't prohibit anyone from using what they already have under GPL, and each one of us already has a complete copy of portage on our machines. If he does turn Gentoo into some evil empire, the rest of us always have the choice to say So long, it was nice knowing you, fork and create a new distro. A new gentoo might be able to tell us that we can't use any portage code published after tomorrow, but so what? How much code is that actually going to be? Same with the docs, that was published under CC Attribution/Share-Alike. I can rip all of http://www.gentoo.org/doc/ right now with wget, remove the Gentoo logo and stick it up on any web site I feel like as long as I clearly say (preferably on every page) that the original was written for and copyrighted by the Gentoo Foundation. Nothing anyone does now or in the future can legally prevent me from doing that. Trying to undo the GPL on Gentoo's creative works will be distro suicide, as no distro has ever managed it, and Gentoo is in no position to try. Red Hat is the most business-savvy Linux out there and they are very very careful to GPL every last keystroke. SuSE tried to keep Yast proprietary but when Novell bought them, the community forced their hand and now Yast is open source and we have OpenSuSE a la Fedora. Ubuntu is moving toward GLPing Launchpad last I heard (I can't fathom why it's taking so long...) No distro has ever managed to succeed in the Linux market with anything other than the GPL, fully and completely complied with. I don't doubt that Daniel has financial goals for Gentoo. The original reason he left, amongst others, was because he couldn't get this past the other leaders at the time, and he had pressing financial needs. It's not unusual to negotiate these things behind closed doors. I sure as hell wouldn't do it in public right now. Heck, I'd have to contend with people like myself who factually couldn't add much to the negotiations but certainly have an opinion. No thanks, I wouldn't do it that way. I don't see much of a downside overall. If worst comes to worst then Daniel kills Gentoo and we fork. -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Possibly this one :D http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-644321.html [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : James [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: (or at least go read the 14 pages on the forum and then come back with a clue). Maybe this has already been posted here... but: What 14 pages on what forum? -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Monday 14 January 2008, James wrote: OK, then why does the GPL not make a simple rule change. If you have grossed over 1 million dollars on your linux product or service, then you have to open source your code. Because it *already* says that if you redistribute your code you already *have* to open source it. I suppose by implication you mean that companies grossing less than 1 million dollars are not required to open source their stuff. Well, that flies in the face of the 4 freedoms that the GPL is built on. A change like that is incompatible with GPL2 so we come back to the same mess we currently have with GPL3. The Linux kernel is licensed GPL2 ONLY (Linus removed the or later clause) and that can't be realistically changed. The only known way to do it would be to get the agreement of a large group of kernel code copyright holders, take all their code currently in the kernel, strip out everything else, rewrite the now missing bits and re-license the result. Note that this will involve huge amounts of developer work, for no discernible benefit to the developer. Seeing as Linus himself has stated that he has absolutely no intention of changing the license on the kernel, your idea is unworkable. -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
James a écrit : Jil Larner jil at gnoo.eu writes: May I suggest you split the discussion if you continue about licensing, so we can keep a clear topic on Daniel's come back ? I only use licensing as an example (that I'm willing to defend as long as it takes) to support the notion of vehicles to generate revenue around the 'gentoo engine'. I understood your first message, I am for BSD licenses everywhere (but I haven't all arguments you gave, just faith). But it turned to a flame war on BSD vs GPL v2 (v3 is no match) and, as you say, deeply focusing on a example. After all, if you look at Daniel's recent past, he's been searching for ways to use Gentoo, to *make money*. Several folks have pointed out that the majority of people believe that using (gentoo) linux to make money is a good idea. Daniel has been with lots of ventures in the recent past. Gentoo is his next 'bidness'. (ok that's settled?) Settled. [...] Go read the 14 pages on the forum and you get a pretty clear picture, that he is not this *benevolent benefactor* that the masses believe he is. If he was, he would return, humble get on 'the team' and let folks who have experience and connections run the financial affairs of Gentoo, to the benefit of the all devs and the user alike. Well, I attempted to read the forum, but I quickly left the page. The current Gentoo case is very interesting for the student that I am, but I don't want to take too much time to read the whole topic, I am already overwhelmed, alas. Messages on the list gave me the image of what he wants and a part of what he did. That's why I think this list is great :o Why else would Daniel let the foundation sink? I sure anyone in the know could have sent in the few hundred bucks to keetp gentoo legally established. This crisis has been orchestrated to force a decision, plain and simple. Yeah, that's obvious since the beginning. When I asked what the crisis was, the problem and non problem of legal papers, I saw it. Now, I may say that Gentoo is at a mature point, is a valuable distro, and choices must be made for its future. Somewhere, politics that I never heard about let the ball run away (quote from a previous mail, I think) and lead to the current crisis that allows (or not) the come back of Daniel. Then, the question looks like will people allow Gentoo to become commercial under the leadership of Daniel without measure of control ? I'm not sure it's a good sum up. If you don't think, help me to be right. I don't say commercial is evil. I agree that having a business around gentoo may have it stronger. But I believe he aims to access power the same way as Palpatine in Star Wars, and the story could be the same, then it would be hard to find a Jedi to rescue ! :D Discussions hold in the darkness and open the way for speculation. I understand the need to discuss without the noise of the community. But communication in an Open Source project, to say what is really in game, seems to me fundamental. Are they talking about licensing, trying to arrange some counter power to reach an agreement, do they already accepted and try to figure out how to convince involved people (I mean not basic users like me) ? I don't know. Only one thing is certain : we are facing trouble times and what we watch coming seems very, very dangerous. Power allows fast acting, but doesn't necessarily make the act wise. come on, use your brain here.. I attempt, but the choice is not ours. God, I sure hope I'm wrong.. So do I. Jil. