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Aron Griffis wrote:
> I have worked in the enterprise
> UNIX market for 6 years. My code is running in places like NASA
> mission control, 9-1-1 call centers, and most of the telephone
> carriers. I've produced patches on weekends to close $800m deals.

Wow.


> I don't even understand why that goal appeals to people. Let other
> distros go there! I want Gentoo to run in people's homes, in student
> dorm rooms, etc. Places where people want a fun distribution that
> they can tailor and work on easily.
>
> I like the idea of Gentoo on alternative arches and in embedded
> environments. Not because I want Sony to start using Gentoo on
> walkmans, but purely because the idea of running Linux on a PDA is
> cool. I'd like Gentoo to be a place where neat things are developed.
> If RH or SuSE (or another for-profit Linux vendor) wants to take some
> of those developments and use them to make a profit, that's fine with
> me. We're over here having fun.

I couldn't agree more. World domination doesn't really excite me in the
least. All that matters to me is that I've got a distro that I enjoy
using and working on. In fact, it seems to me that many of the things I
dislike about other OS's and other distros are the result of some drive
towards an idiot-proof, user friendly, "enterprise" product. I very much
want to preserve gentoo as it is.

Thats certaintly not to say that I'm against progress, but if people
want support contracts, the absolute ultimate in stability, and install
CD's shipped in pretty boxes with manuals, there are other distros
available for them.

- --Colin
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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 19:55 -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:

<snip>

> In my humble opinion, Gentoo is missing too many points to be an
> enterprise Linux. We commit to a live tree. We don't have true QA,
> testing or tinderbox. We don't have paid staff, alpha/beta/rc cycles.
> We don't really have product lifecycles, since we don't generally
> backport fixes to older versions, requiring instead for people to
> update to a more recent release. We don't have, and probably will
> never be able to offer, support contracts. We support as wide a range
> of hardware as the upstream kernel, plus hardware that requires
> external drivers; we don't have access to a great deal of the hardware
> for which we provide drivers. We understand when real life gets in
> the way of bug-fixing, because all our developers are volunteers.

I tend to agree with most of those problems you mention. I've tried to
think of ways to make Gentoo fit more into an enterprise market ... its
not that easy.

* We'd need a tree that isn't 'live' per say, something that has a
lifecycle and only includes security/criticial software bug updates
* We'd need a full staffed QA/testing/tenderbox crew to do make it
truely 'stable'
* We'd need to have a better way to backport fixes
* We could never probably offer support contracts, but that doesn't mean
someone in the private world could do it.
* Access to drivers/hardware would be a major problem that would be hard
to solve without corporate funding.

> I think that attempting to take Gentoo in the "enterprise" direction
> is a mistake. I think that we are a hobbyist distribution. This
> doesn't mean that we should not strive to meet some of the enterprise
> goals. Those things can be important to hobbyists too. But I don't
> think we should be aiming for corporate America.

I'd say as a global goal, yes I'd agree with you. Gentoo as a global
entity should stay where its at, but that doesn't mean a subset of
Gentoo could have a goal towards being enterprise. I don't really see
Gentoo has a hobbyist distribution as a whole. I know a majority of our
folks use Gentoo as a development OS which is great and it works
perfectly for that, but I can see Gentoo working into a more enterprise
environment with some work. I know several folks that run Gentoo in a
production server environment and it runs well! Doesn't mean its easy to
maintain, but it is doable and I see some very benifical situations
where Gentoo would work best in production systems.

> I don't even understand why that goal appeals to people. Let other
> distros go there! I want Gentoo to run in people's homes, in student
> dorm rooms, etc. Places where people want a fun distribution that
> they can tailor and work on easily.

I envision the 'server/enterprise' project to help create numerous tools
that help aide Gentoo in a production environment. There's a lot of cool
stuff we could do to help make it run better in that type of
environment.

> Also I find it amusing when people say that Gentoo exists for the
> users. I think that is wrong. Gentoo exists for the *developers*.
> It's our playground, and it's the reason we use a live tree rather
> than switching to an actually sane approach. The users are cool
> because they point out bugs, help solve problems on bugzilla, suggest
> enhancements, provide patches, and notify us of package updates.
> Sometimes they become developers. But the truth is that Gentoo sees
> improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
> developers. And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
> the users second.

I see your point there, but I also think theres a group of people that
also like gentoo in the enterprise realm. I remember at the last LWE
show in San Francisco, there were numerous people asking about Gentoo
and making it more 'stable'. This would really be tied to an enterprise
level of Gentoo. So I know there is interest out there. We all have
opinions on were Gentoo should fit in, so I don't see why we couldn't
fit there.

