Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Patrick Lauer wrote: Then there's package management. (Your favourite topic, I guess, because you want to keep complexifying it until one needs a PhD to write an ebuild [which, in a way, would be quite ironic]) At least for me new EAPIs have been / are making ebuild writing easier. Regards, Petteri signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 08:35:41AM +0200, Patrick Lauer wrote: On Tuesday 12 May 2009 00:31:36 Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Mon, 11 May 2009 23:17:32 +0100 George Prowse george.pro...@gmail.com wrote: An equilibrium seems to have been reached which currently works. An equilibrium has been reached, agreed, but that it works is up for debate. There is a strong argument to be made that preserving the equilibrium will keep Gentoo the way it is now -- delivering at best the same user experience now that it was several years ago, in an increasingly difficult and more competitive environment. Then there's package management. (Your favourite topic, I guess, because you want to keep complexifying it until one needs a PhD to write an ebuild [which, in a way, would be quite ironic]) Same as Petteri here, new EAPIs make ebuilds easier to write for me, not harder. And now you say delivering the same user experience ... ... ignoring the tons of new features and things that have happened. You're being dishonest again in an attempt to make us look like baboons. Two thirds of the new features grew on your compost heap (and half of these features we didn't even want, but after about three years of you pushing them at every opportunity people are getting so demotivated that they are willing to let you have one feature if you just STOP WHINING for more than 10 minutes)[GLEP55, for example - there's about 8 people that want it, but those keep bringing it up at EVERY opportunity. It's still a fundamentally stupid idea that doesn't solve any problems, and the claim that it might solve problems we have in the future is quite asinine because we can do the changes then, _if_ the theoretical problems actually become an issue, without messing up most everything now for some hypothetical gain that has not even conclusively shown ...] I'd wager there are more than 8 people that want it, but even so, just because not many people realize its usefulness doesn't mean it's a bad proposal(unpopular decisions != bad decisions, in other words). The changes we want are something that we want soon, but there's nothing we can do until something solving the problem GLEP 55 is solving is approved. Also, please stop the compost heap, whining etc. It's tantamount to a personal attack. - We're not in a bad shape, dying or dead. We don't intend to. Few empires intend to die, but I'd agree that we're not dying/dead ;-). - More complex doesn't mean better. Perfection isn't when you cannot add more things but when there are none left to remove or how that quote went. You know what I mean. Rewriting the init scripts in XML might be what some call progress (now you can verify 'em!), but it doesn't actually add any value and complexifies things in a bad way I've not seen anything complexifying things for no benefit recently. Care to mention those? - Repeating a lie can make it true, if you repeat it long enough. Worst case you just have to wait until everyone who disagrees dies of old age. Most things people are calling lies I'd call more opinions that I disagree with. We really do dramatize and bring too much importance on disagreements ;-). Also, I imagine you're talking about glep54/glep55 none of which there have been lies spread by their proponents(that I've seen). -- - Thomas Anderson Gentoo Developer / Areas of responsibility: AMD64, Secretary to the Gentoo Council - pgpvTyZVF4HXT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Thilo Bangert wrote: to me, the above two contradictory viewpoints are the essence of the apparent and real decline in Gentoo activity. The two are just not compatible with each other and there is no clear guidance on to which of the two should be followed. in the one corner we have the 'Daniel Robbins' corner, which stands for an open and inclusive process, which favors new comers, wants fast progress regardsless of the technical limitations of that process. also, being nice is more important than being correct. one central repository is where all development should happen - this is were we came from. in the other corner is the gentoo leftover of the exherbo fork: the few people how continue to work on Gentoo but generally prefer the direction of Exherbo. technical elitism, explicitism and formal standardization are their trade. being correct is more important than good intentions. overlays or multiple repositories help achieve a hierarchy of not-good-to- supported ebuilds. we are halfway here... it would be good if we collectively could agree on some of these issues, in order to move forward. as with many of the other technical discussions which lead to nowhere, it's more important that there is a clear direction, than into which direction we are headed. maybe we need a debian project leader position - or a council, which is sensitive to the internal devide among developers and gives clear directions. if the above offends you, please take a walk before replying. it may sound inflammtory - its not meant to be. thanks Thilo People have been trying to resolve the situation you described for a long time. Working within it and minimising the negative effects of such stark contrasts in views has been one of the challenges of Gentoo in recent times. An equilibrium seems to have been reached which currently works. I doubt a figurehead would make any difference. They would need nerves of steel and would have to not care about making unpopular decisions and it would be difficult to take anyone from the current crop of [excellent] developers because it seems that everyone has taken sides already so immediately any decision was made an argument about bias would be likely come up G