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Mon, 2008-01-14 at 19:47 +, James wrote: Jil Larner jil at gnoo.eu writes: May I suggest you split the discussion if you continue about licensing, so we can keep a clear topic on Daniel's come back ? I only use licensing as an example (that I'm willing to defend as long as it takes) to support the notion of vehicles to generate revenue around the 'gentoo engine'. After all, if you look at Daniel's recent past, he's been searching for ways to use Gentoo, to *make money*. Several folks have pointed out that the majority of people believe that using (gentoo) linux to make money is a good idea. Daniel has been with lots of ventures in the recent past. Gentoo is his next 'bidness'. By friday (or saturday) we will know whether or not DRobbins has been accepted, and shortly after you will know if it is his plan to commercialise Gentoo (which I personally don't think he is about to do). If he does (there are a lot of if's leading up to this) then surely you can apply to work on the project. And just like Fedora, there will be a free split. If this doesn't happen, you can of course start your own commercial Gentoo project. Write an installer that can handle multiple PC's easily, polish some business aspects (printer admin, domain control, security), and write some scripts to share the compile amongst multiple business machines and install from packages, and away you go. I don't see a problem with the RedHat / Fedora model, but it doesn't suit Gentoo in it's current form. Firstly, Fedora is the spin off, and I can't see Gentoo agreeing to accept direction from a commercial parent. Secondly if the current team were to become the commercial entity and spin off a free child, I can see from the attitudes of the current devs that they are not focused on a highly polished and business attractive product. They're not interested in a flashy installer for example (which is fine) or binary packages. In fact, given the love that the collective devs have for DRobbins, I can see them either say no, or nothing at all. Which means either DRobbins, or someone else, will take Gentoo and fork it. The two distributions will probably grow to hate each other, although they may occasionally share problems and fixes, but certainly neither will have control or direction over the other. -- Iain Buchanan iaindb at netspace dot net dot au Got a complaint about the Internal Revenue Service? Call the convenient toll-free IRS Taxpayer Complaint Hot Line Number: 1-800-AUDITME -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Alan McKinnon alan.mckinnon at gmail.com writes: Seeing as Linus himself has stated that he has absolutely no intention of changing the license on the kernel, your idea is unworkable. My idea is not to mess with either the GPL2/3 applications nor the gplv2 kernel. What ever is under the Gentoo umbrella could conceivably be changed to a BSD style license. In those areas where it cannot then just leave it GPLed or code around the GPL until it is minimized. I could easily see a FPGA partioned into a multi processor system, with published GPL code on one core and code under a new, Entrepreneurial license on a different part of the FPGA cores. In fact, one could network two x86 machines, one running as a GPL linux system and the other running Entrepreneurial code from a different license, as a development platform. In my opinion we are on the verge of truly distributed computing where Open Source GPL(ed) systems and devices will integrate with old fashion (closed source) products, in a rapid fashion. The Gentoo devs could get out in front of the revolution, and spawn lots of Entrepreneurs, or they can follow MS and leave the GPL shackles around their necks. (I sure hope they do not try to cross the river) The point I was trying to may (and not really a hard sell but just to illuminate moving gentoo into more of an Entrepreneur distro) would be to build the future of Gentoo (or a fork) on a better license model than GPL. GPL has worked reasonable well, but things have changed quit a lot. It's time for folks to leverage Open Source to make money. You want to live on Massa's Farm, that's your choice. I have tasted (economic) freedom and it drives me mad how the masses of folks just 'get in line' with what they hear over the loud speakers.. Oh well, I'm done with this issue. I don't think I can help, lifting the (Gentoo) devs nor the greater Gentoo user base out of economic despair , if folks do not agree with moving to a different licensing scheme, for the unique work that characterizes and surrounds Gentoo. GPL is a vow of poverty, IMHO. It sure will be interesting to see where Daniel and the trustees take/leave the distro My guess is Daniel has seen, smelled and maybe lightly tasted the flavors of economic success, and some influential folks and poked him in the ribs and said (pissst, isn't gentoo your prodigy? take that puppy public and cash in.) just a hunch, James -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
After looking at some of the discusion at: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-644321.html I saw there that gentoo's charter had been pulled. What does that actually mean? And who is such a charter with? -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Tuesday 15 January 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: After looking at some of the discusion at: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-644321.html I saw there that gentoo's charter had been pulled. What does that actually mean? And who is such a charter with? The charter is a legal document filed with the State of New Mexico, it's the document that permits the Gentoo Foundation to exist as a legal entity. Because of unfiled paperwork etc etc the charter is no longer current and valid, and the Gentoo Foundation does not exist as a legal entity. On a code basis, it means that the Gentoo G logo, all ebuilds in the tree and portage itself now are not owned by anyone. Of course this is a dangerous position for those copyrights and logos to be in. -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Tue, 2008-01-15 at 07:42 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: On Tuesday 15 January 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: After looking at some of the discusion at: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-644321.html I saw there that gentoo's charter had been pulled. What does that actually mean? And who is such a charter with? The charter is a legal document filed with the State of New Mexico, it's the document that permits the Gentoo Foundation to exist as a legal entity. Because of unfiled paperwork etc etc the charter is no longer current and valid, and the Gentoo Foundation does not exist as a legal entity. On a code basis, it means that the Gentoo G logo, all ebuilds in the tree and portage itself now are not owned by anyone. Of course this is a dangerous position for those copyrights and logos to be in. I thought it was only the legal document that allowed Gentoo Technologies to be a not-for-profit organisation? The logo's, domain name, etc. were transferred to Gentoo Technologies before they applied for 501(c)(6) Not-For-Profit status, which required a Board of Trustees. IANAL but can't you exist without a legal paper? -- Iain Buchanan iaindb at netspace dot net dot au How many QA engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? 