Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
Donnie Berkholz wrote: On 14:05 Fri 13 Mar , Michael Higgins wrote: Even if they are, an IRC log is a *terrible* way to document an issue. I agree. So is a mailing-list archive that is also never summarized. It's not the location that makes it a problem, it's the volume of information and the lack of a summary of important decisions or long, important discussions. I certainly don't consider the use of IRC harmful per-se or consider it a cabal, but I can't consider IRC and an unsummarized mailing list equivalent communication mediums. If I want to know what is going on in IRC I need to leave a client connected 24x7 (and if my connection goes down for whatever reason I just miss whatever happens). Then I need to read through thousands of lines of banter to see what is going on. If I want to know what is going on in a mailing list I launch my threaded email client. If a computer goes down SMTP, IMAP, and various redundant servers will eventually get the messages to me. The discussion is threaded and categorized by topic, so I can mercilessly hit delete and not have much risk of missing something I'm interested in. Essentially even an unsummarized mailing list is fairly well summarized compared to IRC. Don't get me wrong - I like the team-building aspects of IRC. However, it is not a good communication medium when you're dealing with volunteers that might only spend a few hours per week total working on Gentoo (or maybe only a few hours per month), spread across 24 time zones. It is perfect for realtime collaboration on solving specific problems. It is also great for brainstorming ideas, and just having fun. Unfortunately, it also shares certain drawbacks with the phone - for starters it tends to prioritize tasks by urgency rather than by importance. It also encourages shooting from the hip - just like having meetings without an agenda, pre-discussion, and general preparation. No problem for trivial tasks, but not a good idea when making final decisions of strategic importance. However, if certain work takes place exclusively on IRC then you're going to exclude some people. Many of those people could be strong contributors but they might not like working in realtime. This might not be because of communication skills/etc - maybe they have a family and they'd rather see what needs to be done and take care of it here and there without being given an assignment and having 10 other people bugging them about whether it is done yet when they have 14 other things to do. Sure, such a dev is probably not a good candidate to be leading a major Gentoo project, but that doesn't mean that they have little to contribute. For example, I typed this email in one sitting but I could have just as conveniently taken 3 days to piece it together in 5 minute bursts. I'd consider the current council format a good example of how IRC can be used in conjunction with mailing lists, agendas, and scheduled meeting times. IRC can be used to finalize thinking and make decisions. It can also be used for informal discussion anytime before a meeting. Much of the serious contribution is captured on mailing lists, however, and when decisions are made it is based upon the widely-gathered input. Everybody knows what decisions are going to be made in advance and can show up if desired. If they can't show up they can at least contact council members in advance (and the world at large) to state their opinions. This certainly doesn't need to be used for every tiny Gentoo decision - but it is a great model for how to handle things of importance.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar , Thilo Bangert wrote: the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer. -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Developer, Gentoo Linux Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com pgpFecMI9zSAM.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
Donnie Berkholz wrote: On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar , Thilo Bangert wrote: the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer. While it may be tight nit, there's the danger that it's so tight no one else can get in, so to speak. I don't think anyone's saying anything like no more IRC. What I at least am advocating is that what goes on on IRC gets summarized somewhere in addition. As I said before, this not only helps keep a log of what goes on for future generations, but also allows others (users and devs who don't have time to follow everything) to look in and follow what the devs are doing more easily. I think that this would ultimately help make Gentoo development more visible and more accessible, ultimately leading to an increased conversion of users to contributors, if not users to devs. AllenJB
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 11:24 AM, AllenJB gentoo-li...@allenjb.me.uk wrote: Donnie Berkholz wrote: On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar , Thilo Bangert wrote: the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer. While it may be tight nit, there's the danger that it's so tight no one else can get in, so to speak. I don't think anyone's saying anything like no more IRC. What I at least am advocating is that what goes on on IRC gets summarized somewhere in addition. As I said before, this not only helps keep a log of what goes on for future generations, but also allows others (users and devs who don't have time to follow everything) to look in and follow what the devs are doing more easily. I think that summarizing IRC is insane. Remember we barely got summaries of council meetings (which are at a fixed time and date) until we got a secretary devoted explicitly to that task. Maybe more teams should take up the meeting model; that way non-IRC folks can either be on IRC for meeting times only, or peruse the meeting notes afterwards if they are interested in what happened. I think that this would ultimately help make Gentoo development more visible and more accessible, ultimately leading to an increased conversion of users to contributors, if not users to devs. AllenJB