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Mon, 11 May 2009 23:17:32 +0100 George Prowse george.pro...@gmail.com wrote: An equilibrium seems to have been reached which currently works. An equilibrium has been reached, agreed, but that it works is up for debate. There is a strong argument to be made that preserving the equilibrium will keep Gentoo the way it is now -- delivering at best the same user experience now that it was several years ago, in an increasingly difficult and more competitive environment. -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Mon, 11 May 2009 23:17:32 +0100 George Prowse george.pro...@gmail.com wrote: An equilibrium seems to have been reached which currently works. An equilibrium has been reached, agreed, but that it works is up for debate. There is a strong argument to be made that preserving the equilibrium will keep Gentoo the way it is now -- delivering at best the same user experience now that it was several years ago, in an increasingly difficult and more competitive environment. Well, anything is better than the Romeo and Juliet-esque factions at war a few years ago; as you and plasmaroo could probably attest to.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Ciaran McCreesh ciaran.mccre...@googlemail.com said: On Tue, 5 May 2009 21:19:49 +0300 Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org wrote: We surely need more developers. Otherwise we ll end up maintaining 100x500 each one. Just look at the numbers ( total packages/total ACTIVE developers ). So first we need to attract more people. Evaluation and recruitment comes next I have a better way of improving those numbers: remove two thirds of the packages from the main tree. to me, the above two contradictory viewpoints are the essence of the apparent and real decline in Gentoo activity. The two are just not compatible with each other and there is no clear guidance on to which of the two should be followed. in the one corner we have the 'Daniel Robbins' corner, which stands for an open and inclusive process, which favors new comers, wants fast progress regardsless of the technical limitations of that process. also, being nice is more important than being correct. one central repository is where all development should happen - this is were we came from. in the other corner is the gentoo leftover of the exherbo fork: the few people how continue to work on Gentoo but generally prefer the direction of Exherbo. technical elitism, explicitism and formal standardization are their trade. being correct is more important than good intentions. overlays or multiple repositories help achieve a hierarchy of not-good-to- supported ebuilds. we are halfway here... it would be good if we collectively could agree on some of these issues, in order to move forward. as with many of the other technical discussions which lead to nowhere, it's more important that there is a clear direction, than into which direction we are headed. maybe we need a debian project leader position - or a council, which is sensitive to the internal devide among developers and gives clear directions. if the above offends you, please take a walk before replying. it may sound inflammtory - its not meant to be. thanks Thilo
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development (was: Re: Retiring)
Nirbheek Chauhan nirbh...@gentoo.org said: On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Duncan 1i5t5.dun...@cox.net wrote: Thilo Bangert bang...@gentoo.org posted 200905101051.43926.bang...@gentoo.org, excerpted below, on Sun, 10 May 2009 10:51:38 +0200: also, i feel voting for bugs is completely underutilized. votes make it apparent to the developers which bugs bug a lot of people. the incentive to fix those first is there... I know I've never use the bug vote feature, partly because I simply forget it's there now, and partly due to confusion from seeing the earlier rants against it. Such confusion makes for pretty strong negative conditioning. Also, most people I know use CCing-frequency as a measure of how many people are facing a particular bug, and what importance level to assign to it. Votes only cause unnecessary noise and irritation -- worse than me too! comments. the number of people CC'ed to a certain bug is a good measure as well - however, i cant sort on that in bugzilla. also, i may have experienced a particular bug (and CCed to it), but its not a big deal to me. voting allows for a much more fine grained user preference in that case. a user only has 100 votes and can spend max 10 votes on a single bug - you can CC to as many bugs a you want. me too is an important information on a bug and between a comment, a CC and a Vote i prefer the votes... Thanks Thilo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 10:14 PM, George Prowse george.pro...@gmail.com wrote: Oh good lord, what have I started here... I can see that being as successful as the Norweigan referee in last nights Chelsea v Barcelona game Oooh, and here's the funny part, the max replies are by the same old people who drown every thread! -- ~Nirbheek Chauhan
