projects

if you’ve been following universe and the dev mailing list, you know all about the latest craze in flaming, Seeds. personally, i think the idea has some merits. project status? not sure. maybe. too early to really say, isn’t it?

now i have this problem with too many unfinished projects, and i’ve avoided it by not announcing anything until i have something to show. call it the “show me the money” attitude, but i prefer not to say anything about a project i’m working on until there’s something viable to show for it. at that point, you can turn around and say “hey, here’s this thing i’ve been toying with, what do you think, want it?” instead, folks are announcing ideas for projects and getting shot up (if not down) far too quickly.

not every idea is worth being a “gentoo” project. but that doesn’t mean that the idea shouldn’t be explored. host it externally until its accepted, move it into the fold when its ready. if its appealing, people will flock to it and let you know.

but then you have folks like this dev on slashdot who starts off his post that he’s posting anon because (s)he “don’t feel like getting fired for speaking out against a certain clique.” wth? since when did expressing an opinion cause you to get “fired” (like its a job or a chore rather than a past time and hobby). but then they go further, and this is their real point, to sidestep seeds all together and instead bash seemant.

unfortunately, i probably count as a “seemant fanboy” because seemant and i get along pretty well even when we disagree on stuff. i can only guess seemant was picked out of the crowd because he’s been around forever, and lately he’s been a little more vocal than in the recent past (this, by the way, is what we call “a good thing” – seemant, good to see you blogging and voicing up again 🙂 ).

bah. what’s the point to this ramble? I think i was aiming for two points actually: second, what a silly sod to turn a discussion on seeds into a bashing of someone you don’t care for; and first (yes, that’s in reverse order for those of you wondering), there should be a clear line between projects and “Gentoo Projects”. Having a project shouldn’t be subject to the level of pain folks have been getting lately – a project should be something you work on in your spare spare spare time (’cause your doing bugs and canoeing or whatever in your spare and spare spare time). “Gentoo Projects,” imho, should be the next stage in the evolution of a project, when it’s been looked at and has something tangible to it, and folks can say “this fits into the greater scheme of things, let’s make it official so we can give it that backbone stability and legitimacy that it’s earned.”

If the worst that comes from it is tsunam’s quote of “Gentoo: making mistakes in the open to prove we are just like you” then that’s the case, cool, it’ll be a lesson to the next person/group that wants to try something similar.

bah.