To sum it up, to make Gentoo better in the enterprise isn't a bad goal
for some of us. It'd be a bad goal for Gentoo globally though. Take a
look at the hardened project for example. They've shown a good userbase
that likes how it works and the tools with it. I for see something
simliar happening to an enterprise sub-project (or whatever you'd call
it). Heck, maybe this idea would be better fit as a fork, who knows.
Would be neat to have a group of people working on this and helping
Gentoo if they find bugs in the process and fix them!

Anyways, you made some great points on where we fall, but I don't think
we should shoot down the idea or potential because some of us don't
think it'd work.

Cheers!

--
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

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On Monday 06 June 2005 16:55, Aron Griffis wrote:
> I think that attempting to take Gentoo in the "enterprise" direction
> is a mistake. I think that we are a hobbyist distribution. This
> doesn't mean that we should not strive to meet some of the enterprise
> goals. Those things can be important to hobbyists too. But I don't
> think we should be aiming for corporate America.

I've always felt Gentoo is better as a base or platform. There's certainly
enough power in the tools we provide for anyone to roll something
"enterprise" based upon our work. Or for any other purpose, including
binary-only.

Much in the same way as there are numerous distros that ARE Debian --
derived from and cooperative with, but not separate from.

People could always try to fork, too, but many of us know how well that
went for people who have tried...

Cheers,

--
Dylan Carlson [absinthe@gentoo.org]
Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x708E165F
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

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Dylan Carlson wrote:
> On Monday 06 June 2005 16:55, Aron Griffis wrote:
>
>>I think that attempting to take Gentoo in the "enterprise" direction
>>is a mistake. I think that we are a hobbyist distribution. This
>>doesn't mean that we should not strive to meet some of the enterprise
>>goals. Those things can be important to hobbyists too. But I don't
>>think we should be aiming for corporate America.
>
>
> I've always felt Gentoo is better as a base or platform. There's certainly
> enough power in the tools we provide for anyone to roll something
> "enterprise" based upon our work. Or for any other purpose, including
> binary-only.
There is power in Gentoo, the way you set things up, the choice
provided, the overall goal of Gentoo. There is not power in our tools.
Our tools are in fact underpowered IMHO. Thats one of the areas where
I think work is really needed, and a lot of what I want to work on is
portage-related tools. Much of this requires new portage API's which
are in progress but take a lot of work.

There is an installer project that will in principle facilitate large
scale Gentoo deployments, there is a GLEP for a stable tree, there is
hardened, and all of those are great.

>
> Much in the same way as there are numerous distros that ARE Debian --
> derived from and cooperative with, but not separate from.
>
> People could always try to fork, too, but many of us know how well that
> went for people who have tried...
>
Much better to be a meta meta distro such as Ubuntu that runs off of a
core gentoo install than to fork stuff, especially at present.

> Cheers,
>

I think in the end, Gentoo is too much a dynamic entity to be used for
a stable enterprise rollout. You would need something debianesque with
releases, or a Gentoo Snapshot ( say 2005.0 with bugfixes/security ). I
wonder at the allocation of things ( say the mySQL profile ) and when
things like that stay on Gentoo-owned hardware, vs. something like
breakmygentoo which is 3rd party. However I have faith that the
managers will enforce whatever is decided.

The whole point of this Open Source stuff anyway is to adapt things
however you need them, and Enterprise or not everyone has that option.

- -Ajec

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On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 19:55 -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:
> In my humble opinion, Gentoo is missing too many points to be an
> enterprise Linux. We commit to a live tree. We don't have true QA,
> testing or tinderbox. We don't have paid staff, alpha/beta/rc cycles.
> We don't really have product lifecycles, since we don't generally
> backport fixes to older versions, requiring instead for people to
> update to a more recent release. We don't have, and probably will
> never be able to offer, support contracts. We support as wide a range
> of hardware as the upstream kernel, plus hardware that requires
> external drivers; we don't have access to a great deal of the hardware
> for which we provide drivers. We understand when real life gets in
> the way of bug-fixing, because all our developers are volunteers.

I don't feel that the list of requirements you have for "enterprise"
linux is necessarily what the enterprise needs..

I think Gentoo has some steps that can be taken to be a better
enterprise player, but to come out and state that it won't work is a bit
bold. It might not work for HP's description of "enterprise", but that
doesn't mean it wouldn't work for someone else. I have talked with
people who have used Gentoo in HPC clusters with great success, and I
would consider that an enterprise arena.

> I think that attempting to take Gentoo in the "enterprise" direction
> is a mistake. I think that we are a hobbyist distribution. This
> doesn't mean that we should not strive to meet some of the enterprise
> goals. Those things can be important to hobbyists too. But I don't
> think we should be aiming for corporate America.

Wow... as a sysadmin who has run Gentoo in some very high profile
production systems that's a bit offensive to think I used it outside of
a hobbyist platform.. IBM didn't just donate a $30k system for ppc64
development to make it better for someone's basement use, so I don't
think I'm alone in thinking that Gentoo is above "hobbyist".