3: 1 to screw it in and 2 to say I told you so when it doesn't work. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Sunday 13 January 2008, James wrote: I read one poster that blasted Ciaran McCreesh Also recently, I read a thread where he created an alternative to portage, and that many respected techies on this list actually use his replacement for portage. The poster that blasted Ciaran, misses a simple point. (Machiavellian aside). You have break some eggs to create an omlette. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli That poster was me. Ciaran McCreesh is involved with the development of Paludis, and it IS superior to portage in many respects. One of it's strengths is that he didn't consider himself bound by portage's constraints. I didn't miss the eggs and omelettes point and I don't appreciate the Machiavelli reference. Ciaran is probably very convinced of his rightness and reading his postings you might think he's making a lot of sense. but read deeper and analyse the *results* of his postings, especially on places like -dev. In three years I've come across lots of threads he participates in, and I have yet to see a single one where he correctly stated at the end that someone else was right and he was wrong. Just because he writes good C++ code doesn't make him a good visionary for Gentoo, in much the same way that just because Bill Gates and friends built the most financially successful OS ever makes their business model right. Other than that I find your post to be lucid, well thought out and obviously written by someone with some (many?) miles under his feet. Others reading this thread would do well to read it in it's entirety and have a good long quiet think about it. I'll quote the last paragraph here for reference as it sums things up nicely (for me at least): Gentoo needs leadership that is accountable to the user community but also bound to a set of bylaws that we agree with. Keeping the distro free is paramount, but, creating avenues for financial success for products and services centric to gentoo is a necessary requisite too, IMHO. -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Sunday 13 January 2008, Mark Kirkwood wrote: James wrote: In my mind I'm an accomplished person. In her mind I'm just another stupid EE, Hey James - Interesting post - this eludes me tho, what is an EE? Electronic Engineer -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On 13 January 2008, Mark Kirkwood wrote: James wrote: In my mind I'm an accomplished person. In her mind I'm just another stupid EE, Hey James - Interesting post - this eludes me tho, what is an EE? Electronic Engineer? Uwe -- If a man speaks in a forest, and no woman listens to him, is he still lying? -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Sunday 13 January 2008, James wrote: I turn down most opportunities to be on a BOD with many organizations, but, I care about Gentoo quite a lot. If Gentoo is truely in crisis, why have the devs not discuss this with the wider user community? This simple fact make the whole state of affairs suspicious to say the least. It could just be managerial ineptitude though, combined with emotional immaturity of certain persons (if Alan's previous critique re.treating persons as machines holds true). After reading the aforementioned Blog (by Daniel), I have strong reservations about Daniels 'vision'. First, let him publish his vision, including who he wants to name to the board of trustees and the governing bylaws (or changes) he is proposing. Second if he wants to be the day bay (tribal chief) then he should have only a vote as to the makeup of the BOD. Allowing him to return with the sole responsibility to select a BOD, is a recipe for doom, IMHO. You can describe DOOM as you wish, but, giving carte-blanche control to him, or anyone, is foolish, at best. Doing so with no published data, nor restrictive covenants, nor by-laws, nor mission statement, nor accountability mechanisms is unwise, IMHO. Hear, hear! You echo my reservations very well, in case they didn't come through clear enough in my previous post. It also sounds to me as though Daniel, is trying to trick or provoke the trustees into allowing him to decide the future of the distro without first telling us what that future is to be. Exactly. But this may have to do with his (and others) disagreement with Ciaran? But then again why the trustees have become apathetic and have not sought out replacement for themselves, is inexcusible if indeed this is the case. Daniel probably understands the inherent value in an established distro, such as gentoo, and might just be looking to use it (gentoo) more as a private fiefdom than an engine for the future benefit of the greater gentoo community. Dunno. I don't know either, but as you have suggested in your previous message and also propose below there are ways of putting checks and balances in place to ensure that: 1. Strategic direction is decided by the wider community in a democratic way, while preserving the Gentoo principles (i.e. the majority of *future* users may want a Ubuntu like distro, but that's not what Gentoo is about). 2. Tactical decisions on what coding should be used, are taken by devs, so that they enable the strategic direction and objectives to be achieved. 3. An administrative body with responsible and professional individuals is elected to undertake the necessary tasks required to keep Gentoo operating and moving forwards, without putting at risk its e.g. legal status. I see the above three as distinctly different areas of endeavour which tend to attract different skillsets and personality profiles. So it makes sense to define them separately, especially as it will offer a focus for succinct deliverables and responsibilities. The boundaries of decision making are clear and if life changing moments arrive the the whole Gentoo community is asked to participate to the decision making. As such here are a few tenants I'd like to see in the article of incorporation, bylaws, or where ever the focus of Gentoo is publish. Like wise you could also view this as my vision of Gentoo's future. Needless to say, I'm what out in front of those that want gentoo to become something they use to make a living with, if not reach some measure of significant financial success. 1. Keep Gentoo open and free for all to use and exploit to earn a living, create a business, become an entrepreneur, educate and use as the individual determines is in the best interest of the individual. 2. Keep licensing more in line with the BSD license for Gentoo centric technology (thus encouraging entrepreneurship as defined by the individual while simultaneously respecting GPLv2 and maintaining compliance with GPLv2. GPLv3 is a poor idea, IMHO. GPLv3 can be made easily available and leave GPLv3 compliance/responsibility up to the individual. In fact software licensing and compliance should always be up to the INDIVIDUAL, IMHO. Digression I love conspriracy theories: Here one that makes you think. Greenpeace receives it's largest contributions from those that what to keep the energy markets closed to all but the largest corporations. Ha! Is that true!?? Who are the largest contributors? Here's another: GPLv3 is the work of The Son of Satan, who sits atop a mountain in Redmond.. /end Digression 3. Devise a formal sematic to install of all gentoo's instantiations that is open and flexible so various groups can easily create their own installation semantics and share their installation semantics with the wider public communities. (competition is the best way to solve the current gentoo installation quagmire,
