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app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help

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cardoe at gentoo

Dec 5, 2008, 12:08 PM

Post #1 of 14 (1249 views)
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app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help

app-admin/eselect needs an interested an active maintainer. Looking for
people to step up and fill this crucial development role.

eselect is used by Paludis and Portage for GLEP 42 (news) support so
it's a critical we have an active maintainer of this.

If you want to maintain it, step up and add your name to metadata.xml or
if you're not an active developer but are interested, feel free to
e-mail me directly.

--
Doug Goldstein

ciaran.mccreesh at googlemail

Dec 6, 2008, 7:44 AM

Post #2 of 14 (1205 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:08:19 -0500
Doug Goldstein <cardoe [at] gentoo> wrote:
> app-admin/eselect needs an interested an active maintainer. Looking
> for people to step up and fill this crucial development role.

If anyone's not aware... There's also eclectic, which is a forked
eselect with a bit more functionality, particularly in the "make it
easier to write foo-config style alternativesish modules" area:

http://git.exherbo.org/?p=eclectic.git;a=summary

--
Ciaran McCreesh

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dberkholz at gentoo

Dec 6, 2008, 11:44 PM

Post #3 of 14 (1201 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On 15:44 Sat 06 Dec , Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:08:19 -0500
> Doug Goldstein <cardoe [at] gentoo> wrote:
> > app-admin/eselect needs an interested an active maintainer. Looking
> > for people to step up and fill this crucial development role.
>
> If anyone's not aware... There's also eclectic, which is a forked
> eselect with a bit more functionality, particularly in the "make it
> easier to write foo-config style alternativesish modules" area:
>
> http://git.exherbo.org/?p=eclectic.git;a=summary

I hadn't heard of it before, thanks for the ref. What was the reason for
forking the codebase? It gets pretty annoying to copy across useful
changes, especially while eselect is stuck in svn.

--
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

ciaran.mccreesh at googlemail

Dec 7, 2008, 6:46 AM

Post #4 of 14 (1195 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On Sat, 6 Dec 2008 23:44:40 -0800
Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz [at] gentoo> wrote:
> I hadn't heard of it before, thanks for the ref. What was the reason
> for forking the codebase? It gets pretty annoying to copy across
> useful changes, especially while eselect is stuck in svn.

Ease of getting things done. Going through Gentoo requires finding a
Gentoo maintainer, endless bikeshed arguments about how to implement
things like the new alternatives framework and then months of waiting
for approval.

--
Ciaran McCreesh

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dberkholz at gentoo

Dec 8, 2008, 8:37 AM

Post #5 of 14 (1190 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On 14:46 Sun 07 Dec , Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Dec 2008 23:44:40 -0800
> Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz [at] gentoo> wrote:
> > I hadn't heard of it before, thanks for the ref. What was the reason
> > for forking the codebase? It gets pretty annoying to copy across
> > useful changes, especially while eselect is stuck in svn.
>
> Ease of getting things done. Going through Gentoo requires finding a
> Gentoo maintainer, endless bikeshed arguments about how to implement
> things like the new alternatives framework and then months of waiting
> for approval.

Open and public debate about the right way to do things does take
longer, and it's something you certainly participate in quite frequently
so I'm surprised to hear you badmouth it when it comes to your own
ideas.

--
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

ciaran.mccreesh at googlemail

Dec 8, 2008, 9:44 AM

Post #6 of 14 (1190 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On Mon, 8 Dec 2008 08:37:42 -0800
Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz [at] gentoo> wrote:
> Open and public debate about the right way to do things does take
> longer, and it's something you certainly participate in quite
> frequently so I'm surprised to hear you badmouth it when it comes to
> your own ideas.

Open and public debate requires two or more well informed parties who
are seeking to reach the best solution regardless of who proposed it,
and a deciding body who are prepared to go for the best solution even
if it isn't universally popular. This sometimes happens with Gentoo,
but unfortunately all too often it's one of these instead:

* A good proposal gets a few incorrect objections from people who
don't understand it and aren't prepared to put in the effort to
become well informed. The Council then uses these objections as an
excuse to sit on the proposal and do nothing for months, because
making a decision is harder than maintaining the status quo.

* A good proposal gets a whole load of silly, trivial and nonsensical
objections from sockpuppeting trolls who don't like the people who
came up with the proposal (or sometimes from sockpuppeting trolls who
suspect that the person who came up with the proposal once spoke to
the cousin of a cleaner who once worked for the nephew of someone who
said that the proposal looked sensible...). The Council do not
dismiss these objections because they don't want to risk upsetting
anyone.

* A good proposal comes along. Its proof of concept implementation is
done using a project that is considered by some to risk upsetting the
status quo. A bunch of people who are involved in the proposal get
fired.

* A proposal gets implemented without the debate. It's either a lousy
proposal that we're then stuck with, or a decent proposal that has a
few flaws that could have been addressed.

This is the kind of 'open and public debate' one would expect from a
failing government trying to cling to power for a few more years or a
middle-management-heavy corporation on its last legs. It's fine if you
want to repaint the bikeshed a slightly nicer shade of magenta, but
it's a real nuisance for anything serious.

