Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Apr 7, 2006, at 11:56 AM, Jakub Moc wrote: I bet there's a bug open for it. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=117482 . How's portage 2.1 getting along? I notice it gets frequent updates. The gentoo-portage-dev list is the place to follow this. Also, http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115839 On GWN there are always things heard on foo-ML, heard on bar-ML or heard on te forums. But since many information seems to be in bugzilla, wouldn't it be nice to inform the bugzilla team of importagt tracker bugs and have a section like heard on bugzilla? -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Patrick Lauer wrote: On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 11:33 +0200, Grobian wrote: Maybe user-rel should, together with GWN bridge this problem by keeping the source of news anonymous? Just to use it as teasers of what kind of things are being done in Gentoo's kitchen? Of course this only holds for new projects like in your hypothetical example. GWN has a section Future Zone where any Gentoo project can announce new ideas, roadmaps or previews. It is not used that often, but if anyone wants some testing of a pre-release version or some user feedback on ideas ... just tell the GWN :-) Patrick Hi, I'd very like the future zone section. I think it should be used more frequently. I think editing of GWN should be a more community project. I mean tipstricks should be resurrected (yes, by users). I think if some dev drop a mail about a new alpha feature to gentoo-users, or -dev, or somewhere, there will be users who want to try it out. They also can write a small article about they adventure in the future to the future zone. If someone think it would be nice, than sent at least me a mail with possible subjects to tips tricks. I wrote an article already to tips tricks, and I want to write more, but I don't know what would be useful and interesting to others. I think some subject-ideas could be posted to gentoo-user by devs, or anyone just like testing requests on -dev list. Cheers, Tamas Sarga -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFEPBfS2hT1i1vMtiURApsTAKCWQDIbyZChl/T94RdHVtGYXAqrrQCeJSuW TEJptuEqlw0M6KjRIZ+tgzI= =TDh7 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 09:51:58 +0100 Christopher O'Neill [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | Ideally, what I'd like is for the various dev teams to compile a | weekly status report, which could then be compiled into the weekly | newsletter (which currently seems to be lacking much useful | information). It would be great if we (the users) could find out | what's going on behind the scenes of our favourite distribution. The problem with this is... Once someone says we're working on $x, they're continuously pestered about it by users asking when it will be ready. Given how few of us are paid to work specific hours on Gentoo things, it's very easy for provisional release dates to be missed -- and when half of a developer's time is spent responding to questions about where $x is and why an early test of $x pulled out of a supposedly not for end users repo broke their system and the other half is spent writing status updates it's pretty much impossible to get anything out consistently. snip Personally, I think this could be lessened by clear documenation. I know it's mentioned in the handbook, but a dedicated topic on why packages disappear and how to find out why would be invaluable. This would also help if meaningful notes were added by the dev's on *why* a package was pulled. It isn't a enough for some users to hear it's broke. What if they want to help? Providing more info in the changelog/p.mask or in package notes (I believe something like this was mentioned some time ago in trying to help facilitate new devs coming up to speed on projects). Also, if there was a single place for info about this, devs would have a helpful place to link people instead of flaming/ignoring or writing out answers to the same old questions. -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 11:37:01 +0100 Jonathan Coome [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think planet.gentoo.org helps in this regard, but there could be a lot more done to keep end users aware of what's going on. It certainly does, but having some way to further organise this information by package or area of interest rather than developer would be very useful. Perhaps this information could somehow by used to enhance the previously discussed news reporting features to include progress information for future work as well as information about changes that have already been committed. It will need more thought and discussion, but it might work quite nicely. -- Tom Wesley [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations (fwd)
