On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 9:00 AM, Anthony G. Basile <bluen...@gentoo.org> wrote: > > Forking code does not address the QA issues currently against > toolchain.eclass. The two issues are orthogonal and I don't think I > connected them in my emails. I disagree with forking but have no right to > obstruct it and would not. In that respect, I'm simply voicing my opinion > as a dev. However regarding how QA should operate, I am operating with the > guidelines of gentoo self-governance. >
++ Honestly, I don't think internal forks are terribly helpful either in the long run. Sometimes they seem to be needed at some point to at least push things along, but obviously it would be better to focus on one package. I just don't want to be critical of those who want to fork things, as they usually have very legitimate concerns and at least by forking they're producing something new that people can play with and test, which can help us cross the gap from where we are to where we want to be. A big reason there are forks is that sometimes people just get fed up with trying to work with people and would prefer to go do something even if it basically means re-inventing the wheel. I was thinking about this earlier today after being somewhat frustrated with a completely different FOSS issue. The nature of Gentoo tends to draw a lot of people who want to achieve their vision of technical perfection. This makes it really hard for all of us to work together. I'll admit that there are times I get sick of some of the debates on the lists/etc, and I'm sure everybody on all sides of every issue tends to feel the same way. We keep coming back because we think there is something here worth fighting for, and sometimes even worth compromising for. Forks can be a way to try out new things, and turning theoretical arguments into practical comparisons. Sure, they can also be incredible "wastes" of time, but so is just about anything that any of us do for fun. I think that creating something new is far more productive than arguing on lists, even if in the end the work gets abandoned (though this is rarely the case - usually something gets re-appropriated which is the whole point of FOSS). Forks are also a great way to get new blood into an arcane subject - making incremental changes on a mature codebase is often a lot harder than making incremental changes on a new codebase that likely leaves out 50% of the corner cases. If we don't have friendly internal competition, it will just make it that much harder to stay relevant. Let's just try to keep it friendly. :) -- Rich