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
· Hemmann, Volker Armin [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Samstag, 12. Januar 2008, Richard Marzan wrote: On Sat, 2008-01-12 at 18:22 +0100, Renat Golubchyk wrote: On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:07:39 -0500 Richard Marzan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Although he works for Microsoft, Daniel is the one who created this project. He doesn't work for Microsoft any longer. Check Wikipedia or Google for relevant news. Cheers, Renat Even more of a reason to bring him back! no, just another sign that he never pulls through. Or a sign, that he has his own vision and doesn't want to bend for it. Michael Schmarck -- People tend to make rules for others and exceptions for themselves. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Sunday 13 January 2008, Mick wrote: I turn down most opportunities to be on a BOD with many organizations, but, I care about Gentoo quite a lot. If Gentoo is truely in crisis, why have the devs not discuss this with the wider user community? This simple fact make the whole state of affairs suspicious to say the least. It could just be managerial ineptitude though, combined with emotional immaturity of certain persons (if Alan's previous critique re.treating persons as machines holds true). Odds are that this is the real explanation. Gentoo management is full of people who are good devs but simply do not know how to run a group. To see this, just read over minutes of meeting etc held on IRC. There's little evidence of a meeting being chaired by someone who keeps things on track and on agenda, and meetings usually devolve into discussions of technical matters. It's entirely reasonable to assume that these same people will just ignore things outside their expertise that they don't understand and hope the problem will go away if they ignore it. Just as the solution to having a maintainer of a project that can't code is to replace him with someone who can, the solution to gentoo's current woes seems to be to appoint bodies to management who do know how to do it and have a track record of doing it. -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Alan McKinnon alan.mckinnon at gmail.com writes: It could just be managerial ineptitude though, combined with emotional immaturity of certain persons (if Alan's previous critique re.treating persons as machines holds true). Odds are that this is the real explanation. Gentoo management is full of people who are good devs but simply do not know how to run a group. To see this, just read over minutes of meeting etc held on IRC. There's little evidence of a meeting being chaired by someone who keeps things on track and on agenda, and meetings usually devolve into discussions of technical matters. It's entirely reasonable to assume that these same people will just ignore things outside their expertise that they don't understand and hope the problem will go away if they ignore it. Just as the solution to having a maintainer of a project that can't code is to replace him with someone who can, the solution to gentoo's current woes seems to be to appoint bodies to management who do know how to do it and have a track record of doing it. OK, let assume you are correct, and the majority of users support these consensus beliefs. How do we go about doing this (fixing gentoo with some documents that define the organization and lines of authority? I know how to do it mechanically and legally but how to we get devs to agree with being managed by anyone? After all, there are no paychecks here. My alluding to the tribal system is because technical folks will follow a technically strong leader. Are enough of those tribal (elites) willing to be managed? If so, surely they will want quite a lot of say in how a new structure to manage Gentoo is structured and organized. The fact they are discussing this seems like the majority of devs will make a decision and let us know? Surely they will want a person that is mature and calm, yet very saavy with technology and Gentoo. We can put together a very good guidance document, borrowing from other projects and non profits, and add some interesting language, but if the majority, or at least a handful of tribal leader do not agree, we are dead, or starting our own fork. It's more likely the user community will rally behind a group of devs, that decide to fork, or the bickering will just continue until everyone leaves? I have not read any of their posts (the devs) nor any of the infighting. If they want help, they have to reach out. If they are determined to intellectually bludgeon one another, all we can do is prepare our ideas, here in this forum into a document, and humbly submit it to of those tribal leaders that might be receptive? Maybe someone that reads this solicit from the devs a list of grievances and we can begin drafting documents that the devs can comment on and we continue the process until 'the beast is soothed' ? Does anyone think they can get cooler heads among the devs to participate in a process like this, or something similar? I do not know any of the devs enough to know who to approach. ??? James -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Sun, 2008-01-13 at 11:31 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: On Sunday 13 January 2008, Mark Kirkwood wrote: James wrote: In my mind I'm an accomplished person. In her mind I'm just another stupid EE, Hey James - Interesting post - this eludes me tho, what is an EE? Electronic Engineer or Electrical Eng. Similar, but different. -- Iain Buchanan iaindb at netspace dot net dot au There are probably better ways to do that, but it would make the parser more complex. I do, occasionally, struggle feebly against complexity... :-) -- Larry Wall in [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Monday 14 January 2008, James wrote: Alan McKinnon alan.mckinnon at gmail.com writes: It could just be managerial ineptitude though, combined with emotional immaturity of certain persons (if Alan's previous critique re.treating persons as machines holds true). Odds are that this is the real explanation. Gentoo management is full of people who are good devs but simply do not know how to run a group. To see this, just read over minutes of meeting etc held on IRC. There's little evidence of a meeting being chaired by someone who keeps things on track and on agenda, and meetings usually devolve into discussions of technical matters. It's entirely reasonable to assume that these same people will just ignore things outside their expertise that they don't understand and hope the problem will go away if they ignore it. Just as the solution to having a maintainer of a project that can't code is to replace him with someone who can, the solution to gentoo's current woes seems to be to appoint bodies to management who do know how to do it and have a track record of doing it. OK, let assume you are correct, and the majority of users support these consensus beliefs. How do we go about doing this (fixing gentoo with some documents that define the organization and lines