I apologize if this is a resend, but it seemed to me like the 1st attempt didn't get through (can't imagine why it would take longer than a couple of days to get to a gentoo-hosted mailing list from a gentoo-hosted mail account...) -- On Fri, 7 Apr 2006, Christopher O'Neill wrote: As a Gentoo user, one thing that I'd very much like to see is improved communication between the dev teams and the users. At the moment it feels pretty much like I am in the dark as regarding to how we are progressing on certain things. Let me pick some examples: I wonder if we could get an AT or dev to join userrel team as a liason for the express purpose of keeping users updated on progress * user has a question regarding current status in project XYZ * user sees a link regarding 'learn current status' on front page of gentoo.org * user reads this status page to see if the question has already been answered * user has a new question not addressed by existing info, and submits it via a form to the liason email account * user gets an auto-generated response indicating the request has been received (i.e. made it past the spam filter) and asking them not to re-submit questions as it can take time to research answers * status answer guy reads question and asks for clarification if needed * status answer guy either: * already knows answer from mailing lists or irc * searches through relevent mailing lists * asks on relevent irc channel * asks on a relevent mailing list * asks a relevent dev via email * status answer guy writes a brief update with relevent pointers and sends it to the relevent devs for approval (analagous to draft of GWN getting posted before published) * status answer guy posts the update (with any corrections) to the status web page and sends an email telling user(s) who asked this question that the status page got updated Suggested requirements for this position: * diplomatic and patient with both users and devs * not easily offended * broad interest in many areas of gentoo * already hangs out in irc and subscribes to many mailing lists (likely to know who to ask, or on what mailing list) * doesn't mind doing a little writing and is decent at it -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations (fwd)
On Sun, 2006-04-09 at 00:40 +, S. Lockwood-Childs wrote: I apologize if this is a resend, but it seemed to me like the 1st attempt didn't get through (can't imagine why it would take longer than a couple of days to get to a gentoo-hosted mailing list from a gentoo-hosted mail account... [snip] Thank you for your suggestion(s), it's moved to my 'ideas to discuss at upcoming meeting' list and we'll definately look into it. Christel -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
As a Gentoo user, one thing that I'd very much like to see is improved communication between the dev teams and the users. At the moment it feels pretty much like I am in the dark as regarding to how we are progressing on certain things. Let me pick some examples: . A few days ago someone posted on the dev list asking about KDE3.5.x and it's current masked status. As a KDE user myself I was also interested in the answer to his question, but to my dismay his first response was less than helpful! Although he did eventually get a satisfactory response, wouldn't it have been better if he hadn't had to ask at all? I'm sure many more people are wondering the same and probably aren't subscribed to this list. . I notice certain other popular distros are now running GCC4 (and have been for some time), yet we are still running 3.4.6 (on ~x86). I know it's a lot of work ensuring that all packages compile properly with GCC4 and that there are no introduced bugs, but I have no idea how we are progressing on this - and wouldn't even like to ask for fear of asking in the wrong place.. . How's portage 2.1 getting along? I notice it gets frequent updates. I am not asking for answers for those questions, they are merely examples (I could think of many more, so please don't single these out). The point I am making is how we (the users) are in the dark on how Gentoo is progressing. This is the main reason I have subscribed to this mailing list (as well as Gentoo-Users) in an attempt to keep track of what's happening, but without much success). Ideally, what I'd like is for the various dev teams to compile a weekly status report, which could then be compiled into the weekly newsletter (which currently seems to be lacking much useful information). It would be great if we (the users) could find out what's going on behind the scenes of our favourite distribution. Anyway Christel, I hope this is the sort of response you are looking for. -- Chris -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 09:51:58 +0100 Christopher O'Neill [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | Ideally, what I'd like is for the various dev teams to compile a | weekly status report, which could then be compiled into the weekly | newsletter (which currently seems to be lacking much useful | information). It would be great if we (the users) could find out | what's going on behind the scenes of our favourite distribution. The problem with this is... Once someone says we're working on $x, they're continuously pestered about it by users asking when it will be ready. Given how few of us are paid to work specific hours on Gentoo things, it's very easy for provisional release dates to be missed -- and when half of a developer's time is spent responding to questions about where $x is and why an early test of $x pulled out of a supposedly not for end users repo broke their system and the other half is spent writing status updates it's pretty much impossible to get anything out consistently. Hence why some of us