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Friday 08 May 2009 12:19:28 Duncan wrote: Duncan 1i5t5.dun...@cox.net posted pan.2009.05.06.17.25...@cox.net, [..] If a potential recruit isn't interested in IRC, Gentoo isn't interested in them as developers. Which, I suppose, is good to know, agree or not. Ok now you are overreacting. Joining IRC 2 times in your life ( just for the review/recruit process ) is not that hard. I am sure you know that but for a weird reason you are not willing to admit it. Recruit process takes about 3-5 hours on IRC. Can you image how long it would take assuming you have a real time recruitment process over e-mail? -- Markos Chandras (hwoarang) Gentoo Linux Developer [KDE/Qt/Sunrise/Sound] Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Duncan wrote: But no matter, the practical fact of the matter is that for someone who would otherwise not do IRC, it's just one more hurdle in the process. Whether it's useful or not, trivial or vital, no longer matters, it's defined by the gatekeepers as a requirement, therefore, by said definition, it is a requirement. If an otherwise-capable candidate developer is stuck in some backwater where the only ISP in the country has a 14-layer impenetrable protocol filter on IRC I'm sure their mentor will bend over backwards to work with them. However, this is becoming more of an argument over points of rhetoric than anything with a practical impact. If somebody is qualified to author gentoo documentation or write ebuilds they're going to be able to figure out how to use /query or /msg in any of 47 irc clients. If somebody has some kind of physical/mental handicap that would prevent realtime communications but not otherwise interfere with contributions I'm sure a mentor would also be happy to try to work with that. However, it is important that mentors have an opportunity to get to know a candidate - they are responsible for their actions and you can't build trust by only sending a few emails back and forth. Ultimately that is the goal - Gentoo is a community and those who want to be devs do need to be able to interact in at least a fairly nominal way with the community at large. Gentoo has MANY things that could stand some change/improvement. An over-dependence on IRC could arguably be said to be one of them. However, completely avoiding an effective realtime communications technology simply for the sake of doing so seems a bit over the top.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 12:45 +, Duncan wrote: Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org posted 200905081342.17562.hwoar...@gentoo.org, excerpted below, on Fri, 08 May 2009 13:42:13 +0300: On Friday 08 May 2009 12:19:28 Duncan wrote: Duncan 1i5t5.dun...@cox.net posted pan.2009.05.06.17.25...@cox.net, [..] If a potential recruit isn't interested in IRC, Gentoo isn't interested in them as developers. Which, I suppose, is good to know, agree or not. Ok now you are overreacting. Joining IRC 2 times in your life ( just for the review/recruit process ) is not that hard. Sigh. My intent was to put it to bed. If it's trivial enough that it's overreaction to refuse to join IRC twice in one's life (which it should be noted, to my knowledge anyway, no one has actually refused), then certainly, by that same mark of triviality, it's overreaction to require it, as well. Otherwise, if it wasn't simply triviality, it wouldn't be overreaction, but misreaction. But no matter, the practical fact of the matter is that for someone who would otherwise not do IRC, it's just one more hurdle in the process. Whether it's useful or not, trivial or vital, no longer matters, it's defined by the gatekeepers as a requirement, therefore, by said definition, it is a requirement. Well, you could always do it over the phone. :) It's good to know the requirements, including this one. Which is what I was asking in the original post, is it or isn't it. Apparently, it is, and anyone intending to become a developer can now deal with it as such. -- Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) fmc...@gentoo.org Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Userrel, Trustees) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
Duncan wrote:
Plus, as I said, with a pre-arrangement, it's possible to do email
reasonably close to real-time as well, close enough they'd not have time
to look it up unless they had /some/ idea what was going on.
What good is simulating real-time chat with email?
If you prefer not to use IRC most of the time, fine.
Refusing to use IRC when it is clearly the superior tool, that's just dumb. So
then I guess you are arguing email is better for this, right?
What's so bad about the real-time nature of IRC anyways? That's just like having
a genuine face-to-face conversation. Are those bad too? To be avoided at all
costs? What problem are we solving here again?
Marijn
- --
If you cannot read my mind, then listen to what I say.
