Ciaran McCreesh posted <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, excerpted below, on Thu, 05 Jan 2006 10:36:28 +0000:
> On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 03:26:03 -0700 Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > | Anyone who thinks Gentoo isn't progressing simply isn't seeing the > | forest for all the trees, as they say. Another way of putting it is > | that Gentoo seems to be in that critical period after the honeymoon, > | it has hit its middle-aged crisis. Reality has set in -- we're not > | going to magically move mountains, as yes, a mountain /can/ be moved, > | see the history of the Panama canal for instance, but it takes a > | *LOT* of work, a LOT of investment, and sometimes even some deaths > | along the way. During that time, progress may seem painfully slow, > | yet it never-the-less occurs. What's the alternative, dumping the > | project and leaving it for dead? Then all that work and investment, > | and all those deaths, /will/ be in vain. > > What makes you think we're not moving mountains? Getting 1.4 out of the > door was considered an amazing feat. Now we're doing the same thing > every six months, and it's largely going unnoticed. Is something only > an impressive accomplishment if it goes wrong and generates lots of > mess first? I guess I didn't put it too well, but that's what I meant -- that yeah, the mountain DOES get moved (and it's us, well, you, and as a user and bug filer as well as dev group follower, I count myself too, to some extent), but it's FAR more work than some imagined, so naturally, they end up rather disillusioned once the reality sinks in. The fact is that's a natural part of any maturing relationship, marriage, work, volunteer, the relationship on has with their state and nation... It happens, and if the relationship survives past it, it then often matures and grows into something far more valued than one could have possibly imagined back in that fantasy that lead to the disillusionment. ... But I'm going off into philosophy and it seems some don't think that belongs on the list, so I'll stop. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman in http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html -- [email protected] mailing list