don't announce non-trivial projects on public mailing lists, and instead keep any discussion on -core and sekrit IRC channels. That's how what's now known as eselect was developed, and it turned out far nicer than the XML-laden aborted gentoo-config project precisely because of the lack of end user 'input'. I mean, as a purely hypothetical example... Could you imagine just how many dumb feature requests, questions and requests for code from the unwashed masses someone would get if they admitted to having an early alpha of an alternative to Portage that didn't require Python? Having to deal with the noise would be more than enough to ensure that no more development would ever get done... -- Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Wearer of the shiny hat) Mail: ciaranm at gentoo.org Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On 07-04-2006 11:07:28 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: I mean, as a purely hypothetical example... Could you imagine just how many dumb feature requests, questions and requests for code from the unwashed masses someone would get if they admitted to having an early alpha of an alternative to Portage that didn't require Python? Having to deal with the noise would be more than enough to ensure that no more development would ever get done... This is ofcourse a purely hypothetical prediction for a hypothetical example. Another hypothesis might be that noone would care about the hypothetical alternative to Portage, hence no developer obstruction would take place at all. Yet another hypothesis might be that there would actually exist a few smart users that give some smart comments on the, in this case hypothetical, product. Maybe user-rel should, together with GWN bridge this problem by keeping the source of news anonymous? Just to use it as teasers of what kind of things are being done in Gentoo's kitchen? Of course this only holds for new projects like in your hypothetical example. Existing projects, like KDE and GCC probably already deal with questions from users, and giving a status update once a month would in my opinion help them to keep users both informed and interested, which is what the original poster meant I think. From a user-rel perspective the information is used to inform the users that they're not waiting in vain for something not to happen, as well as why they are waiting, for example. -- Fabian Groffen -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
Christopher O'Neill wrote: . I notice certain other popular distros are now running GCC4 (and have been for some time), yet we are still running 3.4.6 (on ~x86). I know it's a lot of work ensuring that all packages compile properly with GCC4 and that there are no introduced bugs, but I have no idea how we are progressing on this - and wouldn't even like to ask for fear of asking in the wrong place.. Toolchain updates in particular take longer than with most distros, because of the nature of ours -- we need every user to be able to compile every keyworded package from source, and we have an extremely large package database. I bet there's a bug open for it. . How's portage 2.1 getting along? I notice it gets frequent updates. The gentoo-portage-dev list is the place to follow this. I am not asking for answers for those questions, they are merely examples (I could think of many more, so please don't single these out). The point I am making is how we (the users) are in the dark on how Gentoo is progressing. This is the main reason I have subscribed to this mailing list (as well as Gentoo-Users) in an attempt to keep track of what's happening, but without much success). The general case of the above is that if you want information, you need to find the right spot for it. That's generally either a specific relevant list or Bugzilla. The information doesn't come looking for you. HTH, Donnie signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 11:33:12 +0200 Grobian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | On 07-04-2006 11:07:28 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: | I mean, as a purely hypothetical example... Could you imagine just | how many dumb feature requests, questions and requests for code | from the unwashed masses someone would get if they admitted to | having an early alpha of an alternative to Portage that didn't | require Python? Having to deal with the noise would be more than | enough to ensure that no more development would ever get done... | | This is ofcourse a purely hypothetical prediction for a hypothetical | example. Another hypothesis might be that noone would care about the | hypothetical alternative to Portage, hence no developer obstruction | would take place at all. That hypothesis looks unlikely, given all the discussions that took place around portage-ng and the like, all the feature requests for Portage on bugzilla and the countless zillions of Portage should do $x threads on the forums. From a non-hypothetical perspective, I can tell you that I received a significant number of really really stupid suggestions when various developers found out about what's now called eselect -- and that was with extremely limited internal publicity on a far lower profile category of project than the one we're hypothetically discussing. | Yet another