Marijn Schouten (hkBst), Gentoo Lisp project, Gentoo ML
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/, #gentoo-{lisp,ml} on FreeNode
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v2.0.11 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iEYEARECAAYFAkoCoOcACgkQp/VmCx0OL2wrLQCfb+uED29OMrz5VBmGbnuJfQPB
UuIAnjYRJHXbXKFXtRLhRT9a7wd0bw2h
=dNZI
-END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On 5/7/09, Duncan 1i5t5.dun...@cox.net wrote: There's no reason that can't be done via email, and throwing in some live commit feed action might make it a bit interesting. =:^) I'm sensing a sort of a patches welcome attitude from the crowd, i.e., not falling for a hard sell of just the idea. And as it stands, they may also be familiar with your emails from, e.g., gentoo-user list? :) Maybe you have to prove the functionality of your email-based processes over irc-oriented ones by, e.g., forking gentoo into duncantoo (or whatever, duncantoo.org appears to be available) and running things successfully on email for a while? ;) -- Arttu V.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 12:29:33PM +, Duncan wrote: Marijn Schouten (hkBst) hk...@gentoo.org posted 4a02a0e7.5050...@gentoo.org, excerpted below, on Thu, 07 May 2009 10:50:47 +0200: I've seen a few replies from the (rare) Gentoo dev as well, indicating they basically don't do IRC either, just mail, tho it is quite rare, and it would seem, likely to go extinct in Gentoo before its time, since evidently those devs have no skills considered worth recruiting any more. I'd call that a shame as that's a potentially large skills and talent bank Gentoo's about to pass on, but what's a man to do, other than make the point as best he can? shrug It seems to me you're on a irc-hate rampage. There are many devs who rarely, if ever, go on irc. The _only_ requirement is that you conduct a real-time interview with a recruiter. It's sort of like a job interview only it's remote. Once you're a dev you don't have to go on irc _at all_. It's not going to kill you to do two reviews on irc, especially given the advantages various people have presented for a real-time interview. Regards, Thomas -- - Thomas Anderson Gentoo Developer / Areas of responsibility: AMD64, Secretary to the Gentoo Council - pgppB6HZ5Ub0z.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Thomas Anderson wrote: It seems to me you're on a irc-hate rampage. There are many devs who rarely, if ever, go on irc. The _only_ requirement is that you conduct a real-time interview with a recruiter. I have to agree with this sentiment - I have nothing against IRC but it is a bit too realtime for me to be on it routinely. However, I didn't have any trouble spending time with my mentor on IRC as it is a much more productive way to learn the ropes. Sure, lots of time was spent reading docs/etc, and doing ebuild exercises/etc. However, the direct conversations were also an invaluable part of the process (even if it is hard to schedule an hour just sitting at the keyboard with family/etc). Plus, it is essential that there be some kind of interviewing process to become a dev. A gentoo dev potentially has the power to hose the systems of everybody running gentoo - so we owe it to ourselves and our user communities to vet any candidate for this position. Sure, we want to know that they know how to write ebuilds, but we also want to know that they have a good attitude and some common sense as well. We count on devs to understand their own limitations and to not try to singlehandedly revamp baselayout/etc without careful coordination with the rest of the community. I also echo what has been said about projects like Sunrise and overlays as being good gateways into gentoo. Oh, I'm not sure I agree that new devs should be grilled to the n'th degree on obscure ebuild knowledge. It is more important that they know where to go and have demonstrated the ability to use this knowledge than it is for them to have this memorized. If it takes a dev 28 hours of tinkering to get an ebuild right I could care less as long as it is right on the first actual commit. When it comes to package management being careful is generally more important than being quick. It is also critical that devs be able to interact in a professional manner and relate well to our user community as well.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Arttu V. wrote: On 5/7/09, Duncan 1i5t5.dun...@cox.net wrote: There's no reason that can't be done via email, and throwing in some live commit feed action might make it a bit interesting. =:^) I'm sensing a sort of a patches welcome attitude from the crowd, i.e., not falling for a hard sell of just the idea. And as it stands, they may also be familiar with your emails from, e.g., gentoo-user list? :) Maybe you have to prove the functionality of your email-based processes over irc-oriented ones by, e.g., forking gentoo into duncantoo (or whatever, duncantoo.org appears to be available) and running things successfully on email for a while? ;) Oh good lord, what have I started here... I can see that being as successful as the Norweigan referee in last nights Chelsea v Barcelona game
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Petteri Räty a écrit : Currently we really don't need to fail that many people as those who end up at that point in the process almost always have good enough skills as they have contributed via overlays for quite a while. Ditto on that. Most recruits I've been actively watching these past few months (Ford_prefect, nirbheek and now mrpouet) have all been trained that way : - they send us patches for ebuilds - we tell them how they are wrong and they fix 'em - after a while, they get access to the overlay - we still whack them with the cluebat when they break stuff But the whole overlay process is very positive because it's hands-on experience. The ebuild quiz is usually a very good time for them to reflect on all the work they did and they understand more why we had to whack them a few times. Things make much more sense for them. All in all, I would say overlays + the ebuild quiz make for very good recruits. I have yet to be disappointed by this recruitment process. Cheers, Rémi