of authority? I know how to do it mechanically and legally but how to we get devs to agree with being managed by anyone? After all, there are no paychecks here. I think you have answered your own question actually. It's a common human failing to assume that their own situation is somehow unique and completely different from every other situation that has ever been. Gentooites might well want to debate this ad nauseam but the situation will resolve that same way these things have always been resolved, by one of these or a combination: a. a strong leader emerges with a vision and takes over b. a strong leader emerges with a vision and forks c. common sense prevails and everyone comes to their senses d. a hidden bad egg goes away or dies and suddenly everything calms down e. the project dies and nothing replaces it There might be more options. In any event, to progress someone has to step up to the plate with a plan and put it into motion, and the mechanics will fall into place behind that. Daniel has a plan. It might be a good one or a bad one. He might be The Ultimate Enlightened One or he might be Evil Spawn Of Satan, I have no idea. But he does have a plan, and thus far seems to be the only one *with*a*plan*. Let's hear what he has to say and respond accordingly. alan My alluding to the tribal system is because technical folks will follow a technically strong leader. Are enough of those tribal (elites) willing to be managed? If so, surely they will want quite a lot of say in how a new structure to manage Gentoo is structured and organized. The fact they are discussing this seems like the majority of devs will make a decision and let us know? Surely they will want a person that is mature and calm, yet very saavy with technology and Gentoo. We can put together a very good guidance document, borrowing from other projects and non profits, and add some interesting language, but if the majority, or at least a handful of tribal leader do not agree, we are dead, or starting our own fork. It's more likely the user community will rally behind a group of devs, that decide to fork, or the bickering will just continue until everyone leaves? I have not read any of their posts (the devs) nor any of the infighting. If they want help, they have to reach out. If they are determined to intellectually bludgeon one another, all we can do is prepare our ideas, here in this forum into a document, and humbly submit it to of those tribal leaders that might be receptive? Maybe someone that reads this solicit from the devs a list of grievances and we can begin drafting documents that the devs can comment on and we continue the process until 'the beast is soothed' ? Does anyone think they can get cooler heads among the devs to participate in a process like this, or something similar? I do not know any of the devs enough to know who to approach. ??? James -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Mon, 2008-01-14 at 07:35 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: the situation will resolve that same way these things have always been resolved, by one of these or a combination: a. a strong leader emerges with a vision and takes over b. a strong leader emerges with a vision and forks c. common sense prevails and everyone comes to their senses d. a hidden bad egg goes away or dies and suddenly everything calms down e. the project dies and nothing replaces it I think you just foretold the end of the universe too... [snip] But he does have a plan, and thus far seems to be the only one *with*a*plan*. Let's hear what he has to say and respond accordingly. Baldrick had a plan, and look where that got him. But then he wasn't exactly the visionary leader... Anyway, from what it seems from Slashdot, DRobbins' blog, and f.g.o there is overwhelming user support for him to return (of course there are some users against the idea). But what about the devs? The support for DR seems to be less enthusiastic as you rise further up the gentoo hierarchy. But then if he is blocked at the critical trustee level, then either b. will happen, or he'll just return to the background... -- Iain Buchanan iaindb at netspace dot net dot au Dickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page. -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett) -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Just butting in here a bit but this discussion has got me somewhat worried. This will probably ramble a bit... but at least that will fit right in in this discussion... hehe. I probably represent about the lowest level of gentoo user so I thought maybe it would be good to speak up a bit here. Its hard to get a handle on what you all are really talking about. I mean the behind the scenes build up that must have gone on was totally invisible to people like me. I started hearing and seeing comments and such on this list about 1 or maybe 2 mnths ago now, indicating some underlying trouble but I'm not getting a clear picture here of what that trouble is. I am a long time linux user and have used gentoo for probably 3 yrs or so. I've never contributed a single bit of code or contributed in any other way than asking lots of question here... and answering a few I guess but the ratio wouldn't look so good for me. I've added a very small number of bug reports at one time or another. I like gentoo a lot... and have finally gotten at least slightly competent in using/installing/trouble shooting and etc I'd hate to switch to something else. The complex setup of use flags and profiles is very versatile and eventually people like me start to catch on. With the counter balance of the various /etc/portage/package.** files, there are infinite ways to control ones setup. From this discussion I am unable to get an idea what might be coming in the next few mnths. I'd like to help in some way... but hard to think of anyway that I could realistically contribute. I've used linux pretty exclusively as my main desktop since mid to late 90s, experimented with freebsd and openbsd a bit. The gentoo community... at least the discussion lists is about the best I've been involved in. I guess what I'm getting at here is wondering what the collection of lowlevel users can really do to help the apparent breakdown of direction. I can write basic perl and shell script a bit. But so basic as to seem pretty useless compared to the kind of talent available here. I guess I feel kind of helpless about the possibility of gentoo breaking down and kind of fading on off into oblivion. Can some of you `in the know' folks layout what the problems seem to be especially some concrete ways interested parties could have some impact on the situation. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Case in point, portage I have read has a lot of hacks that are hurting development. In the end it works pretty well but it makes it really hard to add more features without messing up something else. So, someone needs to make a decision on what needs to happen with that. Some say rewrite portage, some say switch to C** and some say switch to Plaudus (sp?). This just seems to be one thing I have read about. I'm sure Portage (the program) has allot of hacks in it but I'm also sure that had those who advocate its shortcomings been concerned about backwards compability with older stable versions they would have been more humble in there criticism. Like you, I wish I could do more. I would be willing to learn to code if I felt it was worthwhile. I am disabled so I have plenty of time to learn and contribute but after my past experiences on -dev, I won't be repeating that for a VERY long time and only after some things change. The devs complain about not having enough help but when someone wants to learn and help some they sort of shoot themselves in the foot. The best way to help out is to try and join a team/herd. They are much friendlier then the -dev list and in much need of help. The easiest way I think is to join an arch team as an arch tester. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