hypothesis might be that there | would actually exist a few smart users that give some smart comments | on the, in this case hypothetical, product. This hypothesis probably holds. However, it ignores two other points: Firstly, that the hypothetical noise would more than offset any hypothetical advantage (little point in being given a diamond if it comes in the middle of ten tonnes of horse manure and you only have one shovel), and secondly that the hypothetical smart users could be brought in on the hypothetical project anyway. | Maybe user-rel should, together with GWN bridge this problem by | keeping the source of news anonymous? Just to use it as teasers of | what kind of things are being done in Gentoo's kitchen? | Of course this only holds for new projects like in your hypothetical | example. Yikes, that's even worse than sticking them out with a name on it. -- Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Wearer of the shiny hat) Mail: ciaranm at gentoo.org Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
Donnie Berkholz wrote: Christopher O'Neill wrote: . I notice certain other popular distros are now running GCC4 (and have been for some time), yet we are still running 3.4.6 (on ~x86). I know it's a lot of work ensuring that all packages compile properly with GCC4 and that there are no introduced bugs, but I have no idea how we are progressing on this - and wouldn't even like to ask for fear of asking in the wrong place.. Toolchain updates in particular take longer than with most distros, because of the nature of ours -- we need every user to be able to compile every keyworded package from source, and we have an extremely large package database. I bet there's a bug open for it. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=117482 . How's portage 2.1 getting along? I notice it gets frequent updates. The gentoo-portage-dev list is the place to follow this. Also, http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115839 -- jakub signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:33:07 -0700 Donnie Berkholz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The general case of the above is that if you want information, you need to find the right spot for it. That's generally either a specific relevant list or Bugzilla. The information doesn't come looking for you. This, I think is exactly the point of what Christopher was saying. Currently, a lot of information is simply not available unless you know exactly where to look and who to ask, and that means that you have to spend a while around Gentoo before you can even ask the questions. I think planet.gentoo.org helps in this regard, but there could be a lot more done to keep end users aware of what's going on. Regards, Jonathan -- Jonathan Coome [EMAIL PROTECTED] Gentoo Forums Moderator -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 11:33 +0200, Grobian wrote: Maybe user-rel should, together with GWN bridge this problem by keeping the source of news anonymous? Just to use it as teasers of what kind of things are being done in Gentoo's kitchen? Of course this only holds for new projects like in your hypothetical example. GWN has a section Future Zone where any Gentoo project can announce new ideas, roadmaps or previews. It is not used that often, but if anyone wants some testing of a pre-release version or some user feedback on ideas ... just tell the GWN :-) Patrick -- Stand still, and let the rest of the universe move signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
Heya Chris, Thank you for responding! On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 09:51 +0100, Christopher O'Neill wrote: As a Gentoo user, one thing that I'd very much like to see is improved communication between the dev teams and the users. At the moment it feels pretty much like I am in the dark as regarding to how we are progressing on certain things. Let me pick some examples: So, if we somehow ensured we kept up to date with projects and where they were at and maybe worked closely with our GWN liaison to maybe do a 'whats hot' type section of what's brewing? Now, as there is constant change I don't think we could make sure that we could keep you updated on every single detail but we could certainly entertain the thought of looking into ways of giving a brief update on various projects progress. . A few days ago someone posted on the dev list asking about KDE3.5.x and it's current masked status. As a KDE user myself I was also interested in the answer to his question, but to my dismay his first response was less than helpful! Although he did eventually get a satisfactory response, wouldn't it have been better if he hadn't had to ask at all? I'm sure many more people are wondering the same and probably aren't subscribed to this list. I watched that thread with much interest. And yes, we need to improve developer to user communication/information on other mediums as well. Mind, a decent number of developers make good use of their planet. blogs and they are always good to keep an eye on. . I notice certain other popular distros are now running GCC4 (and have been for some time), yet we are still running 3.4.6 (on ~x86). I know it's a lot of work ensuring that all packages compile properly with GCC4 and that there are no introduced