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| Your Choices with Gentoo |
| 摘自: blog.funtoo.org 被阅读次数: 287 |
由 yangyi 于 2007-07-31 19:37:43 提供 |
There is a large interest among the Gentoo and larger Linux user community for me to come back as Chief Architect. And recently, I found out that in theory - maybe with a bit of fighting - the position was still available to me, as I was still registered as the President of the Gentoo Foundation up until recently. However, there's lots of reasons why trying to jump back into the Chief Architect role this isn't the right thing to do. First, for better or worse, the trustees have been overseeing the organization of Gentoo for over three years. And the developers have set up a council to provide technical direction for Gentoo (the council is elected by the developers.) The trustees and council haven't asked me to return to the project as Chief Architect, and I do not expect them to any time soon. So, if I were to return to the project, I would need to return by force, by claiming that the trustees are not the legitimate leaders of the Gentoo Foundation since they did not file paperwork to remove me as President. Then, it would not be over - you see, the trustees have no control over the technical direction of Gentoo. So I would then need to take over the council. Sure, it would be exciting. A lot of you think that this epic battle is long overdue. In some sense, you may be right. But this undertaking would also be incredibly political, an unfortunate waste of time, and disruptive to everything. And that's just the kind of thing that most people think Gentoo development has too much of these days. So in trying to do good, I'd just be adding fuel to the fire. The solution, I think, is to look for positive ways to improve the Gentoo community without trying to personally go where I'm not welcome, and not to try to do it all by myself. The Gentoo community can be improved in many ways without challenging the authority of or even involving the trustees, council or official Gentoo developers. There are many things that can be done to help Gentoo that don't involve me putting myself, my family, and the Gentoo organization itself through a tremendous amount of turmoil. So, am I doing stuff behind the scenes to help Gentoo? You betcha. But I'm not biting off more than I can chew, and I'm not doing anything subversive. This open source thing is a marathon, and the first and most important lesson is to not burn out and look for positive, sustainable ways to make a difference. But, OK, some of you don't want to wait. You want immediate action. You want to see some blood. OK. Let's start by outlining some things that you (yes, you ) can do to help support the larger Gentoo community. This is a team effort, right? So let me contribute to the cause by giving you some suggestions: 1) If you don't like the way Gentoo is going and are feeling the urge to switch distros, consider Sabayon Linux. Sabayon is a desktop-oriented Gentoo with great hardware support. Too bloated, you say? Geared towards desktop users, you say? Well, did you know that Fabio added a base "stage3+" gui-less install image to the latest 3.4 build of Sabayon, which is basically an enhanced vanilla Gentoo? And this basic install is even a more recent build than 2007.0. If you're sick of Gentoo the organization but not comfortable leaving Gentoo the distro, make a statement by using the Sabayon base install and help to make it a long-term viable alternative to Gentoo proper. Let people know that you are using Sabayon, not Gentoo. Sure, Sabayon is a derivative of Gentoo, but it's also separated enough that there is an opportunity to do something new. You can work towards building a solid user community around this new Sabayon offering. This new Sabayon base install is an opportunity to innovate and fix some things that you may not like about Gentoo - both the technology and community. With sufficient user involvement, it can and will reach critical mass. 2) Personally, I think it sucks that the Gentoo trustees and council do not have any mechanism to get feedback from Gentoo users. Yes, users are by far the large majority in the Gentoo community, but they are woefully under-represented and the Gentoo organization is horribly out of touch with its users. Developers have quite a bit of prestige and power, but is it OK to leave out the users? I don't think so. So, let the trustees and council know that you want true user representation regarding the technical and organizational direction of Gentoo. It's something that is long overdue. And you have the power to make it happen. Let the trustees and council know that you want your voice to be heard, and that you want accountability. 3) Are you really motivated to fix Gentoo? Then become a Gentoo developer. Gentoo developers as of late don't have a good reputation in the open source community, but this doesn't mean that all Gentoo devs are rude and unpleasant. There are quite a few devs that are extremely competent and polite and quietly get things done while the unpleasant ones are busy flaming users on bugzilla and getting into arguments with each other on mailing lists or irc. If you want Gentoo to be better, then let's get a critical mass of genuinely friendly and helpful people developing Gentoo so that the bickering and obnoxious devs get frustrated and leave. And if you are already a developer who wants the Gentoo ecosystem to improve, consider getting involved with the council, as a trustee, or work to give regular users more of a voice on the project. Gentoo the distro begins and ends with its users. If you have any other positive ideas, please feel free to post them here. And let's get to work, shall we? 原文链接: http://blog.funtoo.org/2007/07/your-choices-with-gentoo.html |