On Monday 14 January 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just butting in here a bit but this discussion has got me somewhat worried. This will probably ramble a bit... but at least that will fit right in in this discussion... hehe. I probably represent about the lowest level of gentoo user so I thought maybe it would be good to speak up a bit here. [snip] I'd like to help in some way... but hard to think of anyway that I could realistically contribute. An excellent contribution is to help out people on this list and in the forums. A lot of them are in the same position you were recently and they appreciate the help you can give them just as much as you did. Don't feel that just because you are a mere foot soldier in the trenches that you can't make a difference. 1000 such foot soldiers make a pretty formidable force to move forward with! Regardless of what the future holds for Gentoo it will always need users, users willing to help other users, and people willing to improve the product. It simply doesn't make much sense for the community at large to pay exclusive attention to the management woes and neglect the distro itself. Here's some stuff that needs done (might be a tad out of date though): http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/staffing-needs/ alan -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just butting in here a bit but this discussion has got me somewhat worried. This will probably ramble a bit... but at least that will fit right in in this discussion... hehe. I probably represent about the lowest level of gentoo user so I thought maybe it would be good to speak up a bit here. Its hard to get a handle on what you all are really talking about. I mean the behind the scenes build up that must have gone on was totally invisible to people like me. I started hearing and seeing comments and such on this list about 1 or maybe 2 mnths ago now, indicating some underlying trouble but I'm not getting a clear picture here of what that trouble is. I am a long time linux user and have used gentoo for probably 3 yrs or so. I've never contributed a single bit of code or contributed in any other way than asking lots of question here... and answering a few I guess but the ratio wouldn't look so good for me. I've added a very small number of bug reports at one time or another. I like gentoo a lot... and have finally gotten at least slightly competent in using/installing/trouble shooting and etc I'd hate to switch to something else. The complex setup of use flags and profiles is very versatile and eventually people like me start to catch on. With the counter balance of the various /etc/portage/package.** files, there are infinite ways to control ones setup. From this discussion I am unable to get an idea what might be coming in the next few mnths. I'd like to help in some way... but hard to think of anyway that I could realistically contribute. I've used linux pretty exclusively as my main desktop since mid to late 90s, experimented with freebsd and openbsd a bit. The gentoo community... at least the discussion lists is about the best I've been involved in. I guess what I'm getting at here is wondering what the collection of lowlevel users can really do to help the apparent breakdown of direction. I can write basic perl and shell script a bit. But so basic as to seem pretty useless compared to the kind of talent available here. I guess I feel kind of helpless about the possibility of gentoo breaking down and kind of fading on off into oblivion. Can some of you `in the know' folks layout what the problems seem to be especially some concrete ways interested parties could have some impact on the situation. I would usually say let your opinion be heard on where things are going. However, go post something on -dev and you will see in short order that it is not a good idea. I liken it to poking a stick into a hornets nest. It may be fun when you get the stick and first walk up but after that the good part is gone. In my opinion Gentoo has been coasting for a long time now. It has hit a point in its life where some decisions have to be made and they are not easy ones to make and they are far reaching and may not be correctable if the wrong ones are made. Problem is, the group of people that should be making them can't seem to make them. That means the people that needs the decisions to be made can't proceed with their work so it is status quo right now. Case in point, portage I have read has a lot of hacks that are hurting development. In the end it works pretty well but it makes it really hard to add more features without messing up something else. So, someone needs to make a decision on what needs to happen with that. Some say rewrite portage, some say switch to C** and some say switch to Plaudus (sp?). This just seems to be one thing I have read about. It just seems to me that some things need to change. Someone or some group of people need to make some very serious decisions and do so very soon. I'm not sure what to say on the foundation part. It's hard to say since legally it doesn't exist right now. I just feel and pretty much know in my gut that people have dropped the ball and watched it roll away. Like you, I wish I could do more. I would be willing to learn to code if I felt it was worthwhile. I am disabled so I have plenty of time to learn and contribute but after my past experiences on -dev, I won't be repeating that for a VERY long time and only after some things change. The devs complain about not having enough help but when someone wants to learn and help some they sort of shoot themselves in the foot. Bad thing is, I have a lot of time that I could put to use. I'm at home most of the time, I do date some but am single, no kids and my biggest time consumer is changing the water in my 55 gallon fish tank and my garden in the summer months. What a waste huh? I'm sure someone else can add more to this. That's just all I can recall at the moment. Dale :-) :-) :-) -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