> I don't even understand why that goal appeals to people. Let other
> distros go there! I want Gentoo to run in people's homes, in student
> dorm rooms, etc. Places where people want a fun distribution that
> they can tailor and work on easily.

Let other distros go there at $1500/year/node (RHEL AS)...

Gentoo is already a fun distribution.. I don't think that has to change
to meet enterprise goals.

> If RH or SuSE (or another for-profit Linux vendor) wants to take some
> of those developments and use them to make a profit, that's fine with
> me. We're over here having fun.

Personally, I was drawn to Gentoo by the community, which was a lot of
fun. I still have fun working with the people in this community. I
don't see why an enterprise goal should be equated with losing the fun
aspect of Gentoo.

Cheers,

-Corey

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

My $.02 after reading a lot of discussions on the CentOS (ie free
REHL4) list is this:

1. Many Enterprise users are looking for an SLA, ie someone who will
guarantee to fix anything that breaks in a specified period of time.
Such users have the big bucks to pay for such a guarantee. I'm sure
that Gentoo will not be in a position to provide this, but some
enterprising group might want to undertake this.

2. Enterprise users (as a general rule) are not interested in the
latest and greatest but rather in a stable, reasonably current system
that can remain in place (with guaranteed security fixes, of course)
with no "feature creep" for a few years. Even Gentoo stable is too
much of a moving target for such users. The user base (engineers
developing embedded Linux) I support is still well served by RH9 for
the most part!

Not to say that Gentoo has no place in a production environment, but
my company would never use anything without an SLA, ie not even CentOS
which mirrors REHL faithfully.

--
Collins
Head teachers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but
the Start button.

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

On Monday 06 June 2005 19:45, Collins Richey wrote:
> 2. Enterprise users (as a general rule) are not interested in the
> latest and greatest but rather in a stable, reasonably current system
> that can remain in place (with guaranteed security fixes, of course)
> with no "feature creep" for a few years. Even Gentoo stable is too
> much of a moving target for such users. The user base (engineers
> developing embedded Linux) I support is still well served by RH9 for
> the most part!

"Feature creep" is largely a problem upstream, not with package
maintainers. And no, we're not gonna backport anything. If people really
believe that backporting fixes = stable and/or secure, let them use RH.
It's a belief, nothing more.

Cheers,
Dylan Carlson [absinthe@gentoo.org]
Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x708E165F
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On Monday 06 June 2005 11:29 pm, Dylan Carlson wrote:
> On Monday 06 June 2005 19:45, Collins Richey wrote:
> > 2. Enterprise users (as a general rule) are not interested in the
> > latest and greatest but rather in a stable, reasonably current system
> > that can remain in place (with guaranteed security fixes, of course)
> > with no "feature creep" for a few years. Even Gentoo stable is too
> > much of a moving target for such users. The user base (engineers
> > developing embedded Linux) I support is still well served by RH9 for
> > the most part!
>
> "Feature creep" is largely a problem upstream, not with package
> maintainers. And no, we're not gonna backport anything. If people really
> believe that backporting fixes = stable and/or secure, let them use RH.
> It's a belief, nothing more.

you really cant make that kind of general statement and expect it to hold ...
often times there are packages where newer versions suck more than previous
ones (the way in which they suck i leave up to your imagination) ...
security/stable minded people are often served best by ripping out the small
fixes for the current 'most stable' version

and i'm talking bugfixes here, not feature backports like redhat is known
for ... these are two very different things afterall
-mike
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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

On Monday 06 June 2005 20:36, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> you really cant make that kind of general statement and expect it to
> hold ... often times there are packages where newer versions suck more
> than previous ones (the way in which they suck i leave up to your
> imagination) ... security/stable minded people are often served best by
> ripping out the small fixes for the current 'most stable' version

Sure, but I'd say the instances where that is truly necessary is rare...
given the # of packages we deal with. Regardless of whatever QA we have
or RH has, every "enterprise" organization has to do their own tests
before they deploy new software. Backported fixes occasionally cause
problems. In the end, RH has very little liability if a customer
experiences downtime. If someone blindly deploys updates from any vendor
and has downtime, they only have themselves to blame.

I'll leave that to each respective package maintainer what's best. Setting
a policy either way seems like a mistake. When people say that
"enterprise" environments have these requirements (backporting fixes, et
al), they're really talking about another distro, not Gentoo. A separate
organization that uses Gentoo as a base, which would be great and the
right way to go about it...

If we stay flexible enough, people can get what they want out of Gentoo,
even if it's not specifically tailored for either enterprise or home
desktop environments.

Cheers,
Dylan Carlson [absinthe@gentoo.org]
Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x708E165F
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On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 07:55:50PM -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:
> I'd like Gentoo to be a place where neat things are developed.
> If RH or SuSE (or another for-profit Linux vendor) wants to take some
> of those developments and use them to make a profit, that's fine with
> me. We're over here having fun.