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
Donnie Berkholz dberkh...@gentoo.org said: On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar , Thilo Bangert wrote: the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer. so you say, that presumption is ok? i agree 100% with what you say, but it doesnt (at least directly) address my concern. i think IRC is an excellent medium - the problems i see, though, are related to the fact that IRC requires all stakeholders to be available at the time of discussion. for a multitude of reasons this can almost never be guaranteed. also, even if we did have IRC logs, the signal to noise ratio on IRC is devastating (at least in my experience). for those reasons, i would like to see more bridge-building between the worlds. i didnt want to give examples, as i dont like pointing fingers, but here it is: relengs discussion to switch to weekly autobuilds. presumably there hast been one, but i cant find it in the list archives. not on gentoo-...@g.o and not on gentoo-rel...@g.o - where else should i look? IRC perhaps - well, where are the logs? interestingly, the announcement of the switch has a pointer to the releng project page, which does not even mention the IRC channel. from looking at the releng mailing list one gets the impression that releng in gentoo is dead. its not - i know and am greatful for the hard work everybody in releng puts in - but it makes the releng project much less accessible. to follow, or contribute. thanks for listening kind regards Thilo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
Dne pátek 13 Březen 2009 19:52:59 Alec Warner napsal(a): I think that summarizing IRC is insane. Remember we barely got summaries of council meetings (which are at a fixed time and date) until we got a secretary devoted explicitly to that task. Maybe more teams should take up the meeting model; that way non-IRC folks can either be on IRC for meeting times only, or peruse the meeting notes afterwards if they are interested in what happened. Well we are quite able to handle it on kde meetings, so users get what are we working on (or at least the big parts). :] But i am pretty sure that it would be nice to have some tool where we put major stuff we are on so others can see :] Tomas signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
I think that summarizing IRC is insane. and there is no need for it either. as stated elsewhere much of what is going on on IRC is 'goofing off' - for which IRC is excellent. (heck - i should goof off more often :-) i dont mind the day-to-day work stuff going on on IRC exclusively - but when discussions about the future directions of a project and the decision making process are held on IRC exclusively, then that is not helpful in attracting new blood. for one because there is no history but also because they may not use IRC that much. Remember we barely got summaries of council meetings (which are at a fixed time and date) until we got a secretary devoted explicitly to that task. Maybe more teams should take up the meeting model; that way non-IRC folks can either be on IRC for meeting times only, or peruse the meeting notes afterwards if they are interested in what happened. yeah - the kde team is leading the way here. granted - this model may not work for everybody... regards Thilo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:09:04 -0700 Donnie Berkholz dberkh...@gentoo.org wrote: On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar , Thilo Bangert wrote: the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer. This is an interesting point you raise, though I don't think it applies in this case. I believe, rather, that the issue is the 'community' appears more like a 'cabal' when the discussions take place on #IRC and therefore aren't available in public archives. Even if they are, an IRC log is a *terrible* way to document an issue. Since the discussion is Re: '*DEVS* on IRC', I think the problem should be clear: You all get more closely knit, perhaps, yet appear to do more *in secret*. There is *no way* to find out what is going on, without becoming part of the problem... by asking, or lurking, on IRC. This is bad. Example? After months of searching for a reason, after seeing many apparently random updates to a previously stable tree of perl modules, I happen to keep an IRC session log which shows with this FSCKING USEFUL TIDBIT: ... no motivated developers. the perl team completely vanished. Anyone considering using Gentoo should KNOW that, if they use perl in any substantive way. Wouldn't you agree? Now, why isn't there a discussion about this on the gentoo-perl mailing list? Not even a post from some DEV with a cry for HELP? If there's a problem, *who* is doing *what* to address it, and *where*? Oh, right, there's *some* discussion on IRC... Anyway, it's just one example. In this case, I'd be glad to see *some* documentation of the (apparent total) collapse of the 'perl team' and what is being proposed to fix the problem, *without* having to become part of the cabal. Since there is a mailing list dedicated for discussions of perl and gentoo, that seems the most logical place to air the dirty laundry and announce/discuss the plan for moving forward. IMO. Cheers, -- |\ /|| | ~ ~ | \/ ||---| `|` ? ||ichael | |iggins\^ / michael.higgins[at]evolone[dot]org
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