· Richard Marzan [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Although he works for Microsoft, Check your facts, please. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,100121,39252292,00.htm. Michael Schmarck -- printk (scsi%d : Oh no Mr. Bill!\n, host-host_no); linux-2.6.6/drivers/scsi/53c7xx.c -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Mick michaelkintzios at gmail.com writes: The problem is, and is not, legal papers. Because, IMO, legal papers are the visible part of an Iceberg. Could someone tell me what *really* is the crisis ? If people did not do what they were supposed to do : what should they have done ? Excellent point. I ask the question. Exactly what is Daniel proposing that has everyone so opposed to his return. Don't give generalized bullshit answers, BE PRECISE. The current lack of mature, focused leadership, by folks that are technically and financially successful is apparent if one just reads this list over a period of time. I say this as a mature Engineer with a Master's Degree in Computer Science. I make a good living out of my garage, and I've owned and sold several business for a nice profit, over the years.. (pit, I'm willing to coach the 'young punks' that make gentoo the wonderful distro it is, if they are willing to listen to my ideas. Let the community vote and decide. FUNDING is not a problem. FOCUS is the problem with Gentoo IMHO. Gentoo has issues with FUNDING, because of how it presents itself. Not having a clean, well oiled installation semantic is like meeting someone for the first time with green, rotten teeth and bad breathe that would stop a train. First impressions only happen once. The installation process is the first meeting (impression) for gentoo... I am equally agnostic of Gentoo management politics, albeit grateful that people volunteer their time and effort to keep it going. From the little exposure that I have had to it all it seems to me that Alan's views ring depressingly true. I read Daniel's blog and cannot disagree with what he suggests - it makes common sense that users views and desires should determine Gentoo's direction, but I have not read between the lines to see how might his proposals lead to directions that I would not readily agree with. This is such a simple issue to deal with. Before you (the gentoo community agree to let him be in charge, you put a group of other folks on the board of directors (elders). Allowing anyone to be president (in charge of the daily activities) and CEO, (the long range strategic focus) is a bad idea. It's called a balance of power, and that is fundamental to any successful organization. I very much want to find a way to turn the Gentoo Linux project into a profitable enterprise. My main motivation in wanting to do this is so I can stop living from paycheck to paycheck and focus my professional efforts exclusively on Gentoo Linux development. Many of our developers would like to do the same thing The daily (tribal) leaders should be accountable to the elders, when the elders say they need to be accountable. (PERIOD). It's just like parenting or running a corporation. Hopefully, as the organization matures, becomes accomplished and significant progress is achieved (natural things in the coarse of becoming successful) the interaction between the elders (Board of Directors and the tribal (fiefdom/team) leaders become less and less. As time progresses, elders retire (to successful start up companies and the tribal leaders migrate to the BOD or directly to successful startup companies centric to gentoo... (I am not critisizing this statement of his; after all I would very much like to find myself a sustainable way of being able to do what I like - without having to spend the biggest part of my day in my current job.) How about listening to those who have done this already? I could self fund a gentoo startup, tonight, with the right group of focused individuals. (see my previous postings on building a gentoo meta package for ecommerce... as just one example. Or the camera to embedded gentoo device in another thread. If you want a degree from a university, you have to do it the way of those (with degrees) that run the university. If you want money in your pockets (as an entrepreneur) then you have to listen to those entrepreneurs willing to share there success with you. Giving a free hand to any single person is not safe in my humble view, especially if that person is employed by Microsoft - I will find hard to rest assured that there will be no conflict of interest. I thinks the revelation that he has left MS and abandoned several other ventures means he has also 'matured' to the point of looking for a fresh start with at least modest success. On the other hand it seems that Gentoo desperately needs *mature* leadership, which can fulfill some rather significant responsibilities. No, surely you are pulling my leg here.? This is rather simple. Anyone with strong to elite skills send me your resume and tell me what kind of business you'd like to own. I'll surf through the desires and ideas and pick one (or use one I like) and fund the startup and give the key persons stock in a company you help start On the otherhand I've posted
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
James wrote: Mick michaelkintzios at gmail.com writes: The problem is, and is not, legal papers. Because, IMO, legal papers are the visible part of an Iceberg. Could someone tell me what *really* is the crisis ? If people did not do what they were supposed to do : what should they have done ? Excellent point. I ask the question. Exactly what is Daniel proposing that has everyone so opposed to his return. Don't give generalized bullshit answers, BE PRECISE. The current lack of mature, focused leadership, by folks that are technically and financially successful is apparent if one just reads this list over a period of time. I say this as a mature Engineer with a Master's Degree in Computer Science. I make a good living out of my garage, and I've owned and sold several business for a nice profit, over the years.. SNIP I agree. I saw a post somewhere that some are pretty young and act their age, if even that much. It makes Gentoo look bad when even one person goes off kilter like that. SNIP I read one poster that blasted Ciaran McCreesh Also recently, I read a thread where he created an alternative to portage, and that many respected techies on this list actually use his replacement for portage. The poster that blasted Ciaran, misses a simple point. (Machiavellian aside). You have break some eggs to create an omlette. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli I have read a lot of posts on -dev by Ciaran. I'm not defending how he says some things but he does have some good points. I also keep in mind that he has created a alternative to portage and from what I have read it works VERY well and is even better than portage. I don't use it but I have read where people are talking about their experience with his program. He should be given a lot of credit for that and at least have his ideas heard in a more respectful way. On that note, at least he has enough balls to say something on -dev. I posted a concern a long time ago and got hammered by just one person, acting like a 3 year old who got his candy took away. It is very rare, if I have posted at all now. It's just not worth it. It seems to me that there is a very few people that seem to think they own -dev and Gentoo. By the way, some others also didn't like the post that was made to me. It helped but it is just not worth it. I'm disabled and 40 years old, feels like about 70 most days, and just to old for that crap. My wife is a very successful computer engineer (hundreds of products). She is vile and very rough on EEs that design hardware. Only the most competent hardware designers can work with her. Their eggos are often bruised when their selection of uP/DSP/processor is not robust for the product they envision.. Get over it! The planet is ruled by those with mental fortitude (PERIOD). Most