Stuart Herbert | Gentoo

http://freshmeat.net/daily/2005/07/09/

Here’s yesterday’s interesting Freshmeat announcements for web-based apps and related technologies.

• Leonardo 0.6.2, a personal Web site system that includes a password-protected wiki and blog.
• NanobloggerComments 0.9.6 is a PHP/MySQL-based comment system for Nanoblogger.
• pylize 1.2.1b isn’t strictly a web-based app, but it does allow you to generate a web-based presentation.
• Drivel 2.0.2 is a Gnome-based editor for blogs.
• IDX-Tsunami 1.0.3 is a distributed load-testing tool, which can be used to test web servers.
• libcddb 1.1.0 is library which provides access to CDDB servers such as freedb.org.
• easy Treemanager 0.0.1 is a multi-user bookmark manager.

If you’re like me, you probably find elections very dull and boring. I wasn’t planning on posting anything about what I’d do if I was voted onto the newly created Gentoo Council (which is replacing the current TLP Managers group), but Aron has asked nominees to post a few words, so here goes.

The new council’s role is to decide on “global issues”. I’m a great believer that the best people to make decisions are those nearest the work. So, for me, the role of each member of the council is to ensure that as many decisions as possible can be made by the elected Strategic and Operational leads of the herds and projects that make up Gentoo. I’d like the Council to look at whatever issues are brought to it, and do its damnedest to bring together the people who are closest to the work for them to decide.

When the Council has to decide on an issue, I believe it should make decisions based on the principles of respect, responsibility, and inclusiveness. There should be respect between all the people who give up their free time as volunteers to work on Gentoo. There should be respect for the ideas and needs of different groups and projects, and people need to understand that different groups have different needs. Projects and their leads should be given responsibility for what affects them - and they should be held responsible for what they do or do not do. There should be room in Gentoo for as many different groups as possible. We shouldn’t discourage any active group which wants to contribute to the project - provided they follow the principles of respect and responsibility

I believe that Gentoo always has - and always will - find its own level of features, quality, and general usefulness based on what every volunteer is willing to do. That’s why we don’t have a single roadmap for the whole project - and why I don’t believe it’s the Council’s job to create or own such a roadmap.

If you have any questions, please email me, and I’ll do my best to answer.