bugs, but I have no idea how we are progressing on this - and wouldn't even like to ask for fear of asking in the wrong place.. Yes, I think the fear issue is quite a big one for many users, and for some developers and prevent them from both asking questions and piping in with ideas. And we certainly need to work on making people feel more welcome again. . How's portage 2.1 getting along? I notice it gets frequent updates. I am not asking for answers for those questions, they are merely examples (I could think of many more, so please don't single these out). The point I am making is how we (the users) are in the dark on how Gentoo is progressing. This is the main reason I have subscribed to this mailing list (as well as Gentoo-Users) in an attempt to keep track of what's happening, but without much success). We will look at what other ways we have of keeping people informed, and see how we can make various projects work together on making sure we reach as many users as possible. Ideally, what I'd like is for the various dev teams to compile a weekly status report, which could then be compiled into the weekly newsletter (which currently seems to be lacking much useful information). It would be great if we (the users) could find out what's going on behind the scenes of our favourite distribution. That is a pretty decent idea, however I suspect many developers already invest whatever time they have in to the work they currently do and won't be looking to take on yet another task. We may however look at ways of keeping updated with various projects and doing something with GWN to keep you more up to date. It's certainly something we are happy to toy with to try find a way of doing this that works both for $rand_project, User Relations, GWN and the target userbase. Anyway Christel, I hope this is the sort of response you are looking for. Again, Thank you very much Chris. It was certainly the sort of response I was after! If you have anything to add, don't hesitate to grab us! Christel -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 10:07 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 09:51:58 +0100 Christopher O'Neill [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | Ideally, what I'd like is for the various dev teams to compile a | weekly status report, which could then be compiled into the weekly | newsletter (which currently seems to be lacking much useful | information). It would be great if we (the users) could find out | what's going on behind the scenes of our favourite distribution. The problem with this is... Once someone says we're working on $x, they're continuously pestered about it by users asking when it will be ready. Given how few of us are paid to work specific hours on Gentoo things, it's very easy for provisional release dates to be missed -- and when half of a developer's time is spent responding to questions about where $x is and why an early test of $x pulled out of a supposedly not for end users repo broke their system and the other half is spent writing status updates it's pretty much impossible to get anything out consistently. So, from a developer pov Ciaran; if we could come up with some way of keeping up to date with what you guys do (without eating up any of your time or getting in your way) and then keep the masses informed, would that be more attractive? Obviously making sure that information is kept to a not exactly bare minimum, but presented in such a way that it doesn't in any way halt progress or potential change of direction? Hence why some of us don't announce non-trivial projects on public mailing lists, and instead keep any discussion on -core and sekrit IRC channels. That's how what's now known as eselect was developed, and it turned out far nicer than the XML-laden aborted gentoo-config project precisely because of the lack of end user 'input'. In more of a informative 'these are the exciting things we're doing' sort of way rather than a 'tell us why you disagree' sort of way maybe. I mean, as a purely hypothetical example... Could you imagine just how many dumb feature requests, questions and requests for code from the unwashed masses someone would get if they admitted to having an early alpha of an alternative to Portage that didn't require Python? Having to deal with the noise would be more than enough to ensure that no more development would ever get done... Purely hypothetically I suspect you'd be better suited for answering that question than I am. -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