On 14:05 Fri 13 Mar , Michael Higgins wrote: I believe, rather, that the issue is the 'community' appears more like a 'cabal' when the discussions take place on #IRC and therefore aren't available in public archives. This is kind of like saying: I don't read the Gentoo forums, so everything that happens on the forums is a cabal. When you specifically choose not to participate in an entire method of communication, it's your choice to leave yourself out. A cabal is totally different -- it doesn't give you that choice by never even telling you there is a place where discussions happen. Even if they are, an IRC log is a *terrible* way to document an issue. I agree. So is a mailing-list archive that is also never summarized. It's not the location that makes it a problem, it's the volume of information and the lack of a summary of important decisions or long, important discussions. You all get more closely knit, perhaps, yet appear to do more *in secret*. There is *no way* to find out what is going on, without becoming part of the problem... by asking, or lurking, on IRC. This is bad. I can't agree with your assertion that IRC is secretive, is a problem or is bad. I think completely the opposite in all cases. Secretive would be a closed IRC network that we didn't tell non-developers about or didn't allow them to join. -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Developer, Gentoo Linux Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com pgp9P5lI46Pn0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
On 19:56 Fri 13 Mar , Thilo Bangert wrote: Donnie Berkholz dberkh...@gentoo.org said: On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar , Thilo Bangert wrote: the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer. so you say, that presumption is ok? Honestly, yes. Gentoo development (and users too!) is a very IRC-centered community, and I think IRC is one of the reasons it is a strong development community. Parts of the forums are similarly critical to building a strong user community (Gentoo Chat, Off the Wall), as is the Gentoo Universe for developers. IRC is a lot like this mailing list in some ways. Even as developers, you can choose not to participate, and consequently you have to deal with the decisions you chose not to be part of making when you hear about them after the fact on -dev-announce. i agree 100% with what you say, but it doesnt (at least directly) address my concern. i think IRC is an excellent medium - the problems i see, though, are related to the fact that IRC requires all stakeholders to be available at the time of discussion. for a multitude of reasons this can almost never be guaranteed. also, even if we did have IRC logs, the signal to noise ratio on IRC is devastating (at least in my experience). I agree that all stakeholders (to use your term) ought to participate before a decision, but even on IRC this doesn't mean they all have to be present simultaneously. In my experience, a few stakeholders are around at a time, and they're able to have a lot of very fast real-time discussion that would be vastly slowed down by a mailing list. Then a few hours later, maybe a couple of the same people will be around and a couple new stakeholders. The new ones catch up and have some more fast back-and-forth. for those reasons, i would like to see more bridge-building between the worlds. i didnt want to give examples, as i dont like pointing fingers, but here it is: relengs discussion to switch to weekly autobuilds. presumably there hast been one, but i cant find it in the list archives. not on gentoo-...@g.o and not on gentoo-rel...@g.o - where else should i look? IRC perhaps - well, where are the logs? interestingly, the announcement of the switch has a pointer to the releng project page, which does not even mention the IRC channel. I agree that important decisions deserve summaries instead of hiding out anywhere, whether it's buried in IRC discussions or archived mailing-list threads! -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Developer, Gentoo Linux Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com pgp46Fikrtdic.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
memoserv
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
Steev Klimaszewski wrote: memoserv Did you not read a single word of what I just said? memoserv only allows 1-1 communication. I'm talking about methods which allow for 1:many or many:many. memoserv also doesn't solve the bus issue or really provide any permanent record of communication (AFAIK there's no SLA on memoserv, which means if Freeserve decides to delete all your memos tomorrow, they are gone for good). Websites and mailing lists don't have these issues because they get archived and mirrored everywhere (gmane, google, archive.org) - a fact which made itself very apparent when Gentoo Wiki went down last year (where virtually all the old content was recovered from google cache and mirrored, as well as being available 6 months later on archive.org). Stops before he repeats even more of what he just said AllenJB
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org said: On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote: Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what irc is for. while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close to never. the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. kind regards Thilo To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is quite helpful to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before they hit more users. This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs that hit bugzilla. my complaint isn't about people using IRC. i object to the way that much of our knowledge, discussion and decision making process appear to have been moved into the temporal black hole that is IRC. realtime communication is an valuable tool, but IRC has drawbacks as well. this is alienating a lot of people who dont happen to be on IRC at the right moment/timezone or who dont have the time to be always on. it looks like many projects within Gentoo have resorted to a communication process which uses IRC exclusivly. this is unfortunate... kind regards Thilo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
