On 7 April 2010 11:05, Ulrich Mueller <u...@gentoo.org> wrote: > Next monthly council meeting will be at 19 April 2010, 18:00 UTC > in #gentoo-council. > > If you have any topics you want us to discuss or even vote about, > simply followup to this message.
1. reconsider metadata changepolicies proposal ============================================== The fact is there is a spectrum from ebuild maintainers' side about how desirable it is for non-maintainers to step in, ranging from "don't touch this ever" to "please do touch this". There may be very valid reasons for this (in some cases intimate knowledge of the package may be required, for example, or on the opposite side someone might not have the time or motivation to do much about that specific package) that have little to do with territoriality. While there is a need for basic policies to be made more explicit, it is also obvious that there is no good "one policy fits all" approach. The metadata changepolicies proposal beautifully captured this spectrum and has wide support from developers. While this information isn't directly useful to users, the argument that it "would bloat the file for no good reason" is false, because there are very good reasons: to facilitate cooperation between devs as well as a better overall quality of the tree. This benefits users, so I'm quite sure they don't mind we use metadata.xml for that. Can council please decide to honor the wish from developers to implement this? 2. website redesign =================== This is a recurring theme in discussions about Gentoo's shortcomings. While there have been some minor improvements in recent years, the resign project itself failed miserably, but is still as needed as ever. We should have one elegant design that will be consistently applied to all official Gentoo websites. A look at znurt.org should convince anyone of what can be done. Also our frontpage needs to be more focussed on communicating the things users and new visitors are looking for. Can council assure that a team will be assembled that can effectively tackle this issue? 3. manpower and recruitment issues ================================== Another recurring theme is the lack of manpower in certain areas, the recruitment bottleneck and the quizzes. There are some initiatives but more decisive leadership is needed. Can council decide to actively pursue solutions for these structural problems? 4. devrel ineffectiveness ========================= What can be done to assure that conflicts are addressed in a timely and effective manner by DevRel? What can be done to remove poisonous people from Gentoo and its communication channels more decisively and effectively? The fact that many people indicate they do not want to become a developer for this exact reason, should be cause for concern. Can council make a statement that they share these concerns and are actively looking to address them? 5. centralize developer documentation ===================================== Currently the documentation a developer needs to effectively write ebuilds and maintain packages is scattered all over the place. We have the (incomplete) devmanual, the developer handbook, various guides and policies in individual projects, the GLEPs, council decisions, and a legacy of unwritten rules or poorly documented policies. It would be very helpful to centralize all that information, and work on properly documenting our policies. At the very least there should be one page that funtions as a portal to all existing relevant information. Even better would be to have as much of that relevant information as possible consolidated into one place, so that everyone knows where to go to look that up. Can council decide to see this implemented? Thanks, -- Ben de Groot Gentoo Qt project lead developer Gentoo Wiki project lead