Christopher O'Neill wrote: [Fri Apr 07 2006, 03:51:58AM CDT] As a Gentoo user, one thing that I'd very much like to see is improved communication between the dev teams and the users. At the moment it feels pretty much like I am in the dark as regarding to how we are progressing on certain things. Let me pick some examples: As was already mentioned, bugs.g.o is almost always the place to look. I realize that it's counterintuitive, but we use bugs to track just about everything. Of course, finding stuff in bugs can be a real pain, but it's still better than searching the mailing lists. Ideally, what I'd like is for the various dev teams to compile a weekly status report, which could then be compiled into the weekly newsletter (which currently seems to be lacking much useful information). I think you (and many others, too) may have a somewhat incorrect perception of how devs are spread across Gentoo. The phrase dev teams would seem to suggest that we have well-coordinated groups of people targeting all of the various areas of Gentoo. In some cases, of course, that's quite true, but in some others the dev team is predominantly a one-person show, and taking the time to write a weekly status report would seriously impact how much developing actually got done. On the other hand, this problem does have a solution--another level of indirection. Anybody who wishes, dev or user, could spend time tracking Gentoo development (through bugs and the mailing lists) and submit status reports to the GWN. Care to volunteer? I'd be happy to provide pointers on how to get started. -g2boojum- -- Grant Goodyear Gentoo Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gentoo.org/~g2boojum GPG Fingerprint: D706 9802 1663 DEF5 81B0 9573 A6DC 7152 E0F6 5B76 pgpoGkpFk6QUs.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 11:33 +0200, Grobian wrote: On 07-04-2006 11:07:28 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: [let's pretend I snipped a bit here, oh wait, I did!] Maybe user-rel should, together with GWN bridge this problem by keeping the source of news anonymous? Just to use it as teasers of what kind of things are being done in Gentoo's kitchen? Of course this only holds for new projects like in your hypothetical example. Yes, that is quite similar to the idea that went through my head after reading Christophers response. And I quite like it. Existing projects, like KDE and GCC probably already deal with questions from users, and giving a status update once a month would in my opinion help them to keep users both informed and interested, which is what the original poster meant I think. From a user-rel perspective the information is used to inform the users that they're not waiting in vain for something not to happen, as well as why they are waiting, for example. I'll bring this up at our upcoming userrel meeting and I'll also tease our GWN liaison with the idea. And of course, I will be welcoming feedback from developers and users. Ideas are welcome, and if someone has any thoughts on how they think this could be done without eating valuable developer time then I'd be more than happy to hear them! Thank you Grobian! Christel -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 13:32 +0200, Patrick Lauer wrote: On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 11:33 +0200, Grobian wrote: Maybe user-rel should, together with GWN bridge this problem by keeping the source of news anonymous? Just to use it as teasers of what kind of things are being done in Gentoo's kitchen? Of course this only holds for new projects like in your hypothetical example. GWN has a section Future Zone where any Gentoo project can announce new ideas, roadmaps or previews. It is not used that often, but if anyone wants some testing of a pre-release version or some user feedback on ideas ... just tell the GWN :-) I'm about to reply to your e-mail in a second, and then I may grab you to discuss a couple of these things. That cool? And from what you're saying it sounds like provisions are already in place from GWNs side and thus convincing you to work with us on this shouldn't pose a problem! Excellent! Christel -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 02:33 -0700, Donnie Berkholz wrote: [snip] The general case of the above is that if you want information, you need to find the right spot for it. That's generally either a specific relevant list or Bugzilla. The information doesn't come looking for you. That may have been the case up until this point, but again, lets keep in mind that one of userrels main focuses is improving communication and information flow, so I see no reason why we shouldn't look at other ways of keeping users somewhat up to date. We have the resources in place for keeping people updated, we just need to make use of them in a way that benefits both camps. Christel -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 11:37 +0100, Jonathan Coome wrote: On Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:33:07 -0700 Donnie Berkholz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The general case of the above is that if you want information, you need to find the right spot for it. That's generally either a specific relevant list or Bugzilla. The information doesn't come looking for you. This, I think is exactly the point of what Christopher was saying. Currently, a lot of information is simply not available unless you know exactly where to look and who to ask, and that means that you have to spend a while around Gentoo before you can even ask the questions. I think planet.gentoo.org helps in this regard, but there could be a lot more done to keep end users aware of what's going on. Thank you John, that is my view too. We have the resources that could be used for this, we just need to utilize them! And thats exactly the sort of thing we (userrel) is all about! Christel -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