of her customers come from referrals or from semiconductor representatives directly. You don't like this, take it up with the author of the universe (whomever you believe that is). Gentoo needs leadership that is accountable to the user community but also bound to a set of bylaws that we agree with. Keeping the distro free is paramount, but, creating avenues for financial success for products and services centric to gentoo is a necessary requisite too, IMHO. James True, even things that are free have to have money. It never makes it without it. Dale :-) :-) :-) -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Alan McKinnon alan.mckinnon at gmail.com writes: http://blog.funtoo.org/2008/01/here-my-offer.html I've kept very quiet about Gentoo politics for a long time, but Daniel's blog has promoted me to finally open my mouth and express my views. Daniel is in a tricky position - he is the legal President of the Foundation but also has no role in the project in real life. This can be corrected quite easily. If one is to believe his posting, (I have no evidence to believe otherwise) that he wants to be removed from gentoo completely, or return and offer a vision for leadership in a autocratic environment... There is no evidence whatsoever that the Trustees as a group have ever done a single thing for Gentoo in three years. The fundamental responsibility of Trustees is to ensure that legal paperwork is properly filed, they did not even do this. Grant Goodyear is getting some things done but he's doing it as one person. Chris is in a similar position. But the Trustees, as a body with specific duties, simply does not exist in any reasonable definition of Trustees. This is not difficult to fix either. Getting the legal issues handled is not difficult, especially if those trustees what to leave. If they are non-performers, they either want to kill gentoo or they do not see viable replacements for trustees, or mediocrity is acceptable to them. The bulk of the devs and the community of the users, should decide who is a on the BOD. One person, one vote, with a required registration as to actually who people are. The potential BOD folks could be elected? If the current trustees do not like this then it only takes a core group to create a fork. (It seems to me Daniel has some well concealed plans for Gentoo, and my bet is that he is either going to regain autocratic control or fork). As a successful business man (Engineer), with a Lawyer in my family and dozens of lawyers that owe me favors, It its not difficult to solve these leagalise problem, given either a quorum or a motivated group of technical folks. In fact, since I seen the charaterization that gentoo is really just LFS + portage, it would seem that Mr. McCreesh has indeed created his own (gentoo) distro. Also, there are other forks of Gentoo and they do not seem to require legions of devs to maintain a fork. I turn down most opportunities to be on a BOD with many organizations, but, I care about Gentoo quite a lot. If Gentoo is truely in crisis, why have the devs not discuss this with the wider user community? This simple fact make the whole state of affairs suspicious to say the least. Potential BOD members should each create a vision document, publish it and let's elect the BOD (trustees). If the current Trustees do not agree with this, then fork the distro and let's all move on. It's not like this has never happened before. After reading the aforementioned Blog (by Daniel), I have strong reservations about Daniels 'vision'. First, let him publish his vision, including who he wants to name to the board of trustees and the governing bylaws (or changes) he is proposing. Second if he wants to be the day bay (tribal chief) then he should have only a vote as to the makeup of the BOD. Allowing him to return with the sole responsibility to select a BOD, is a recipe for doom, IMHO. You can describe DOOM as you wish, but, giving carte-blanche control to him, or anyone, is foolish, at best. Doing so with no published data, nor restrictive covenants, nor by-laws, nor mission statement, nor accountability mechanisms is unwise, IMHO. I used to read -dev and various council mailing lists a long time ago as I wanted to keep up to date with these things as a user. I unsubscribed because I couldn't stand the constant bickering going on there. OSS projects always have their laundry out in the public eye and some conflict is always present but Gentoo management manages to take this to a whole new level - from on outsider's point of view, the bickering is done for the sake of bickering, and it does not result in decisions being made or solutions found. I'm not certain that these discussion should be held on the -dev list. After all, if the 'devs' where the managerial geniuses they claim to be (evident by their choice of -dev as the proper place to discuss the future of Gentoo) then we would not be in this mess (YMMV)... Like many readers on this list, I've have noticed some increase in the dysfunctionality of gentoo over the recent months, but, was unaware of an imminent melt down in the distro's 'chain of authority'. It also sounds to me as though Daniel, is trying to trick or provoke the trustees into allowing him to decide the future of the distro without first telling us what that future is to be. But then again why the trustees have become apathetic and have not sought out replacement for themselves, is inexcusible if indeed this is the case. Daniel probably understands the inherent value in an
[gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
Dale dalek1967 at bellsouth.net writes: The problem is, and is not, legal papers. Gentoo needs leadership that is accountable to the user community but also bound to a set of bylaws that we agree with. Keeping the distro free is paramount, but, creating avenues for financial success for products and services centric to gentoo is a necessary requisite too, IMHO. True, even things that are free have to have money. It never makes it without it. Dale, I appreciate your response and sentiments. On another note: Sorry about my previous postings disconnected thoughts and grammar Hopefully, most can follow the logic of what I'm trying to say, whether you agree with me or not. With 3 Kids, deep in sibling rivalry, and a wife who's pissed because my priorities do not fall in line with her vision or what I should work on, it make it difficult to finish a thought, let alone a comprehensive email. In my mind I'm an accomplished person. In her mind I'm just another stupid EE, that does not agree with HER leadership (and you thought that gentoo has problems..) Still, I respect her and even love her. Maybe that's the insanity that make Gentoo work? When I suggest we separate but stay friendly (like forking Gentoo) she get's angry and prefers that we stay together for the sake of the children (gentoo user community). She has prevailed (so far but at what costs)? real scary analogy I'm headed to the Kitchen for a very tall Margarita.. goo_night! James -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Daniel Robbins' come back ?
James wrote: In my mind I'm an accomplished person. In her mind I'm just another stupid EE, Hey James - Interesting post - this eludes me tho, what is an EE? Cheers Mark P.s: a beer should cure all women problems -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
