Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

Back2Cali · 2007-03-12 15:15:13

I just took a look at distrowatch and read this article:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070312#future

So I just thought by myself "What the **** is going on with Gentoo?"...
The next thought was "What would the Arch community do if there would ever be some situation like that???".

And now here I am, looking for an answer.
I mean up to now the Arch developers and the community around them are the most friendly ones I have ever seen. But I was also worried how things would develop in future. I mean as mentioned in this article Gentoo was once the fastest growing Disto known to mankind and now according to this article they're messing up with all the potential the have had.
So since I think that Archlinux has the potential to be even better than Gentoo I was wondering how the people behind Arch will prevent situations like this? I mean compared to Gentoo Arch currently is rather small (like Gentoo also was in the beginning), but who knows what will happen in the future? And with more people there will be more different opinions. So besides the KISS philosophy is there anything else written down to secure the future of Arch so Gentoo's current problems won't happen?

Anyway, I was just thinking about that and wanted to ask the people in here and mainly the developers what they think about it? Does there exist something to prevent the problems Gentoo currently has?

Thanks for every answer!

fk · 2007-03-12 15:43:57

Arch has an Leader (Judd) who say we go this way... and Gentoo not, this is the problem.

Back2Cali · 2007-03-12 16:14:56

So you say that as long as Arch stays with its hierarchic system everything will stay fine? Did I get this straight?
But what comes after Judd? (Sorry Judd, this is not meant offensive ). I mean once it grows as big as Gentoo already is, it'll become difficult to watch over everything for only one person. And what will happen than? Does Arch still stays with a more hierarchic system or what will happen than? And I think in order to continue with a hierarchic system you have to be sure that the people in higher positions are absolutely loyal to you which obviously wasn't the case at Gentoo. Otherwise you need more people supporting the project.... But isn't that exactly what happened to Gentoo... As soon as it started to grow many people got involved. And it looks like they never had a plan to handle this new situation. Or maybe their plan just sucked...
And now there was this article at distrowatch....

So how will Arch prevent such a situation?

mucknert · 2007-03-12 17:11:11

It is actually pretty easy: Judd says who is a Dev and who is not. As long as he (and the other core Devs) have no interest in making Arch bigger there won't be such a problem. Or that is how I see the project. I like it that way, too.

Last edited by mucknert (2007-03-12 17:11:30)

Zer0 · 2007-03-12 17:49:25

Wow I had no idea what was going on with Gentoo.. why the hell would dev's fight personal battles against each other? Is there not better things to do?

I hope this never happens to Arch.. as it seems to me that Arch is starting to get more publicity with articles like "making [insert other distro here] as fast as arch" poping up in other distro's forums and other places around the net.

What would happen if Judd abandoned the project due to lack of interest or time? Who would take over? What if Judd later decided to come back a few years later? Would the new Dev's bicker and flame each other?

Aside from that Arch has had some pretty good decisions about implementing hierarchy changes. It's my understanding that the extra repo was once unofficial and now it's maintained by other devs. The AUR was once unoffical and now it's right there on the homepage. Maintained by TU's and added too by regular users.. The power is there to give and take away if need be.

All in all, during these great changes I don't think there have been any wars between Judd, other Devs and/or TU's. Hopefully we will continue to progress in this direction all the while adapting to change when needed.

Just my 2 cents

Dusty · 2007-03-12 19:10:15

Clearly, the problems gentoo is facing are not because of their size. Nobody knows if Arch can or will scale to the kind of popularity Gentoo has seen, but I, for one, don't think it will have to. Arch is a niche distro, suitable for those people who choose to develop it, and mostly suitable for those of us that choose to use it. Judd never meant it to have as many users as it has now. I don't think distrowatch popularity is a good measure of a distribution's "success". I think the percentage of satisfied users would be a better number to report.

I would suggest that the two developers discussed in the article are never going to be able to work together. I agree with the author that Daniel Robbins has more right to the project than the miscelaneous unknown gentoo developer. From history, my guess is that Daniel Robbins will either fork the distro or start from scratch. This is supposed to be bad for open source, but I personally think its a great thing, its a chance for evolution to occur. Eventually, the stronger fork will "win" or they'll grow to serve different audiences.

Can this happen to Arch? Obviously, because it already has: see the infighting between Arch and Frugalware devs over pacman 3 and other issues. I don't think its really had a negative impact on either of the two distros, in the long run. They serve different audiences, and AFAIK, both are considered 'successful'.

Dusty

McQueen · 2007-03-12 19:51:11

I'm a drobbins supporter. He wrote some of the best Linux docs available. But the idea that he was taken unaware of the off-topic attacks, behavior & politics in the dev-gentoo arena (and because of this was forced to resign again) is just lunacy. He withstood much greater storms during his tenure as leader there and never had an issue with giving as good as he got. True, he could tell people to drop it or move on back then, but I refuse to buy into the idea that he got noosed by a gang of fanatics who took him by surprise, all the while being shocked at the lack of civility within the castle walls. The guy went through the whole developer application process again, had a very well connected sponsor, and had been subscribing to the public dev-list.