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
George Prowse schrieb: Thomas Sachau wrote: For those, who can work with IRC and are interested in working with ebuilds, there is already an option: Join #gentoo-dev-help or even better #gentoo-sunrise and read the documentation from the topic. The Sunrise Overlay (with the #gentoo-sunrise IRC channel) is open for everyone willing to learn and contribute to it. Even normal users can get access, learn how to create ebuilds, how to improve them and how to maintain them. As a starting point, this is a central overlay, where ebuilds are maintained, that dont get a developer as maintainer because of missing manpower. Additionally, all contributors learn the ebuild development work themselves. And if you are willing to learn and do continuously good work, there is a good chance that you may level up to a developer yourself someday. You want an example? This was my way to become a full Gentoo developer. ;-) So at least for ebuild maintainence, there are good starting points (probably other projects also have training grounds like the java or kde herds), the bigger problem may be the communication between potential new developers and the current developer base and our options to become a new developer. I think you are missing the point. If you sit and wait for them to join you will always be understaffed. Go on a big dev drive! Announce it all over all the Gentoo's normal communication channels and other generic linux places! Email some linux magazines, talk to distrowatch, message some large LUGs. Get people talking about it. Whatever happens, dont just sit on your hands. Tell the users that Gentoo needs them and that they can make a difference! If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly with a sufficient number of current developers who are willing to walk people through how and what it means to be a Gentoo Developer then the influx could create a new backbone of new developers who will hopefully be here for years to come. Such a campaign would need quite some time and i dont have this free time. So if anyone is willing to do the needed work, i can try to help a bit, but cannot take the work and time myself. The only thing i can do and currently do whenever possible is pointing people to the sunrise project and helping them there. And thats what i did with my mail. -- Thomas Sachau Gentoo Linux Developer signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Thomas Sachau wrote: George Prowse schrieb: Thomas Sachau wrote: For those, who can work with IRC and are interested in working with ebuilds, there is already an option: Join #gentoo-dev-help or even better #gentoo-sunrise and read the documentation from the topic. The Sunrise Overlay (with the #gentoo-sunrise IRC channel) is open for everyone willing to learn and contribute to it. Even normal users can get access, learn how to create ebuilds, how to improve them and how to maintain them. As a starting point, this is a central overlay, where ebuilds are maintained, that dont get a developer as maintainer because of missing manpower. Additionally, all contributors learn the ebuild development work themselves. And if you are willing to learn and do continuously good work, there is a good chance that you may level up to a developer yourself someday. You want an example? This was my way to become a full Gentoo developer. ;-) So at least for ebuild maintainence, there are good starting points (probably other projects also have training grounds like the java or kde herds), the bigger problem may be the communication between potential new developers and the current developer base and our options to become a new developer. I think you are missing the point. If you sit and wait for them to join you will always be understaffed. Go on a big dev drive! Announce it all over all the Gentoo's normal communication channels and other generic linux places! Email some linux magazines, talk to distrowatch, message some large LUGs. Get people talking about it. Whatever happens, dont just sit on your hands. Tell the users that Gentoo needs them and that they can make a difference! If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly with a sufficient number of current developers who are willing to walk people through how and what it means to be a Gentoo Developer then the influx could create a new backbone of new developers who will hopefully be here for years to come. Such a campaign would need quite some time and i dont have this free time. So if anyone is willing to do the needed work, i can try to help a bit, but cannot take the work and time myself. The only thing i can do and currently do whenever possible is pointing people to the sunrise project and helping them there. And thats what i did with my mail. I also fear that any sustained campaign would be bogged down in Gentoo's red tape.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Mon, 04 May 2009 21:47:08 +0100 George Prowse george.pro...@gmail.com wrote: If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly with a sufficient number of current developers who are willing to walk people through how and what it means to be a Gentoo Developer then the influx could create a new backbone of new developers who will hopefully be here for years to come. That's not how it works -- we know this from last time Gentoo recruited a whole load of people without verifying their abilities. With lots of new developers, what little time skilled developers already have ends up being spent fixing all the screwups made by people who were only recruited to make up numbers. Gentoo needs better developers, not more developers. -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Mon, 04 May 2009 21:47:08 +0100 George Prowse george.pro...