Hi all
Being part of a Gentoo community (and I am after all an ex-User Representative. The "ex" part in it is because the project is debunk and no longer exists), it hurts me to see my favorite Linux distribution getting to the point of no return. Like, the Tipping Point in reverse: after this point nothing can be done to stop its destruction.
I'm not pessimistic person in general. I'm just an outside (and a little inside) observer, who wishes all the best but can't really affect anything. I just read Brian Proffit's support call for Daniel Robbins' offer to step as the leader of Gentoo's legal affairs again. I am gladly joining the call, because I think Gentoo is in position where it needs leadership.
Gentoo was founded by Daniel, who left it in 2005 for personal reasons. This act may be seen as treason by some, or a happy occasion by others. It doesn't matter though, because for awhile Gentoo was a thriving community and had an inertia of speeding mass to move it forward. But frankly, it didn't work so well. When I first started to use Gentoo, it was a spectacular thing. It was the best distribution out there (and I've been around many). The documentation was spectacular. The community was awesome.
But what happened since then? At the beginning of 2006 (just about a year since Daniel left), I started to feel bored. The place wasn't fun anymore. There were still fun thing from time to time, but nothing really exciting. And yet, I got 3 people to Gentoo. And there was still a community of great people around. Which led to a following attempt to "do" something to make things better. It was a great project - to allow users to get some level of respect from developers and to influence somehow the community. The project was User Representatives, and, well, its dead now.
Why would such project die? 1 reason: lack of interest. After a while, it was quite clear that the team would not be available "enough" to do the work they (I mean us) were chosen to perform. That, and additional lack of communication from User Relations team (not intentional) lead to "death" of this attempt.
So where does it leave Gentoo? Many senior (as in "time within Gentoo", not age) developers left the project. Many IRC channels are silent for weeks. Main gentoo.org page looks like its 2001 and it looks like the only news are the news that Gentoo is still alive and kicking. That's not good.
So here it is. The distribution is OK nowadays, but not exciting. The community is fine nowadays, but not thriving. The documentation is still one of the best. What is all this means?
I see 3 possible options:
- Gentoo will keep its problematic state. The community will deminish to the point it was in 2001 or even earlier. Then, as Gentoo is ok with small communities it will thrive again until it gets big again. Rewind. Repeat. I suggest we call it a "Gentoo pulsation". Like the Universe and the Big Bang theory.
- Gentoo will keep its problematic state. It will slowly die as mainstream distribution and will either remain in the hands of a few or will be supported by the folks like Sabayon Linux.
- There will be changes good enough to bring it from dusty shelves and rise to another level. This can be done with proper decent leadership (and I don't specifically mean Daniel here - I mean leadership
Cheers.
11 Comments:
I happen to respectfully disagree with you. As a user, I'm thrilled about the current state of Gentoo. This whole D. Robbins business pushed a lot of issues out into the light, forcing people to deal with them. Just the amount of discussion this has generated shows, to me, that the Gentoo community is alive and well, and to me, this is the most exciting time I've ever had with Gentoo
Well, do you think the same thing would happen if I would suggest the same thing as D.Robbins did?
Of course not. Besides, everything I said is in comparison to a current state of things. It doesn't mean that as it is, Gentoo is bad. It means that it's much worse than it used to be.
And the last - discussion is mainly between outsiders, not Gentoo community. Gentoo community seems to take a defensive position, which doesn't show thriving and well-being of a community.
So, I respectfully disagree with you again :-)
But that's good, it means there is will to fix things.
I must also disagree. Gentoo is worse, how? How do you quantify the "goodness" of a distro? All of this talk of Gentoo dying is largely hand-waving. No one gives substantive details.
Yeah, our website design is old, but look at Debian's or Slackware's or Gnu's or linux.org. Are those a sign that those projects are dying? Linux projects' websites look old and crusty, it's one of the marks of being run by geeks.
Yeah, there was a lack of PR releases and GWN updates and such, and that was a real problem. But it's not a distro-destroying problem; from all indications it was just a PR problem. It's not that work isn't being done, it's that no one was talking about it. That seems to be changing.
Yeah, the new release was delayed. What distro / large project hasn't ever delayed a release? Things are done "when they're done". Better good and late than crappy and on time. It's the nature of OSS.
None of these things to me is a sign that Gentoo is on the verge of implosion.
Everything is exciting when it's new, and then it calms down. And a lot of users gravitate to the new thing on the block just because it's new. Ubuntu is probably it right now. When something new comes along, Ubuntu will bleed users too. There's still a core of die-hard Gentoo users who love the distro and use it because it works well for them. That's all we need to keep going.
I think Gentoo being boring to you is as likely a change in you as a change in Gentoo. Or maybe both, but I don't feel like Gentoo is on its death bed. If enough people think it is though, then it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy, which would be a tragedy. I don't feel I'm being defensive, just objective. I have been on the "Gentoo is dying" side of the aisle until recently, until I looked more closely at things dispassionately. Just my opinion though.
I also disagree. What dr wants is a bit too broad in scope. While I think he can provide much needed direction/leadership for the foundation, he's lost enough credibility with the core devs that leadership on this front is nigh impossible.