I second this. That's why I joined...

> Also I find it amusing when people say that Gentoo exists for the
> users. I think that is wrong. Gentoo exists for the *developers*.
> It's our playground, and it's the reason we use a live tree rather
> than switching to an actually sane approach. The users are cool
> because they point out bugs, help solve problems on bugzilla, suggest
> enhancements, provide patches, and notify us of package updates.
> Sometimes they become developers. But the truth is that Gentoo sees
> improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
> developers. And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
> the users second.

Heh, I like this too.

One thing that people might want to remember, if Gentoo ever changes
into a "real, we take your money for support" type of distro, a lot of
the employers of the us developers might reconsider allowing them to
participate. Which would pretty much suck...

Aron, thanks for writing this up, I enjoyed it.

thanks,

greg k-h

p.s. And yes, Gentoo is used for a "base" distro all over the place, and
that's great. Lots of embedded people like it, and even the nitwits at
OSDL are using it for their "Linux Reference Platform" or whatever they
are calling it these days...
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

I'm not a developer, but I'm a Gentoo bigot and I'd like to join the
discussion :).

Aron Griffis wrote:

>
>In my humble opinion, Gentoo is missing too many points to be an
>enterprise Linux. We commit to a live tree. We don't have true QA,
>testing or tinderbox. We don't have paid staff, alpha/beta/rc cycles.
>We don't really have product lifecycles, since we don't generally
>backport fixes to older versions, requiring instead for people to
>update to a more recent release. We don't have, and probably will
>never be able to offer, support contracts. We support as wide a range
>of hardware as the upstream kernel, plus hardware that requires
>external drivers; we don't have access to a great deal of the hardware
>for which we provide drivers. We understand when real life gets in
>the way of bug-fixing, because all our developers are volunteers.
>
>
Another thing worthy of mention here is that Gentoo is a non-profit
organization, with some rather tight restrictions imposed by US tax laws.

>I think that attempting to take Gentoo in the "enterprise" direction
>is a mistake. I think that we are a hobbyist distribution. This
>doesn't mean that we should not strive to meet some of the enterprise
>goals. Those things can be important to hobbyists too. But I don't
>think we should be aiming for corporate America.
>
>
You aren't -- trust me. You're not on corporate America's radar screen.
I'm not sure SuSE or Novell is either. Corporate America lives, breathes
and eats Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

>I don't even understand why that goal appeals to people. Let other
>distros go there! I want Gentoo to run in people's homes, in student
>dorm rooms, etc. Places where people want a fun distribution that
>they can tailor and work on easily.
>
>
Gentoo is running in my home. And it's running in a *lot* of laboratories.

>I like the idea of Gentoo on alternative arches and in embedded
>environments. Not because I want Sony to start using Gentoo on
>walkmans, but purely because the idea of running Linux on a PDA is
>cool. I'd like Gentoo to be a place where neat things are developed.
>If RH or SuSE (or another for-profit Linux vendor) wants to take some
>of those developments and use them to make a profit, that's fine with
>me. We're over here having fun.
>
>
>
It's also fine with the GPL :). I'm not sure I care about alternative
arches, given Apple's announcement today. In case you didn't hear,
they're migrating to Intel processors for Macs, starting as soon as next
year on the Mini-Mac. I've got a Zaurus; it's running some kind of Linux
and I'll probably put Gentoo on it when I get some spare cycles,
provided Gentoo runs on the 6000. But I'm sure as hell not gonna try to
run R or TeXmacs or Maxima on it!

>Also I find it amusing when people say that Gentoo exists for the
>users. I think that is wrong. Gentoo exists for the *developers*.
>It's our playground, and it's the reason we use a live tree rather
>than switching to an actually sane approach. The users are cool
>because they point out bugs, help solve problems on bugzilla, suggest
>enhancements, provide patches, and notify us of package updates.
>Sometimes they become developers. But the truth is that Gentoo sees
>improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
>developers. And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
>the users second.
>
>
Well ... OK ... I'll never become a developer; I just have too many
hobbies to pin myself down that tightly with what little free time I
have. I think you're right, though ... Gentoo *is* for the developers.
Ultimately, though, so is GNU/Linux. It's an enviroment of the
programmers, by the programmers, and for the programmers, to paraphrase
Abe Lincoln.

I'm certainly not in this to try and take money away from Bill Gates, or
to torture intellectual property attorneys. I'm in this because I like
the tools, I use the tools, I've been using similar tools for 20 years,
and I'm fortunate enough to have a day job where I spend at least a good
chunk of the time working with Linux.