Last edited by McQueen (2007-03-12 19:52:06)

brewin · 2007-03-12 20:18:28

I dumped Gentoo for Arch when Diego Pettenò left due to similar hostility. I'm not surprised Robbins left so quickly. It's not the same project it was in 2004.

cactus · 2007-03-12 20:46:25

haven't watched it yet..but it sounds interesting...
http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid= … 1522818645

EDIT: Watched it. Turned out..it was pretty awesome.

McQueen · 2007-03-12 22:44:12

cactus wrote:

haven't watched it yet..but it sounds interesting...
http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid= … 1522818645
EDIT: Watched it. Turned out..it was pretty awesome.

A safe bet Gentoo is at the 'Disinfection' stage.

Zer0 · 2007-03-13 01:19:20

cactus wrote:

haven't watched it yet..but it sounds interesting...
http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid= … 1522818645
EDIT: Watched it. Turned out..it was pretty awesome.

Interesting video.. anybody who's a developer should watch it. If your short on time watch from 22:00 to 45:00 it's the "beef" of the topic.

Snarkout · 2007-03-13 02:54:09

Dusty wrote:

Can this happen to Arch? Obviously, because it already has: see the infighting between Arch and Frugalware devs over pacman 3 and other issues. I don't think its really had a negative impact on either of the two distros, in the long run. They serve different audiences, and AFAIK, both are considered 'successful'.
Dusty

I'd noticed a bit of friction between the distros, but never really understood why other than the frugalbuild system and pacman being based on ABS and, well, pacman. I'm also totally out of the loop. Is there actual "infighting?"

In any case, I agree that Arch's community has always been very pleasent (at least IME) - especially the devs I see posting here or on the mailing list. I have kind of a hard time seeing the Gentoo thing happening.

iphitus · 2007-03-13 11:31:42

Linked article is mostly sensationalist crap anyway.

It quotes a known troll as a reference.... that's like citing a p0rn film as a scholarly accurate reference in a theology assignment.

James

edit: an since when did we have censoring on these fourms? What's wrong with spelling p0rn correctly?

Last edited by iphitus (2007-03-13 11:32:25)

buddabrod · 2007-03-13 11:49:12

I changed completely over to Arch (from gentoo) when flameeyes left gentoo. All that flaming in their forums is so disgusting.. My parent's pc is now running Arch, too (gentoo before) and i do not regret it at all. gentoo, r.i.p.

clarence · 2007-03-13 12:21:59

I think every community needs a mediator or two.

chaosgeisterchen · 2007-03-13 14:20:36

clarence wrote:

I think every community needs a mediator or two.

I can clearly second that. If a community has a appropiate number of able mediators at its disposal, a consensus can be reached rather easily.

Without those persons, flamewars will get out of hand.

cactus · 2007-03-13 16:04:14

iphitus wrote:

edit: an since when did we have censoring on these fourms? What's wrong with spelling p0rn correctly?

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 78#p234978

chaosgeisterchen · 2007-03-13 21:42:39

cactus wrote:

haven't watched it yet..but it sounds interesting...
http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid= … 1522818645
EDIT: Watched it. Turned out..it was pretty awesome.

Thanks for that link. I watched the video and tried to understand all of it, minding the fact, that I am actually not a open source developer - but in the end it turned out to be eligible for each and every type of community (also including the scarce ones where I either am or was in charge of a moderator title). It might be a bit offtopic, but I indeed have to be grateful to have access to material just like that. These are real professionals, which are still down-to-earth (no wonder, if one takes a closer look on what their work is like), sharing their knowledge for free. I have no problem with Google having a copyright on this material, as long as it is accessible for each and everyone and it is for free. In the end it turned out to change my point of view a bit, about what the open source community is really like and how to improve the climate of a community, minding its targets. I will definitely take a closer look at additional material on video.google.com, as this resource seems to be promising.

Thanks for your attention anyhow. Just in case this posting was inappropiate, I would like a TU/moderator to delete it for the community's sake.

Last edited by chaosgeisterchen (2007-03-13 21:44:51)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-03-12 15:15:13

Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#2 2007-03-12 15:43:57

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#3 2007-03-12 16:14:56

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#4 2007-03-12 17:11:11

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#5 2007-03-12 17:49:25

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#6 2007-03-12 19:10:15

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#7 2007-03-12 19:51:11

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#8 2007-03-12 20:18:28

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#9 2007-03-12 20:46:25

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#10 2007-03-12 22:44:12

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#11 2007-03-13 01:19:20

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#12 2007-03-13 02:54:09

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#13 2007-03-13 11:31:42

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#14 2007-03-13 11:49:12

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#15 2007-03-13 12:21:59

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#16 2007-03-13 14:20:36

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#17 2007-03-13 16:04:14

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

#18 2007-03-13 21:42:39

Re: Is Arch's future more secure than Gentoo's present???

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