Christel Dahlskjaer wrote: On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 10:07 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: So, from a developer pov Ciaran; if we could come up with some way of keeping up to date with what you guys do (without eating up any of your time or getting in your way) and then keep the masses informed, would that be more attractive? Obviously making sure that information is kept to a not exactly bare minimum, but presented in such a way that it doesn't in any way halt progress or potential change of direction? I would use such a service if one is provided and it is very easy to use (don't take a lot of time). How about a website/blog hosted on www.gentoo.org pr. project and a little tool for posting on such a website (ala echangelog). I don't have the time to set something like that up on my own, but I would use it if it was given to me. I work in text-markup and we don't do much high profile development, but I would like a way to tell users about what we are doing even though it would only mean a post pr. month or so. But if I need to spend time and energy on setting such a thing up, then it will never happen. Just my two cents, Ehmsen -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 07 Apr 2006 15:19:35 +0100 Christel Dahlskjaer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | So, from a developer pov Ciaran; if we could come up with some way of | keeping up to date with what you guys do (without eating up any of | your time or getting in your way) and then keep the masses informed, | would that be more attractive? Obviously making sure that information | is kept to a not exactly bare minimum, but presented in such a way | that it doesn't in any way halt progress or potential change of | direction? If it's information on things that are fine being public but aren't simply because of lack of time to write them up, then that would be great. If it's things that're being kept quiet purposefully, however, then the last thing we want is to start telling people things. | Hence why some of us don't announce non-trivial projects on public | mailing lists, and instead keep any discussion on -core and sekrit | IRC channels. That's how what's now known as eselect was developed, | and it turned out far nicer than the XML-laden aborted gentoo-config | project precisely because of the lack of end user 'input'. | | In more of a informative 'these are the exciting things we're doing' | sort of way rather than a 'tell us why you disagree' sort of way | maybe. See, that doesn't work. There's this strange notion that because we're open source, users somehow have a right to a) see the code, b) make suggestions, c) demand new features, d) get support and e) annoy other developers or upstream when they break something that has a knock-on effect of breaking an unrelated package. -- Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Wearer of the shiny hat) Mail: ciaranm at gentoo.org Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 15:35 +0200, Martin Ehmsen wrote: [snip] How about a website/blog hosted on www.gentoo.org pr. project and a little tool for posting on such a website (ala echangelog). I don't have the time to set something like that up on my own, but I would use it if it was given to me. I work in text-markup and we don't do much high profile development, but I would like a way to tell users about what we are doing even though it would only mean a post pr. month or so. But if I need to spend time and energy on setting such a thing up, then it will never happen. Excellent. Thank you Ehmsen. If it looks like there is a bit more interest from both camps I will certainly make sure we look into what we as userrel can do to implement something, and in which ways we can make it easy to use, and non time consuming. -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 08:20 -0500, Grant Goodyear wrote: [snip] On the other hand, this problem does have a solution--another level of indirection. Anybody who wishes, dev or user, could spend time tracking Gentoo development (through bugs and the mailing lists) and submit status reports to the GWN. Care to volunteer? I'd be happy to provide pointers on how to get started. I may grab you on IRC later and see if you can tell me your pointers, I like his idea and I'd like to look into it! Thanks Grant. -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
Christopher O'Neill posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Fri, 07 Apr 2006 09:51:58 +0100: some examples: . A few days ago someone posted on the dev list asking about KDE3.5.x and it's current masked status. As a KDE user myself I was also interested in the answer to his question, but to my dismay his first response was less than helpful! Although he did eventually get a satisfactory response, wouldn't it have been better if he hadn't had to ask at all? As a user and booster of my favorite meta-distribution =8^), that disturbed me, too, both the one sort of (non)-response, and the fact that the OP response indicated my own response might not have been as helpful as intended. . I notice certain other popular distros are now running GCC4 (and have been for some time), yet we are still running 3.4.6 (on ~x86). [snip] . How's portage 2.1 getting along? I notice it gets frequent updates. I am not asking for answers for those questions, they are merely examples (I could think of many more, so please