Chris Gianelloni wrote:
I think people are leaving because a lack of direction.
I also agree here, but only to an extent.
To quantify my earlier statement. There is no ability to say 'this is
something Gentoo should dedicate resources to' vs. 'this is something
that is outside the scope of what Gentoo is trying to do'. I feel this
way because I have no idea 'what Gentoo is trying to do'. Gentoo has no
scope and thus any idea is basically good to go. Someone can launch
Seeds and work on it (which they are free to do regardless of whether
it's a Gentoo Project) and there is really nothing you can do about it
except point out the technical merits and pitfalls. But does something
like seeds fit into the scope of Gentoo?
Does SCIRE, another project I love, fit into the scope of Gentoo?
Does having a tree with many unmaintained packages fit into the scope of
Gentoo?
Does having a tree with every package in existence fit into the scope of
Gentoo?
These are the things that I see argued about often; do you try to add
tons of packages? Do you try to remove packages? Do you try to keep a
balance. Why does the tree contain unmaintained and broken packages?
Why does no (developer) care? Do you cater to users? Do you cater to
ourselves? Do you target the desktop? Do you target embedded users? Do
you target servers? Do you target 'release early, release often' or do
you target stability and QA?
Some of these goals are opposites of each other. Many developers only
care about one or the other or none. This is where I'd love for the
council to lead. If we care about QA then I'd expect to see some
developers leave, because they don't care about QA at all. If we go for
a tree that contains maintained and 'good/well-known' packages I'd
expect people to leave and create something bigger than sun-rise with
every package known to man in it.
I think when people talk about splitting up Gentoo, this is a piece of
what they are referring to.
I agree that we need a formal hierarchy, but must protest that the
current Council doesn't lead. The problem is that every time we *try*
to lead, we get a ton of developer backlash, which leads to things like
this proposal to try to reduce the Council's ability to lead. So which
is it? Do people want the Council to lead or not? If the answer is no,
then why do we even *have* a Council?
Is there any vision?
Of course there is some vision. The Council has plenty of ideas and
lots of ways where we can lead Gentoo. Why don't we? Because, quite
frankly, we're sick of the miles of bullshit attached to every single
minor decision made. I'm speaking not for every member of the Council,
but from my own perceptions and from the grumblings I've heard from many
other Council members during conversations.
I don't recall hearing about lots of anything. I don't claim to having
read every meeting log however.
-Alec
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