None of the people involved in the decision to fork eselect rather than
work on it for Gentoo are anything except entirely in favour of open and
public debate. It's just that they don't exactly have a positive
experience of that happening within Gentoo...

--
Ciaran McCreesh

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wk at mailstation

Dec 8, 2008, 9:49 AM

Post #7 of 14 (1191 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On Monday, 08. December 2008 17:37:42 Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> Open and public debate about the right way to do things does take
> longer, and it's something you certainly participate in quite
> frequently so I'm surprised to hear you badmouth it when it comes to
> your own ideas.

It's not about Ciaran's (or anyone's ideas). We openly and publicly
discuss such things in Exherbo, too. Not endlessly, though, but we get to
an actual decision in a much shorter timeframe.

Of course, Ciaran plays along the Gentoo way of either discussing things
till a) people are sufficiently annoyed about the length of the thread to
stop reading it at all (the normal procedure), b) the council decides to
postpone the decision to the next meeting during which it gets postponed
to the next meeting (and so on) or c) it's being decided that it's not
needed (only to discover half a year later that an issue has to be worked
around again because the real solution was treated in the way of a) or
b)). :-)

So this is not badmouthing but dealing with the facts of Gentoo.

Best regards, Wulf

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coldwind at gentoo

Dec 8, 2008, 10:19 AM

Post #8 of 14 (1193 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

(I'm replying to Ciaran's email, but my reply is for Donnie too)

El lun, 08-12-2008 a las 17:44 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh escribió:
> On Mon, 8 Dec 2008 08:37:42 -0800
> Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz [at] gentoo> wrote:
> > Open and public debate about the right way to do things does take
> > longer, and it's something you certainly participate in quite
> > frequently so I'm surprised to hear you badmouth it when it comes to
> > your own ideas.
>
> Open and public debate requires two or more well informed parties who
> are seeking to reach the best solution regardless of who proposed it,
> and a deciding body who are prepared to go for the best solution even
> if it isn't universally popular. This sometimes happens with Gentoo,
> but unfortunately all too often it's one of these instead:
>
> [long rant]

It's simpler. An alternatives framework was discussed openly and
publicly through @exherbo-dev. Discussing Exherbo development through
@gentoo-dev is impractical for both Gentoo and Exherbo.

Now, some Exherbo devs came up with an eselect fork, and Ciaran pointed
out in this thread that it could be useful for people looking for
improving eselect.

Anything else is irrelevant here.

Regards,
--
Santiago Moisés Mola
Jabber: cooldwind [at] gmail | GPG: AAD203B5

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comzeradd at autoverse

Dec 8, 2008, 10:28 AM

Post #9 of 14 (1180 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

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On Mon, 8 Dec 2008 17:44:34 +0000
Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh [at] googlemail> wrote:

> None of the people involved in the decision to fork eselect rather than
> work on it for Gentoo are anything except entirely in favour of open and
> public debate. It's just that they don't exactly have a positive
> experience of that happening within Gentoo...

so if that's your opinion about how debates are "handled" inside gentoo, why
did you post it on a gentoo mailing list?

- --
nikos roussos
pgp: 1AFCC7D3
[ http://autoverse.net/ ]
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ciaran.mccreesh at googlemail

Dec 8, 2008, 10:33 AM

Post #10 of 14 (1182 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On Mon, 8 Dec 2008 20:28:58 +0200
nikos roussos <comzeradd [at] autoverse> wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Dec 2008 17:44:34 +0000
> Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh [at] googlemail> wrote:
> > None of the people involved in the decision to fork eselect rather
> > than work on it for Gentoo are anything except entirely in favour
> > of open and public debate. It's just that they don't exactly have a
> > positive experience of that happening within Gentoo...
>
> so if that's your opinion about how debates are "handled" inside
> gentoo, why did you post it on a gentoo mailing list?

Because I don't think Gentoo is a lost cause. A lot of Gentoo's problems
are fixable.