@gmail.com wrote: If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly with a sufficient number of current developers who are willing to walk people through how and what it means to be a Gentoo Developer then the influx could create a new backbone of new developers who will hopefully be here for years to come. That's not how it works -- we know this from last time Gentoo recruited a whole load of people without verifying their abilities. With lots of new developers, what little time skilled developers already have ends up being spent fixing all the screwups made by people who were only recruited to make up numbers. Gentoo needs better developers, not more developers. And where did i say their abilities wouldn't be verified? Come on now, you'll have to do better than that. In terms of figures a conservative estimate would be 25% wouldn't have the necessary skills and another 25% would be unsuitable.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Tue, 05 May 2009 19:11:02 +0100 George Prowse george.pro...@gmail.com wrote: That's not how it works -- we know this from last time Gentoo recruited a whole load of people without verifying their abilities. With lots of new developers, what little time skilled developers already have ends up being spent fixing all the screwups made by people who were only recruited to make up numbers. Gentoo needs better developers, not more developers. And where did i say their abilities wouldn't be verified? Come on now, you'll have to do better than that. One of the necessary abilities is to be able to get yourself recruited with the current process. Anyone who can't put up with the hassle of that isn't going to be able to put up with all the bureaucracy, delays and nonsense necessary to get anything done within Gentoo. In terms of figures a conservative estimate would be 25% wouldn't have the necessary skills and another 25% would be unsuitable. A conservative estimate would be that 90% of the people who decide to be developers because of such an initiative would be unsuitable. -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 2009.05.05 18:37, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Mon, 04 May 2009 21:47:08 +0100 George Prowse george.pro...@gmail.com wrote: If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly [snip] That's not how it works -- we know this from last time Gentoo recruited a whole load of people without verifying their abilities. With lots of new developers, what little time skilled developers already have ends up being spent fixing all the screwups made by people who were only recruited to make up numbers. Gentoo needs better developers, not more developers. -- Ciaran McCreesh Ciaran, - From your post, it appears that standards were lowered during the recruitment drive you reference. If thats true, its a lesson for next time. That may well reduce the uptake rate compared to last time too but as you infer, new developers need the right skill set. At best, the publicity George suggests would raise awareness, which is the first step to getting more help of the right sort. - -- Regards, Roy Bamford (NeddySeagoon) a member of gentoo-ops forum-mods treecleaners trustees -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.11 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkoAgxkACgkQTE4/y7nJvavJCQCdF3eGtwDqJICelv43l1ssrUtI iz8AnAri0tO1E8Wb2ziIdGJtNAQOq6pj =+UmH -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Tuesday 05 May 2009 20:37:24 Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Mon, 04 May 2009 21:47:08 +0100 George Prowse george.pro...@gmail.com wrote: If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly with a sufficient number of current developers who are willing to walk people through how and what it means to be a Gentoo Developer then the influx could create a new backbone of new developers who will hopefully be here for years to come. That's not how it works -- we know this from last time Gentoo recruited a whole load of people without verifying their abilities. With lots of new developers, what little time skilled developers already have ends up being spent fixing all the screwups made by people who were only recruited to make up numbers. Gentoo needs better developers, not more developers. We surely need more developers. Otherwise we ll end up maintaining 100x500 each one. Just look at the numbers ( total packages/total ACTIVE developers ). So first we need to attract more people. Evaluation and recruitment comes next -- Markos Chandras (hwoarang) Gentoo Linux Developer [KDE/Qt/Sound/Sunrise] Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Tue, 5 May 2009 21:19:49 +0300 Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org wrote: We surely need more developers. Otherwise we ll end up maintaining 100x500 each one. Just look at the numbers ( total packages/total ACTIVE developers ). So first we need to attract more people. Evaluation and recruitment comes next I have a better way of improving those numbers: remove two thirds of the packages from the main tree. -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, 05 May 2009 19:19:00 +0100 Roy Bamford neddyseag...@gentoo.org wrote: - From your post, it appears that standards were lowered during the recruitment drive you reference. Not quite. At the time, there weren't really any particular standards during recruitment. The system relied upon recruitment mostly being done or supervised by a smaller group of people who did it a lot and were fairly good judges of suitability. The system broke when someone who didn't do much recruiting pulled in a bunch of new people for obscure side projects that sounded cool without verifying that some of those people, say, knew what 'grep' was. The ebuild-related quiz questions come from my attempt at the time to reduce the damage until a proper solution could be implemented, which never happened because devrel decided to make other things a priority. And even then, the quiz rapidly became unsuccessful because recruiters would give people lots of attempts and lots of help to answer the questions, and would let people retake the quiz as many times as they liked -- the questions were designed to be instantly answerable, not research questions. At the very least, before attempting any mass recruitment, the quiz needs to be lengthened, brought up to date and split into answer these on the spot on IRC without having seen the question before and research allowed questions, and recruiters have to be prepared to fail most applicants. - -- Ciaran McCreesh -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkoAhWIACgkQ96zL6DUtXhHm8wCgtiMxlQUI4X8vkD4GNEZT4fFN OO0AoJSit88yibi59rizQG4ATLHvMFkl =I4JE -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