So ... since nobody has asked ... why Gentoo? Well, I started out in
Linux with Red Hat 6.2, stayed with them through Red Hat 9. When they
created Fedora, I went to Debian. If Debian had the level of support for
Java that Gentoo has, I'd probably still be there. But it doesn't, so I
switched. The rest of Gentoo's joys just grew on me. :)

The best thing for me about Gentoo is that it's almost trivial to
package software. If you can download it, follow directions, and install
it, you're 90 percent of the way to packaging it! I was in a discussion
on the R developers mailing list the other day about package management.
They, like Perl, have their own source repository, dependency tree, etc.
It struck me that it would probably take less than a week to create
"/usr/portage/app-sci-CRAN" -- CRAN is the Comprehensive R Archive
Network -- and populate it with 500-odd R packages, complete with R
package dependencies *and* dependencies on underlying Linux packages,
something they don't seem to have now.
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On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 21:51 -0700, Greg KH wrote:

> One thing that people might want to remember, if Gentoo ever changes
> into a "real, we take your money for support" type of distro, a lot of
> the employers of the us developers might reconsider allowing them to
> participate. Which would pretty much suck...

Oh, I'd never want to see Gentoo become like that! But that doesn't mean
we can attempt to make a sub-project to make things at least better for
the enterprise folks. Whether that be creating tools to help management
multiple Gentoo machines, or dealing with a more 'stable' branch. I'm
not saying we'll ever achieve a level of where RHEL is, but we can at
least make it more manageable for folks. I know that won't help
companies that require a service agreement since we as Gentoo will never
be able to do that.

I get the sense that when people hear 'enterprise' they think we want to
take Gentoo to becoming a corporate monster like RH. I pray and hope
that never happens. All I'd like to see is a sub-project devoted to
Gentoo in the enterprise. It'd sit in a similar role as Hardened Gentoo
does providing tools, etc for folks in the enterprise.

Let the people who want to use Gentoo as a 'hobbist' distro use it like
that, and let the people that want to use it in the enterprise use it as
that.

Btw, I'm hoping to get this said sub-project going once I get settled in
with my move and new job. At least get some organization sorted with it.

--
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

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M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

>I've got a Zaurus; it's running some kind of Linux
>and I'll probably put Gentoo on it when I get some spare cycles,
>provided Gentoo runs on the 6000. But I'm sure as hell not gonna try to
>run R or TeXmacs or Maxima on it!
>
>
>
Dang -- I just remembered -- I *am* running Maxima on the Zaurus.
There's a package of it, and I've got it. :)
--
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On Jun 6, 2005, at 4:55 PM, Aron Griffis wrote:

> This is kinda bloggish, because it's basically a transcription of an
> IRC monologue. My apologies if it's hard to follow... Nonetheless,
> I'm interested in how other developers feel on the topics I bring up
> below.


overlay capabilities are understated.

The use of USE flags might someday emerge overlays which open up the
gateway to ricer heaven for one group while an entirely seperate
group does in fact bolt down RHEL analogs in function and process.

Does the growth of metadata processing overhead exceed moore's law?


--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Aron Griffis wrote:

> But the truth is that Gentoo sees
> improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
> developers. And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
> the users second.

Amen

lu

--

Luca Barbato

Gentoo/linux Developer Gentoo/PPC Operational Leader
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Note: I've snipped a lot of quoted text below, but took full context
into account in my replies...

Lance Albertson wrote:[Mon Jun 06 2005, 09:02:21PM EDT]
> I'd say as a global goal, yes I'd agree with you. Gentoo as a global
> entity should stay where its at, but that doesn't mean a subset of
> Gentoo could have a goal towards being enterprise.

I think that working on methods to use Gentoo in an enterprise setting
is cool. I'm looking forward to seeing how people creatively solve
some of the problems I mentioned without disrupting Gentoo's core
development. I did not mean to imply that *all* of those problems
need to be solved in order for Gentoo to be usable in an enterprise
setting.

> I don't really see Gentoo has a hobbyist distribution as a whole.

Sorry if it seemed like I was putting Gentoo in a box. That wasn't my
intent. I wasn't using the term "hobbyist" derogatorily, in case that
wasn't clear.

> I envision the 'server/enterprise' project to help create numerous
> tools that help aide Gentoo in a production environment. There's
> a lot of cool stuff we could do to help make it run better in that
> type of environment.

Totally. In fact, some of the same tools that would help enterprise
users would also be useful to ordinary users.

> > And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first, the users
> > second.
>
> I see your point there, but I also think theres a group of people
> that also like gentoo in the enterprise realm. I remember at the
> last LWE show in San Francisco, there were numerous people asking
> about Gentoo and making it more 'stable'. This would really be tied
> to an enterprise level of Gentoo. So I know there is interest out
> there. We all have opinions on were Gentoo should fit in, so I don't
> see why we couldn't fit there.

If there are users wanting that, then I look forward to seeing them
step up to the plate and help to solve the problems. I'd reiterate,
though, that the solutions need to be creative enough that they don't
disrupt Gentoo's core development.