On Wednesday 11 of March 2009 19:06:33 Thilo Bangert wrote: my complaint isn't about people using IRC. i object to the way that much of our knowledge, discussion and decision making process appear to have been moved into the temporal black hole that is IRC. realtime communication is an valuable tool, but IRC has drawbacks as well. this is alienating a lot of people who dont happen to be on IRC at the right moment/timezone or who dont have the time to be always on. it looks like many projects within Gentoo have resorted to a communication process which uses IRC exclusivly. this is unfortunate... Hard to disagree with this. I observed it myself - when I started maintaining ebuilds in overlay, consequently I started to use IRC to be in touch with the rest of KDE Gentoo team. Unfortunately it has some drawbacks like less my availability on forums (and I used it much more often) - to the point that I forgot to update whole 4.2 release announcement in Desktop Environment (in that sticky Read before posting thread). IRC is black hole definitely and from developers point of view everything looks just, as they actively communicating with each other - unfortunately being somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. This may increase that feeling from typical user point of view - that developers are somewhere there cooking something, and there's no way to get to them (unless they find about IRC). This is the problem as most users used to sweep forums first as it's medium available for them out of the box - just google for some problem and there you are. Now, important. While I don't propose for developers to visit forums - it may be another *solution*. Developers - they (we/you) already chosen IRC as best/fastest/favourite medium for communication apart from mailing list that is - it could stay that way. Why not integrate more users by creating *Support* *staff* role? They could be recruited as typical staff (like moderators) - using staff quiz. Their job would be to: - wander on forums answering user questions - poke developers on IRC with some issues (maybe proposed patches) - filling bugzilla bugs (they'd need some *basic* bugzilla knowledge - just to be able to find whether are such issues already and to properly, descriptively create new bug) - not full bugwrangling with assigning and such - provide living evidence that Gentoo is not dying whatever and has support They could be given @gentoo.org aliases to make them motivated. It would be easier for those alike to become developers later. There's thread related to user contribution on forums - as reference: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-702248.html (this should rather be discussed on gentoo-project I guess, but nm) -- regards MM signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
On Wednesday 11 March 2009 20:06:33 Thilo Bangert wrote: Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org said: On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote: Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what irc is for. while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close to never. the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. kind regards Thilo To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is quite helpful to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before they hit more users. This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs that hit bugzilla. my complaint isn't about people using IRC. i object to the way that much of our knowledge, discussion and decision making process appear to have been moved into the temporal black hole that is IRC. realtime communication is an valuable tool, but IRC has drawbacks as well. this is alienating a lot of people who dont happen to be on IRC at the right moment/timezone or who dont have the time to be always on. it looks like many projects within Gentoo have resorted to a communication process which uses IRC exclusivly. this is unfortunate... kind regards Thilo I would prefer it if devs were using team emails ( so...@gentoo.org, k...@gentoo.org etc ) more often than IRC communication. At least, important discussions, or decisions etc should at least announced on such mailing lists. If this is not possible, an e-mail with the irc logs about an important discussion would be a good idea. Of course this is not necessary in occasions were teams are composed by 1-2 members or when all developers of the team are available on irc. -- Markos Chandras (hwoarang) Gentoo Linux Developer Qt/KDE/Sound/Sunrise signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what irc is for. while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close to never. the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. kind regards Thilo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
On 10-03-2009 13:15:36 +0100, Thilo Bangert wrote: Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what irc is for. while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close to never. the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. +1 -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo on a different level
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote: Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what irc is for. while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close to never. the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. kind regards Thilo To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is quite helpful to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before they hit more users. This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs that hit bugzilla. -- Markos Chandras (hwoarang) Gentoo Linux Developer Qt/KDE/Sound/Sunrise signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
2009/3/10 Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org: Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. Yes. Let's integrate them by introducing IRC to them.