El mar, 05-05-2009 a las 18:28 +0100, George Prowse escribió: Thomas Sachau wrote: George Prowse schrieb: Thomas Sachau wrote: For those, who can work with IRC and are interested in working with ebuilds, there is already an option: Join #gentoo-dev-help or even better #gentoo-sunrise and read the documentation from the topic. The Sunrise Overlay (with the #gentoo-sunrise IRC channel) is open for everyone willing to learn and contribute to it. Even normal users can get access, learn how to create ebuilds, how to improve them and how to maintain them. As a starting point, this is a central overlay, where ebuilds are maintained, that dont get a developer as maintainer because of missing manpower. Additionally, all contributors learn the ebuild development work themselves. And if you are willing to learn and do continuously good work, there is a good chance that you may level up to a developer yourself someday. You want an example? This was my way to become a full Gentoo developer. ;-) So at least for ebuild maintainence, there are good starting points (probably other projects also have training grounds like the java or kde herds), the bigger problem may be the communication between potential new developers and the current developer base and our options to become a new developer. I think you are missing the point. If you sit and wait for them to join you will always be understaffed. Go on a big dev drive! Announce it all over all the Gentoo's normal communication channels and other generic linux places! Email some linux magazines, talk to distrowatch, message some large LUGs. Get people talking about it. Whatever happens, dont just sit on your hands. Tell the users that Gentoo needs them and that they can make a difference! If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly with a sufficient number of current developers who are willing to walk people through how and what it means to be a Gentoo Developer then the influx could create a new backbone of new developers who will hopefully be here for years to come. Such a campaign would need quite some time and i dont have this free time. So if anyone is willing to do the needed work, i can try to help a bit, but cannot take the work and time myself. The only thing i can do and currently do whenever possible is pointing people to the sunrise project and helping them there. And thats what i did with my mail. I also fear that any sustained campaign would be bogged down in Gentoo's red tape. I feel it's necessary to clear that it's not mandatory to be a full time developer to help improve Gentoo. Many users want to help but they don't feel ready for such a compromise. Then there is Sunrise, and the overlays from the herds, where the prospective users can learn first and take the following step when they feel they're ready. I think there are at least 2 recent new developers who made it this way. There are several (much?) understaffed projects in Gentoo, the developers who are responsible of this areas could take some time to write a guide for users on how to help, with steps to commit patches to the overlays, wishes and needs... and then publish it in the project web page. Also, there could be a page similar to the 'staffing-needs' one, but listing links to the 'Help Us' pages of the projects. Just my 2c... And sorry for any spell/grammar error...
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Ciaran McCreesh wrote: At the very least, before attempting any mass recruitment, the quiz needs to be lengthened, brought up to date and split into answer these on the spot on IRC without having seen the question before and research allowed questions, and recruiters have to be prepared to fail most applicants. We have actually been using an extra question battery for IRC for many years already. The quizzes are actively maintained by me so if you have suggestions about what needs improving please do tell and we can update the quizzes as needed. Currently we really don't need to fail that many people as those who end up at that point in the process almost always have good enough skills as they have contributed via overlays for quite a while. I would rather keep it like the current process where the bad people don't get mentored to the finish. Regards, Petteri signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
On Monday 04 May 2009 23:47:08 George Prowse wrote: Thomas Sachau wrote: Mario Fetka schrieb: On Monday, 4. May 2009 19:06:12 George Prowse wrote: Peter Faraday Weller wrote: Hi Thanks, welp Sad to hear it mate. As the person who did your first install for you (i think) I think you will be missed. I am quite surprised about what you said about the state of things because i've got the distinct impression from others that Gentoo has been improving in the past 12 months. About the lack of the developers, something I proposed about 3 years ago might be applicable: has Gentoo ever thought about doing a Dev Day in much the same way as the Bug Days? Advertise a day where people can come and have a chat with developers and get coached because there is a vast amount of people and knowledge out there and I never see anything about Gentoo wanting people. If you book them, they will come. G and I would be the first to come Mario For those, who can work with IRC and are interested in working with ebuilds, there is already an option: Join #gentoo-dev-help or even better #gentoo-sunrise and read