What do I mean by that? Let me give you an example: multilib support.
Jeremy and others have been working on this for a while now. They've
gone through a couple iterations of efforts, but take a look at
Jeremy's blog and you'll see that he acknowledges it needs some
reworking. Despite that, the default amd64 profile is multilib, and
there is no higher indication of stability in portage than that.

How should the enterprise subproject approach this problem? Options:
(1) They could raise a fuss that Jeremy has taken amd64 down this path
before the technology was ready. After all, that makes a mess of
enterprise-readiness, because any consumer is going to need to migrate
to the next multilib attempt in the future. (2) They could continue
to rely on the non-multilib profile and wait for the multilib
implementation to stabilize into something that isn't going to keep
seeing big changes.

IMHO the best approach is (2). It leaves the default amd64 profile
multilib, which is fine for most users. It is more work for the
enterprise subproject, but allows Jeremy to continue his development
unhindered.

Disclaimer: I don't know that much about multilib or the current state
of its development. If I've mischaracterized it, I apologize in
advance. My intent was to present a possible scenario and explain my
reasoning why I hope nobody will try to retarget the core of Gentoo
development at the enterprise.

> Anyways, you made some great points on where we fall, but I don't
> think we should shoot down the idea or potential because some of us
> don't think it'd work.

I agree with you.

Corey Shields wrote:[Mon Jun 06 2005, 10:18:31PM EDT]
> I don't feel that the list of requirements you have for "enterprise"
> linux is necessarily what the enterprise needs..
>
> I think Gentoo has some steps that can be taken to be a better
> enterprise player, but to come out and state that it won't work is
> a bit bold.

Ah, sorry, that isn't quite what I meant. Rather I intended to point
out that we should not be deluded into thinking that the changes
required for Gentoo to be enterprise-ready are small. Some of the
changes are surmountable, but each one could appear to necessitate,
IMHO, a change at the core of Gentoo development. I would prefer for
the solutions to be possible more transparently.

For example, one way a company could presently deploy Gentoo
internally would be to (1) make a snapshot of the portage tree and
deploy based on that, (2) manually backport bug- and security-fixes to
their snapshot. Sometimes the manual backport would be easy,
sometimes it would be more difficult, and sometimes the decision would
be made to move forward on a given package version.

In other words, a company can implement a Gentoo product lifecycle
as a wrapper around the existing Gentoo development process. It is
a lot of work for the company, and they'd better hire some bright
sysadmins, but it would be possible.

If there is an enterprise subproject formed in Gentoo, I'd like to see
their methods be similar. Develop tools that make it easier to manage
and maintain an enterprise deployment, without changing how Gentoo is
currently developed. Without hoisting new expectations on the Gentoo
developers, release process, etc.

> Wow... as a sysadmin who has run Gentoo in some very high profile
> production systems that's a bit offensive to think I used it outside
> of a hobbyist platform.. IBM didn't just donate a $30k system for
> ppc64 development to make it better for someone's basement use, so
> I don't think I'm alone in thinking that Gentoo is above "hobbyist".

I did not intend "hobbyist" to be disparaging. I think that the big
companies (including HP, who has also donated tens of thousands of
dollars of equipment btw) see a lot of potential in Gentoo.

> Gentoo is already a fun distribution.. I don't think that has to
> change to meet enterprise goals.

Great! I think we are closer in our perspectives than it seems.

Regards,
Aron

--
Aron Griffis
Gentoo Linux Developer

Hi,

Aron Griffis wrote:
> I think that attempting to take Gentoo in the "enterprise" direction
> is a mistake. I think that we are a hobbyist distribution. This
> doesn't mean that we should not strive to meet some of the enterprise
> goals. Those things can be important to hobbyists too. But I don't
> think we should be aiming for corporate America.

I don't think we're a good base for enterprise distributions with our
current tree either.

> I don't even understand why that goal appeals to people. Let other
> distros go there! I want Gentoo to run in people's homes, in student
> dorm rooms, etc. Places where people want a fun distribution that
> they can tailor and work on easily.

As you stated before, many of the enterprise goals may also fit the
"hobbyist"'s ones. I'm running Gentoo on my Pentium-MMX for server
pourposes and I really would benefit from a slower moving tree, for example.

> I like the idea of Gentoo on alternative arches and in embedded
> environments. Not because I want Sony to start using Gentoo on
> walkmans, but purely because the idea of running Linux on a PDA is
> cool. I'd like Gentoo to be a place where neat things are developed.

Ack. Additionally, I like the idea of running Gentoo on a server. ;)

> Also I find it amusing when people say that Gentoo exists for the
> users. I think that is wrong. Gentoo exists for the *developers*.

Depends on which side you are. When I was a user, I always had the
feeling that Gentoo exists for me, since it doesn't force me to
something I don't want, I can decide what my system looks like.
Now that I became a developer I see Gentoo as a great opportunity to
expand my knowlege and experience and to meet nice people, so it's
primarily for me.

