The dev population is quite a strange beast. I never expected to win. Why would you vote for somebody who did not even publish a manifesto? I don't know but I love you for it. My only intention was to help offset dev-zero being able force the will of outside forces upon us. Well that has been accomplished for now (w00t). But I never ever expected to be ranked so high. "/me blushes" So that means you guys/gals expect stuff from me. Well as I never wrote a manifesto but you still voted for me, I guess I should share some of my ideas on what I'd like to see happen over the following year.
The devs have a voice one time of the year: when it comes time to vote. But what about the rest of the year? What happens when the person you voted for sucks? You are mostly powerless to do anything other than be really vocal in what seems like a never ending battle. That needs to change. I'm not quite sure how. But I'd like to see the dev body have a year-round voice in the council. Either via quick votes year-round on topics or simply by having discussion in the channel. Devs should have a right to voice their concerns to the council and engage in interactive conversations without being labeled troll. Another one of the things I'd like to see and help reform with the council. First off it spends way too much time on EAPI/PMS. There is no reason to make the council an extension of the portage team. Portage is still the official package manager of Gentoo. Granted it's good to accommodate others to an extent and I've always kept an open mind on other tools. Alternatives are good as there is always the right tool for the task at hand. But the council really should not be getting involved most of the time unless there is a conflict which can't be worked out among the masses and those trying to get portage to adopt new features. If the dev body wants it otherwise then I'd like to turn my vote over to you the devs. Each and every time the council wants/has to vote on an EAPI/PMS feature then I'll happily put my vote in your hands. You fire up that old votify system and use my vote as yours. Note however that zmedico is not in favor of his time being wasted on deciding what PMS/EAPI features are good. He simply likes bugs and solving those. He likes giving us new features and tends to be more in favor of the devs and community figuring out what is best for us. An EAPI review committee could work well also. As long as we could get non bias people in there. The council should be more about community vs technical issues only. We have lots of top level projects within Gentoo which have simply given up on the council as being an outlet to accomplish anything useful. It should be our job to look at the projects in Gentoo. Look at the ones that have a healthy community and encourage and promote them in ways. For example prefix comes to mind. It was a project I did not like at first. I'm not even a user. And there are things I surely don't like about it as is. But there is community support and it's the icing on the cake for some. So I'll back the fsck up and give credit where it's due. This is a perfectly good example of a project/fork that needs to come back home. Perhaps it's time to cherry pick some more stuff/people out of Sunrise? desultory points out any two council members can decide to approve anything, and that decision is considered to be equivalent to a full council vote until the next meeting. I vaguely recall that rule. I'm not sure about you, but I think that is a little to much power to put in the hands of a few. Any dev mind if we dump that power? Meetings will likely go back to one time per month and be +m with +v be handed out per request with open chat pre/post meetings. The reason for this is to keep the meetings on-track. I won't engage in endless discussions. Facts can be presented. They will be reviewed on merit, technical and social. The reason the meetings should go back to monthly is to allow those who are council members in Gentoo to accomplish things other than the council only. We all have personal lives and we all have our respective roles we play outside of the council. Another note on meetings. The time they are held currently don't fit well with my work schedule. I'm not subscribed directly to the gentoo-dev mailing list anymore outside of post-only. And I don't plan to re-subscribe. I do browse the archives regularly however. If there is some topic that should be brought to my attention please point it out to me directly on irc or CC: me. Thank you all and I will try not to let you down. Unless you were one of the ones who wanted to me lose. Then sorry, but I'm going to have fun disappointing you, by doing what is best for Gentoo. If you have any ideas on how you think the council should function or reform itself. Please start a new thread or email those who think will listen to those ideas. I'm open for some real change as long as it's for the the positive. So lets have some damn fun again !...@#$ Thanks.