the documentation from the topic. The Sunrise Overlay (with the #gentoo-sunrise IRC channel) is open for everyone willing to learn and contribute to it. Even normal users can get access, learn how to create ebuilds, how to improve them and how to maintain them. As a starting point, this is a central overlay, where ebuilds are maintained, that dont get a developer as maintainer because of missing manpower. Additionally, all contributors learn the ebuild development work themselves. And if you are willing to learn and do continuously good work, there is a good chance that you may level up to a developer yourself someday. You want an example? This was my way to become a full Gentoo developer. ;-) So at least for ebuild maintainence, there are good starting points (probably other projects also have training grounds like the java or kde herds), the bigger problem may be the communication between potential new developers and the current developer base and our options to become a new developer. I think you are missing the point. If you sit and wait for them to join you will always be understaffed. Go on a big dev drive! Announce it all over all the Gentoo's normal communication channels and other generic linux places! Email some linux magazines, talk to distrowatch, message some large LUGs. Get people talking about it. Whatever happens, dont just sit on your hands. Tell the users that Gentoo needs them and that they can make a difference! If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly with a sufficient number of current developers who are willing to walk people through how and what it means to be a Gentoo Developer then the influx could create a new backbone of new developers who will hopefully be here for years to come. All those things are PR related. Unfortunately Gentoo does not have any PR activity ( ok we have some via Gentoo Planet/Universe ) . We used to have GMN but that died a long time ago. Establishing a proper and active PR team is something that we should consider as a high priority as well :/ -- Markos Chandras (hwoarang) Gentoo Linux Developer [KDE/Qt/Sound/Sunrise] Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
George Prowse wrote: I think you are missing the point. If you sit and wait for them to join you will always be understaffed. Go on a big dev drive! Announce it all over all the Gentoo's normal communication channels and other generic linux places! Email some linux magazines, talk to distrowatch, message some large LUGs. Get people talking about it. Whatever happens, dont just sit on your hands. Tell the users that Gentoo needs them and that they can make a difference! If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly with a sufficient number of current developers who are willing to walk people through how and what it means to be a Gentoo Developer then the influx could create a new backbone of new developers who will hopefully be here for years to come. I agree with you. Gentoo is not doing enough publicity on needed help (I sincerely think the related page in gentoo.org is out of date) and we can read too often in gentoo.org recruitment pages that user should not ask and should wait to be asking. I'm not sure most devs are looking to users as potential new devs. It's clearly not a good recruitment policy. Maybe when we are full staffed but surely not when we are understaffed like it looks like. An active recruitment policy like a recruitment campaign should be very positive and I would be glad to help with that. Regards, Mounir
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Training points for users interested in helping out with ebuild development
Mounir Lamouri wrote: George Prowse wrote: I think you are missing the point. If you sit and wait for them to join you will always be understaffed. Go on a big dev drive! Announce it all over all the Gentoo's normal communication channels and other generic linux places! Email some linux magazines, talk to distrowatch, message some large LUGs. Get people talking about it. Whatever happens, dont just sit on your hands. Tell the users that Gentoo needs them and that they can make a difference! If you make it a big and special occasion which is planned correctly with a sufficient number of current developers who are willing to walk people through how and what it means to be a Gentoo Developer then the influx could create a new backbone of new developers who will hopefully be here for years to come. I agree with you. Gentoo is not doing enough publicity on needed help (I sincerely think the related page in gentoo.org is out of date) and we can read too often in gentoo.org recruitment pages that user should not ask and should wait to be asking. I'm not sure most devs are looking to users as potential new devs. It's clearly not a good recruitment policy. Maybe when we are full staffed but surely not when we are understaffed like it looks like. An active recruitment policy like a recruitment campaign should be very positive and I would be glad to help with that. Regards, Mounir I'm always willing to help also. I have plenty of time on my hands. First you need a date, then you need some devs who will be at their computers then you can go ape. Message everyone under the sun that Gentoo is going on a recruitment drive on from $date and there will be lots of friendly people in $location, $location and $location to show people what is required. Of course it would be easier if we had a list from Gentoo where help is needed most and we could broadcast for people in those areas. We could even write a web page where people added their names and details as a kind of pre-signup to test the water and see how many people we might get. Keep the names visible because that might create extra PR. Gentoo is looking for linux personnel and also those familiar with the distribution itself. What is required is either linux experience or experience with Gentoo, knowlege of bash and a helpful, happy attitude... If it were successful then a large group of mentors would be needed.