> It's our playground, and it's the reason we use a live tree rather
> than switching to an actually sane approach. The users are cool
> because they point out bugs, help solve problems on bugzilla, suggest
> enhancements, provide patches, and notify us of package updates.
> Sometimes they become developers. But the truth is that Gentoo sees
> improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
> developers. And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
> the users second.

I agree with this, but there are also situations where that isn't really
true. For example, I'm really interested in getting a true multilib
environment for AMD64, not because I want to run 32bit apps -- the few
ones I need already run smoothly -- but because it's an interesting and
ambitious project. For those who want to decide whether they want 32bit
or 64bit on a per-package-basis, multilib exists for them. To me,
multilib exists for me.

Although it's nearly everywhere the case, there doesn't have to be a
conflict of interests per-se. Gentoo has managed to not run into these
troubles, and that's why it's such a great distribution and community.

Greetings,

blubb

--
Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 Operational Co-Lead
blubb@gentoo.org
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

On Tue, 2005-06-07 at 11:08 -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:
> Ah, sorry, that isn't quite what I meant. Rather I intended to point
> out that we should not be deluded into thinking that the changes
> required for Gentoo to be enterprise-ready are small. Some of the
> changes are surmountable, but each one could appear to necessitate,
> IMHO, a change at the core of Gentoo development. I would prefer for
> the solutions to be possible more transparently.

Yeah, the changes that do need to be made are not small I agree. I do
feel that for the most part they could be made without disrupting the
core of Gentoo. For example, there is no need to put a freeze on the
whole tree in the name of "enterprise stability" and screw everyone else
wanting bleeding edge packages, when you could snapshot the tree (like
you mention below)

> For example, one way a company could presently deploy Gentoo
<snip>
> In other words, a company can implement a Gentoo product lifecycle
> as a wrapper around the existing Gentoo development process. It is
> a lot of work for the company, and they'd better hire some bright
> sysadmins, but it would be possible.
>
> If there is an enterprise subproject formed in Gentoo, I'd like to see
> their methods be similar. Develop tools that make it easier to manage
> and maintain an enterprise deployment, without changing how Gentoo is
> currently developed. Without hoisting new expectations on the Gentoo
> developers, release process, etc.

GLEP 19 is pretty much right along these lines, and already has some
prototype/testing going on. :)

> I did not intend "hobbyist" to be disparaging. I think that the big
> companies (including HP, who has also donated tens of thousands of
> dollars of equipment btw) see a lot of potential in Gentoo.

Cool. I probably put too much personal feeling behind it. I don't
trust corporate distros anymore. I was in a situation where we got
royally screwed by RedHat, tried to work out a deal with them, and had
no luck. For us we got stuck in the whole "first one is free, then
you're hooked" game.

I'm not against paying for support and services (I think rhn is the
coolest thing since sliced bread, and worth some money), however, I do
not think that their prices are reasonable, especially when they ask you
to switch from free to paying six digits in the middle of a fiscal year
where you haven't budgeted for it. So, my desires for Gentoo to fit
better in the enterprise stem from not wanting to stick with a corporate
distro.. Kinda selfish, I know. :)

> Great! I think we are closer in our perspectives than it seems.

:)

Cheers,

-Corey

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Aron Griffis wrote:[Tue Jun 07 2005, 11:08:58AM EDT]
> I think that the big companies (including HP, who has also donated
> tens of thousands of dollars of equipment btw) see a lot of
> potential in Gentoo.

Btw, as an hp employee I hope you'll forgive me for tooting the hp
horn a little bit... I know there are other companies donating
resources and I'm not trying to one-up them.

In addition to the equipment hp has lent, part of my job description
is to "work on Gentoo". No strings attached, no agenda. This is
viewed as positive community involvement by the hp Open Source and
Linux Org.

I spend *at least* 1/3 of my time working on Gentoo. Without getting
into a salary discussion, that's hp donating tens of thousands of
dollars per year.

Now whether you all consider my involvement to be worth that much is
a different matter, of course. No comments from the peanut gallery,
please. ;-)

Regards,
Aron

--
Aron Griffis
Gentoo Linux Developer

Hello,

A user wrote to me personally:
> i thought several times if i wanted to reply at all, and after
> i wrote my mail if i really should send it out. I finally decided to
> send it off list since this might just end up in flames on the list.

I hope you don't mind I'm putting this back on the list. If you are
concerned, then there are probably others in the same boat. Hopefully
my response below will ease their concerns as well as yours.