don't single these out). I have a fair knowledge of the status of all three of those (tho not so much on when something's going stable, or x86 in particular, as I run ~amd64 exclusively), because I have all three merged and running, unmasking where necessary to do it. (Xorg-7.0/modular is another example, again, unmasked and merged early, here, after following the developments on it here.) However, getting bogged down in the examples won't further the discussion, as you say. The point I am making is how we (the users) are in the dark on how Gentoo is progressing. This is the main reason I have subscribed to this mailing list (as well as Gentoo-Users) in an attempt to keep track of what's happening, but without much success). I've had a bit more success here, as I use this list as an pointer finder, then follow those pointers to the appropriate lists and/or unmaskings and/or status bugs to try for myself, if it looks interesting. Ideally, what I'd like is for the various dev teams to compile a weekly status report, which could then be compiled into the weekly newsletter (which currently seems to be lacking much useful information). It would be great if we (the users) could find out what's going on behind the scenes of our favourite distribution. I like the idea, but practically speaking, once a week is way to often, as it will both increase the work load (thereby cutting the actual work done on the project in question) and the noise factor. I'd suggest (and maybe it's what you had in mind, but it just didn't come out that way) a status report from one or two /feature/ projects each week, not /all/ of them each week. Rotate them such that all the interesting ones (and ones with devs that want to participate) get covered once every month or quarter. I'd also point out the Gentoo Planet developer blogsite ( http://planet.gentoo.org ). Many devs have blogs that cover the stuff their doing that users may find interesting, in more or less detail. Actually, /this/ needs to be covered a bit better or more frequently in GWN, and that would pretty much eliminate the need for independent feature coverage. Note that GWN does cover it occasionally, but due to a rather nasty incident some months ago where a dev thought the GWN article misrepresented the situation from his blog (and not rehashing that or pointing the blame at any party), the GWN folks likely avoid it to some extent. I don't think that's necessary, however, provided the snafus that evidently happened there as far as notifying the dev in a timely manner that his blog was going to be covered, could be avoided. Thus, perhaps my suggestion should be to find someone that could dedicate a bit of time each week (or once or twice a month in any case, it doesn't have to be /every/ week) to such a feature. Having someone routinely responsible for it will take the pressure off the regular GWN editors, and should encourage the necessary research and pre-feature dev contact, to ensure things go smoothly and there's not a repeat of that earlier unpleasant incident. -- 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 -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Improving Gentoo User Relations
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 14:43 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Fri, 07 Apr 2006 15:19:35 +0100 Christel Dahlskjaer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | So, from a developer pov Ciaran; if we could come up with some way of | keeping up to date with what you guys do (without eating up any of | your time or getting in your way) and then keep the masses informed, | would that be more attractive? Obviously making sure that information | is kept to a not exactly bare minimum, but presented in such a way | that it doesn't in any way halt progress or potential change of | direction? If it's information on things that are fine being public but aren't simply because of lack of time to write them up, then that would be great. If it's things that're being kept quiet purposefully, however, then the last thing we want is to start telling people things. Yes, I agree with that entirely. If things are being kept quiet for a reason we will have no wish to attempt to push for these to be made public before the decision to do so is reached by the development teams in question. | Hence why some of us don't announce non-trivial projects on public | mailing lists, and instead keep any discussion on -core and sekrit | IRC channels. That's how what's now known as eselect was developed, | and it turned out far nicer than the XML-laden aborted gentoo-config | project precisely because of the lack of end user 'input'. | | In more of a informative 'these are the exciting things we're doing' | sort of way rather than a 'tell us why you disagree' sort of way | maybe. See, that doesn't work. There's this strange notion that because we're open source, users somehow have a right to a) see the code, b) make suggestions, c) demand new features, d) get support and e) annoy other developers or upstream when they break something that has a knock-on effect of breaking an unrelated package. I was rather unclear, I think your previous passage had me rather spot on for what I was wanting to do. -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