--
Ciaran McCreesh

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usr.gentoo at googlemail

Dec 8, 2008, 11:00 AM

Post #11 of 14 (1180 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Ciaran McCreesh
<ciaran.mccreesh [at] googlemail> wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Dec 2008 08:37:42 -0800
> Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz [at] gentoo> wrote:
>> Open and public debate about the right way to do things does take
>> longer, and it's something you certainly participate in quite
>> frequently so I'm surprised to hear you badmouth it when it comes to
>> your own ideas.
>
> Open and public debate requires two or more well informed parties who
> are seeking to reach the best solution regardless of who proposed it,
> and a deciding body who are prepared to go for the best solution even
> if it isn't universally popular. This sometimes happens with Gentoo,
> but unfortunately all too often it's one of these instead:
>
> * A good proposal gets a few incorrect objections from people who
> don't understand it and aren't prepared to put in the effort to
> become well informed. The Council then uses these objections as an
> excuse to sit on the proposal and do nothing for months, because
> making a decision is harder than maintaining the status quo.
>
> * A good proposal gets a whole load of silly, trivial and nonsensical
> objections from sockpuppeting trolls who don't like the people who
> came up with the proposal (or sometimes from sockpuppeting trolls who
> suspect that the person who came up with the proposal once spoke to
> the cousin of a cleaner who once worked for the nephew of someone who
> said that the proposal looked sensible...). The Council do not
> dismiss these objections because they don't want to risk upsetting
> anyone.
>
> * A good proposal comes along. Its proof of concept implementation is
> done using a project that is considered by some to risk upsetting the
> status quo. A bunch of people who are involved in the proposal get
> fired.
>
> * A proposal gets implemented without the debate. It's either a lousy
> proposal that we're then stuck with, or a decent proposal that has a
> few flaws that could have been addressed.
>
> This is the kind of 'open and public debate' one would expect from a
> failing government trying to cling to power for a few more years or a
> middle-management-heavy corporation on its last legs. It's fine if you
> want to repaint the bikeshed a slightly nicer shade of magenta, but
> it's a real nuisance for anything serious.
>
> None of the people involved in the decision to fork eselect rather than
> work on it for Gentoo are anything except entirely in favour of open and
> public debate. It's just that they don't exactly have a positive
> experience of that happening within Gentoo...
>
> --
> Ciaran McCreesh
>

Reminds me so much of
http://tieguy.org/blog/2008/12/05/the-linux-desktops-change-problem/

antarus at gentoo

Dec 8, 2008, 12:56 PM

Post #12 of 14 (1185 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 9:49 AM, Wulf C. Krueger <wk [at] mailstation> wrote:
> On Monday, 08. December 2008 17:37:42 Donnie Berkholz wrote:
>> Open and public debate about the right way to do things does take
>> longer, and it's something you certainly participate in quite
>> frequently so I'm surprised to hear you badmouth it when it comes to
>> your own ideas.
>
> It's not about Ciaran's (or anyone's ideas). We openly and publicly discuss
> such things in Exherbo, too. Not endlessly, though, but we get to an actual
> decision in a much shorter timeframe.
>
> Of course, Ciaran plays along the Gentoo way of either discussing things
> till a) people are sufficiently annoyed about the length of the thread to
> stop reading it at all (the normal procedure), b) the council decides to
> postpone the decision to the next meeting during which it gets postponed to
> the next meeting (and so on) or c) it's being decided that it's not needed
> (only to discover half a year later that an issue has to be worked around
> again because the real solution was treated in the way of a) or b)). :-)
>
> So this is not badmouthing but dealing with the facts of Gentoo.

s/Gentoo/Any 'large' organization with little or no management/

it turns out this is a problem in a number of other organizations;
hopefully Gentoo will get better at addressing them.

-Alec

>
> Best regards, Wulf

fmccor at gentoo

Dec 8, 2008, 1:30 PM

Post #13 of 14 (1186 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 12:56 -0800, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 9:49 AM, Wulf C. Krueger <wk [at] mailstation> wrote:
> > On Monday, 08. December 2008 17:37:42 Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> >> Open and public debate about the right way to do things does take
> >> longer, and it's something you certainly participate in quite
> >> frequently so I'm surprised to hear you badmouth it when it comes to
> >> your own ideas.
> >
> > It's not about Ciaran's (or anyone's ideas). We openly and publicly discuss
> > such things in Exherbo, too. Not endlessly, though, but we get to an actual
> > decision in a much shorter timeframe.
> >
> > Of course, Ciaran plays along the Gentoo way of either discussing things
> > till a) people are sufficiently annoyed about the length of the thread to
> > stop reading it at all (the normal procedure), b) the council decides to
> > postpone the decision to the next meeting during which it gets postponed to
> > the next meeting (and so on) or c) it's being decided that it's not needed
> > (only to discover half a year later that an issue has to be worked around
> > again because the real solution was treated in the way of a) or b)). :-)
> >
> > So this is not badmouthing but dealing with the facts of Gentoo.
>
> s/Gentoo/Any 'large' organization with little or no management/
>
> it turns out this is a problem in a number of other organizations;
> hopefully Gentoo will get better at addressing them.
>
> -Alec
>
Interesting (and valid) point. Perhaps this argues for more (or more
active) mamagement.

> >
> > Best regards, Wulf
>
Regards,
Ferris
--
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor [at] gentoo>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Userrel, Trustees)

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slong at rathaus

Dec 9, 2008, 6:20 AM

Post #14 of 14 (1183 views)
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Re: app-admin/eselect needs YOUR help [In reply to]

Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
>> Donnie Berkholz wrote:
>> > I hadn't heard of it before, thanks for the ref. What was the reason
>> > for forking the codebase? It gets pretty annoying to copy across
>> > useful changes, especially while eselect is stuck in svn.
>>
>> Ease of getting things done. Going through Gentoo requires finding a
>> Gentoo maintainer, endless bikeshed arguments about how to implement
>> things like the new alternatives framework and then months of waiting
>> for approval.
>
> Open and public debate about the right way to do things does take
> longer, and it's something you certainly participate in quite frequently
> so I'm surprised to hear you badmouth it when it comes to your own
> ideas.
>
You should have posted this to -project imo, as it's not about any technical
points, but rather about non-technical aspects of development.

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