Political Gentoo
So, the last week has been kinda weird.
First, I was sad to witness bitterness and some sort of despair in Gentoo community. Lot of people feel that something isn't right, but at the same time there's a feeling that nothing could be done to fix it.
I'd suggest the following:
All Gentoo developers take the leave from working on Gentoo and have a break to have some fun in their own private lives. Then, in 30 days, council should be brought back to urgent meeting about future of Gentoo, with the following contributors:
1. Project/Subproject Leads
2. Developers
3. Users
Then, decide upon Gentoo's future, both technical (what is Gentoo? where should it be heading?) and social (what is devrel/userrel/userreps? how do they perform? how do they enforce policies? are policies well understood by all parties?)
And then, come back and start making great things together.
I know, I know, it just sounds great to me and will never be implemented.
It is sad, because Gentoo is a great distribution and a great technical effort made by community. I understand, that in free community you can only count on yourself or long-known peers, as it is free, disperse and voluntary. But many such communities choose to follow some sort of netiquette, which explains sort of a etiquette expected from all the members, and also establishes some way of enforcing an appropriate behavior.
Is bad behavior allowed in free community? Yes. It should, as "bad" is only subjective, and being "bad" means saying and/or doing something others do not like or want. But in free society, all things should be allowed.
But what should one do, when these things hurt or insult someone else? Well, in "democracy", there's a concept of decision making. If there's a majority for decision, but the decision itself implies hurting the minority, then the decision is banned as "non-democratic".
Which means, that "bad" behavior can be tolerated but some "objective" countability should be established and sort of "punishment" will have place. Punishment, in general, will be either temporal or permanent removal from society.
So how can all this be done with free community such as Gentoo? I don't know. I just hope, that despair that I feel inside the community is temporary, and soon will be dealt with.
I really love Gentoo, both technically and socially, and I'm ready to provide any help necessary and I will gladly do anything I can (and "official Gentoo" will accept) to make things better.
Second, on a side note: I got a Gentoo T-shirt for my birthday! So geeky....
