Alexandre Buisse wrote: > I think the time has come for me to retire as a gentoo dev. There are > multiple reasons to that, but mainly, it has stopped being fun a good > while ago, and I don't like where I see the project heading. > Man well if it stopped being fun, fair enuff. I hope you'll continue to use gentoo and contribute without the grief.
> I'm also worried of how more and more things get done secretly, be it > because "we don't want bad PR" or because "feedback at this stage would > only slow things down". We shouldn't consider users as idiots or people > from whom we need to hide. This is free software, remember? > I didn't realise things were done secretly (of course ;) There's always going to be people discussing stuff in private, but at least the council meetings are in public. ++ to your sentiments about usrs. From what I can see, too many devs look down on them (despite having started off as usrs.) For that reason alone, I am really sad to see you go. Sorry I missed in the other post about that you were leaving. Especially as I use tex for my academic work.. > Another thing that I dislike are the rules that get added everywhere. > There is a growing layer of bureaucracy, and I really don't think we > want to go in this direction. It restricts freedom, it takes time and > energy and it encourages playing "by the rule book" which I thought was > opposed to the very spirit of free software. More rules won't help us > solving whatever problems we may have, but it will certainly make the > project less fun to work on. > TBH I think all that was needed was saying that the pre-existing rules apply to all on the dev m-l, and actually *enforcing* those rules for devs. Devrel is clearly not set up for that, so I support the new dev-mods (sorry proctors is a silly name imnsho as only Americans get it. I understand from a US buddy that a proctor is someone who gives you an aural examination cf viva. I /really/ dislike that connotation.) > I see a general trend, sometimes wished for, of becoming a business-like > environment. Including a proper hierarchy and a "rule enforcement" > department. Well, I'll tell you what: I don't want a boss, especially on > a voluntary project. And, though I perfectly understand that this is not > shared by everyone else, I couldn't care less about being a business or > not. > Amen to that; I don't think working on a Free project precludes standards of behaviour tho. And like it or not, someone has to enforce them. > To end my list of griefs, I really dislike the fact that people with a > gentoo.org address think of themselves as somehow better than users (I > don't throw the stone to anyone, I certainly did indulge in this as > well). I feel that gentoo is not enough about users, and that they don't > get even the respect everyone deserves. Unfortunately, projects like > userrel can only do so much when the real problem is in everyone's > mindset. And I don't really see a solution to this problem being found > anytime soon, since the said problem isn't even acknowledged. > Well at least a *dev* has said it now ;) > I'm aware that in a perfect world, I would stay on board and try to > steer the project in a direction that I would like. I tried that for a > bit and it was quite obvious that I wouldn't be supported by a > significant part of the community. And I don't have the time nor energy > to lobby this properly. I had some ideas for a metastructure proposal > that would perhaps have helped some of the issues I talked about, but I > honestly don't think it would have stood any chance of being accepted, > especially since it would have meant suppressing the council power *and* > would have needed to be voted by the same council. > I think you're underestimating the *current* council. But meh, you've left now. <snip> > As a final word (sorry, this got a bit longer than planned), let me say > that if I sounded bitter in the beginning of this email, it's only > because I care a lot about gentoo, and I hope that this email, in its > modest way, will help making it a little bit better. > Thanks for your clear reasoning. I'm really sorry that gentoo has lost yet another dev, and that you've had such a bad experience recently. My apologies to you for any part I have played in that. Good luck, mate! -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
