> I've caught a whiff or two lately that Gentoo is declining in
> popularity amongst users and developers. Is it all in my head? I
> personally still love Gentoo.
there are always several phases in the life of a distri.
Beginning, when it becomes 'cool' and a sudden surge in users, some time of
high popularity, a decline, and at the end, only the users who are
really 'the right ones' for that kind of distri are left.
So the 'always using the cool thing' users are gone and the 'we are using what
the cool guys were using' crowd is leaving now. So what? Are they important?
No. At some point ubuntu will suffer the same. And then the next cool distro
de jour.
Some decline in user interest is normal - and a healthy process. Because it
removes the 'I use it because it is cool' and 'I use it because everybody
else uses it' type of users.
I'm thinking this over a bit more, and it seems like the best thing
for Gentoo (or any distro) is a lot of users. More users must mean
more active developers, and more active developers must mean an
increased rate of growth for the software.
I believe the great benefit of Gentoo is its flexibility, and
flexibility is like a meta-benefit because it makes possible any other
benefit. What do you think makes Ubuntu the distro of the moment? Is
it ease-of-use? If Gentoo focused more on ease-of-use aspects of the
Ubuntu variety, they would attract more users and thereby increase the
rate of growth for the software.
Popular migration from one distro to the next sends a very important
signal to any distro that wants to grow.
- Grant
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