Richard Freeman's Council Manifesto 2016


About Me

I've been a Gentoo dev since 2007, and I have been using Gentoo since
the days of dialup.  My education is in Biochemistry, and I've been
dealing with IT in Pharma for about 15 years now.


What is Gentoo

I've seen a lot of calls for Gentoo to define itself, but personally I
think Gentoo's whole strength is its diversity.  There is no part of
Gentoo (its projects) that I think we could do with less of.  Obviously
our strengh comes from being the premiere source-based distribution, but
I don't even see this as a fundamental limitation - if somebody cared to
greatly improve our binary package support more power to them.

Gentoo is whatever its community wants to put in the time to make it.


The Role of the Council

Honestly, more often than not I think the proper role of the Council is
to stay out of the way.  Encouraging/supporting/etc is of course to be,
well, encouraged and supported, but being entirely volunteer-driven when
it comes to real power the Council really can only block contribution.
I do support a reasonably activist Council, but only when there is
actual conflict to be resolved.  The best compromises are ones which
minimize interference across the community, and which allows every
individual to maximize their contribution.

I really think the primary job of the Council is to be a decision-making
body.  If you feel passionately about an issue, you're going to want to
be able to respect the decisions made by the Council if that issue comes
before them.  I think any other duty is secondary.  I think ANY member
of the community can contribute in any way, and I fully support clearing
the way for them to do so.

In a similar way I don't believe it is the resonsibility of the Council
to "oversee" or clean up after the Trustees.  You get to vote for them,
or volunteer to help them.  They have an important job, so take your
vote seriously.


Approach

I'm not going to take a position on any specific issues because honestly
I don't see anything urgently pressing at the moment, and I think this
is a result of good decisions made by the Council over the previous
term.  Instead I'll try to describe how I try to handle problems.  If
you bring a matter to the Council, or should unfortunately be in the
position of appealing a Comrel action to the Council you can expect me
to act accordingly.

* At the most fundamental level, all contribution is individual
  contribution.  When there isn't a good reason to interfere with
  individual contribution, we shouldn't.

* Once we give them to Gentoo, we do not have the right to control our
  contributions.  Nobody owns a package.  Nobody has the right to exclude
  others from making contributions.

* It is always best to make individuals responsible for cleaning up
  their own messes.  If you want to introduce a new feature that requires
  tree-wide changes, the onus is on you to communicate and document
  the change, avoid creating inordinate burdens on everybody else, and
  introduce it smoothly.  Once in place it becomes every developer's
  responsibility to preserve the new feature.

* Having our cake and eating it too is the Gentoo way.  I like the
  Gentoo way.  Mixins and anything else that breaks the power of defaults
  to force users to configure systems in a particular way is the way to
  go, as long as it is supportable.  For things that aren't supportable we
  should have hooks to let users override stuff and keep the pieces.

* While it is always best for devs/teams/etc to resolve their own
  issues, it is better to escalate them to the Council than to let them
  fester.  That's the Council's job, and the reason I support a $10k/yr
  compensation for Council members.  (Hey, I have to do something to make
  sure you're reading this.)

* Changes to be made by the Council are best discussed on lists prior to
  any votes.  The ability to recognize good ideas is at least as important
  for a Council member as the ability to come up with them.

* Code of conduct is important.  If comrel gives you a hard time, don't
  expect me to just bail you out.  I favor rehabilitation over punishment,
  but there has to be a commitment to change.  If you're struggling with
  conflict, please try to get help with it before it gets to that point.
  I'm always willing to listen.

* Contributions besides maintaining packages are important.  Anyone
  who wants to formalize their involvement in such activites has my full
  support (projects, dev/staff status, etc).

* Ultimately, this is all FOSS.  If you don't see something happening
  which you think should be happening, you actually have the power to
  make it happen.  The best coders/documenters/helpers/etc are not
  necessarily the best Council members, and that doesn't make either job
  more important than the other.