Plus, as others have stated, Gentoo is by no means "near implosion".
Well put Alex. It's nice to see a logical response to the ongoing of Gentoo. I have to agree.
There are some that have become complacent and others holding onto territory but the only thing in Gentoo that is running smoothly at Gentoo at the time is portage.
Brian
I agree with you that Gentoo is far from being destroyed as of now. But I see tendencies that doesn't make it better either.
By being "worse" I, of course, mean my own subjective feeling. This may be explain be the fact that I'm changed. But nevertheless, I don't feel the same rush going over me when talking about Gentoo these days with other people. And it's not because it's not new anymore. It's because Gentoo doesn't give me that spark it used to.
Now, problems with PR are serious problems, no matter how one would try and convince me otherwise. It shows lack of interest, or will, or absence of people who can do it. In other words - organizational problems (and those in part DRobbins suggested to solve). It doesn't mean that Gentoo is fine. If few developers keep coding while few others spit at each other, it also doesn't mean that community is fine.
As the first commenter said, there are problems which are now got into the light, but why don't Gentoo people agree?? Why everyone says "No, Gentoo is not dying!!!", but no one says "Hey, its true, there are problems - and we're working to solve them"?
You see? Everyone in Gentoo team seems defensive to me, and hardly there's one who is ready to accept that there are problems. You actually are doing the same thing. I'm not saying exactly that Gentoo is dying - I love Gentoo and use it on all my computers - but I'm ready to consider that it might.
Gentoo people are not ready yet to do so.
Besides, I don't understand how your opinion can be objective on this, because you seem to me very Gentoo-sided. So am I, but I'm at least trying to shed some light on possible ways to fix things.
First thing one should do to get healthier, is to recognize she has a problem. Right?
Brendan
I disagree with you. Gentoo now needs leadership. Period. You can call it as you want, but Gentoo organization now sucks because noone leads it forward. And I don't really care who would that be. Considering that 4 out of 5 trustees resigned their position, I'd say they've lost my trust and credibility, but this doesn't bother anyone, right? Because I'm not a developer.
But it should. I'm vocal user who has his own opinions. And if there's another person who can lead besides Daniel, go for it, suggest. I'll be on and if he's credible enough I'll be in support.
Otherwise - Daniel is now a perfect fit.
"Gentoo organization now sucks because noone leads it forward"
No. Gentoo organization now sucks because noone CAN lead it forward. There were metastructure change proposals and referendum votes from the developer community clearly rejected the "more structure, more rules, more leadership" options. They like having the choice of doing like they want. Most of them chose that project just for that.
Two solutions : forking, or bleed sufficient number of users so that you can innovate again without taking too much care about stability. There is no way Daniel can be accepted again as a leader of this project. He can fork it and enforce leadership on the new project... and face the risk of having noone with him at the end of the day. I guess his ego doesn't want to take the risk.
So it is like I said in possible outcome number 1. That as Gentoo is fine with being small community, it will be fine once the community diminishes to a certain point.
On the other hand, this current situation where some vocal developers lead "it all about us, the elite" behavior, I doubt it can last for long, because at some point, all the other developers will get sick of the politics and leave for something else.
And if not - if the situation will be such as that developers don't care about politics, I don't see then how it can continue either. Being led by few power-hungry, it is definitely destructive way to manage a Linux distribution.
I am kind of happy to see users turn away from gentoo. There are a lot of gentoo users out there who will live much better with ubuntu-like distros. Thats exactly what gentoo needs right now and in the end it will only strengthen gentoo.
I dont like the idea of leadership coming from a single individual. And it also frightens me a bit that everybody is crying for an "dictator"-like leadership of drobins.
If gentoo has problems, let the gentoo devs and users solve them. Drobins is the genius mastermind inventor of gentoo but it was also him who left the gentoo project years back, leaving everybody involved than with a bitter taste on their tongues.
After all, the whole situation is overemphasized. There are some problems for sure but gentoo is far from its downfall.
"First thing one should do to get healthier, is to recognize she has a problem. Right?"
I agree, and Gentoo definitely has problems that need to be worked on.
I only object to over-estimating how important the problems are. PR problems are serious, but they aren't the end of the world, and they can be easily fixed. And it looks like they ARE being worked on by people. We have a new PR lead, a new plan for newsletter updates, public meetings / plans for the upcoming release, and a lot of people have been keeping the community much better informed through this Foundation-expiration ordeal. Time will tell whether it keeps up, but it's looking better already.
PR problems and a delayed release and poor communication and whatnot aren't signs of the end of the world, that's my only point. These problems can be fixed. They won't be fixed if people give up, abandon ship, fork the distro, or whatever (not saying you're advocating any of those, but many people are).
From all indications, the trustees recognize that they failed, are planning to resign, and a call for nominations for new trustees is already underway in the gentoo-nfp list. (There is some good discussion going on there about many issues.)
I realized I may sound like I think your opinion is just opinion and my opinion is fact or worth more. I don't think that. Sorry if I sounded arrogant or condescending. Bringing attention to things like you're trying to do is important. Our issues will get resolved when everyone speaks up and discussion takes place. If anything good has come of drobbins' actions, it's that people are talking about things more now.
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