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
Markos Chandras wrote: On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote: Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what irc is for. while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close to never. the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. kind regards Thilo To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is quite helpful to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before they hit more users. This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs that hit bugzilla. While IRC is undoubtedly a useful communication medium, it is pretty much a here and now thing. I believe that Gentoo would benefit quite a lot if teams started using more permanent forms of communication such as blogs, wikis or websites. Not only would this allow the current set of developers within a team to know what one another are up to and what needs to be done, but it would also allow those who are not so intimately involved (both other devs, contributors and users) to keep up to date and contribute as well as leaving something for future developers to be able to look back on and see what options / improvements / etc were considered / done in the past. I recently wrote a blog post that went somewhat along these lines: http://allenjb.me.uk/blog/why-only-think-about-projects-for-gsoc As someone who's very interested in getting involved in Gentoo Development, I often find it hard to gather information on what projects / people are up to, what's currently going on and what the plans for the future are. AllenJB
Re: [gentoo-dev] devs on IRC (was :Regen2 ( was QA Overlay Layout support ))
AllenJB wrote: Markos Chandras wrote: On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote: Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what irc is for. while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am close to never. the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. kind regards Thilo To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is quite helpful to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before they hit more users. This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs that hit bugzilla. While IRC is undoubtedly a useful communication medium, it is pretty much a here and now thing. I believe that Gentoo would benefit quite a lot if teams started using more permanent forms of communication such as blogs, wikis or websites. Not only would this allow the current set of developers within a team to know what one another are up to and what needs to be done, but it would also allow those who are not so intimately involved (both other devs, contributors and users) to keep up to date and contribute as well as leaving something for future developers to be able to look back on and see what options / improvements / etc were considered / done in the past. I recently wrote a blog post that went somewhat along these lines: http://allenjb.me.uk/blog/why-only-think-about-projects-for-gsoc As someone who's very interested in getting involved in Gentoo Development, I often find it hard to gather information on what projects / people are up to, what's currently going on and what the plans for the future are. AllenJB Just wanted to quickly add mailing lists to the explicitly mentioned venues for improved communication. As a quick example, I'm interested in the PR / Newsletter side of Gentoo, but I find it very hard to keep up-to-date. I recently learned that there's a new blog-like version of the newsletter in development but I've heard nothing else about it and searching hasn't turned up anything. While I am on the gmn irc channel, I don't have time to read through all the backlogs for relvent information. I am also on the gentoo-pr mailing list (among many others, as well as checking on the lists via gmane) and it's basically completely silent. I'm currently waiting to catch one of two devs who might be able to give me more information on IRC. To all eyes looking from the outside in, unless they happen across the one forum thread I did, the newsletter is dead and nothing is being done about it, which gives a poor view of the state of affairs within Gentoo Development. To take the bus analogy to this, if these 2 developers are hit by a bus, then who knows what's currently going on with the newsletter and where all the resources are? I have said it before and I will say it again, yes the newsletter may be a current weak point for Gentoo, but it's a very obvious one because it's the one that's visible to everyone in the community. I still think my points are valid for any area of Gentoo development tho. AllenJB