> So here it is:
>
> On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 07:55:50PM -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:
> > Also I find it amusing when people say that Gentoo exists for the
> > users. I think that is wrong. Gentoo exists for the *developers*.
> > It's our playground, and it's the reason we use a live tree rather
> > than switching to an actually sane approach. The users are cool
> > because they point out bugs, help solve problems on bugzilla, suggest
> > enhancements, provide patches, and notify us of package updates.
> > Sometimes they become developers. But the truth is that Gentoo sees
> > improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
> > developers. And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
> > the users second.
>
> Sheesh, i really don't know what to say. I really don't have
> a problem with developers having fun by doing their work, but
> a linux _distribution_ is probably one things intended most directly
> at users. I've been a user for a long time, and i always tried to
> give something back by filing bug reports or helping other users.
> I had the feeling my contribution was welcome and i never wanted to
> leech the guys doing development off. As for today, i can say pretty
> sure i've given quite an amount of time (and even some money) to
> Gentoo. I've had my share of fun with it, but seeing you dividing
> people involved in Gentoo into developers (good, have fun, their
> playground) and users (bad, but we'll have to live with them) really
> makes me speechless. Gentoo should be there for everyone
> disregarding if he's developer or not. If you don't like that, turn
> of the rsync mirrors and let only devs check out the tree. ;-)
>
> Maybe i've just gotten your statement really wrong, but as far
> i understand it, i really have a bad feeling about it.

I entirely see your point, and I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong
impression. I really appreciate your contributions, and I take pride
in helping to fix bugs that affect you and other users. I think it's
great that Gentoo is a distribution that has such a welcoming
reputation.

My point was not that I don't care about users. It was that the
developers working on Gentoo are ultimately here because it's a fun
project. We decide our own priorities, and none of us is completely
self-sacrificial. The areas that see real improvement are the areas
that are interesting to the developers. This is a contrast from the
commercial distributions, which see improvement in the areas that
customers demand, or which management perceives as adding value.

Let me give you an example: epm. I wrote epm, a work-alike to rpm.
A lot of people use it, and I've gotten a number of feature requests
in bugzilla. In response, I often request a patch, then eventually
close the bug because no patch is forthcoming.

If I were working for paying customers, this would not be an option
(provided the feature requests were reasonable). It would be my
*responsibility* to cater to the request. In Gentoo, however,
developers are able to use their own discretion. This is what I am
talking about.

(Psst... I'll let you in on a little secret. It doesn't have to
be a good patch. If a user gives me a really crappy patch, I'll
usually work on an implementation just because I appreciate that
they made an effort. Heck, even a detailed and thoughtful
description will usually suffice... ;-)

I hope that this clears up your confusion and puts us on the same team
again.

Best regards,
Aron
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Hi,
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 03:18:03PM -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:
> > Maybe i've just gotten your statement really wrong, but as far
> > i understand it, i really have a bad feeling about it.
> [..]
> I hope that this clears up your confusion and puts us on the same team
> again.

Yeah, that cleared up a lot of things, seems i didn't quite get your
point from your first mail. Things are clear now and i actually agree
to your point.

cheers,
Wernfried

--
Fppmpppffpppmpfpffmffmppmpm Mfpmmmmmmfmm
fpp.mfpmmmmmmfmm@fpfppffpmmpppff.mfpfmpfmf.fmpfmffppmffmppppp.mmmmmf.mmmfmp
mfpfmpfmppfm://fpfppffpmmpppff.ppmfmfmpm.mmmfmp/~mmmppmpppmpppppmffppfppp/
http://www.namesuppressed.com/kenny/
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 07:55:50PM -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:
> We understand when real life gets in
> the way of bug-fixing, because all our developers are volunteers.

I never ever would have considered becoming a developer if this hadn't
been the case. I have my day job to worry about responsibilities and
planning.

> Also I find it amusing when people say that Gentoo exists for the
> users. I think that is wrong. Gentoo exists for the *developers*.
> It's our playground, and it's the reason we use a live tree rather
> than switching to an actually sane approach. The users are cool
> because they point out bugs, help solve problems on bugzilla, suggest
> enhancements, provide patches, and notify us of package updates.
> Sometimes they become developers. But the truth is that Gentoo sees
> improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
> developers. And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
> the users second.

Back when I was not yet a Gentoo developer but just a developer using
Gentoo, whenever I ran into a problem with one tool or other I was
quite motivated to try and come up with a fix, because:
- it was easy to include the fix in the system because of the ebuild
format as well as the PORTAGE_OVERLAY feature
- it was easy to submit the fix back to Gentoo in a ready to use format
- I didn't have to wait forever for the next official release containing
the fix I contributed

I was also very pleased with all the up-to-date tools/applications at my
disposal.

Now that I am a Gentoo developer I just want to help any development
done on a Gentoo platform go as smoothly as possible by trying to keep
bug response time and TTP (time-to-portage) of new versions down.

So in my mind, as someone else already mentioned, Gentoo is from
developers for developers.

Regards,
Maurice.

P.S.: I must say I have not yet taken part in any Gentoo project that
isn't purely maintenance. Maybe if I did my view would change...
hmmm... /me looks for a list of current projects

P.P.S.: Oh, and I cannot send this mail without mentioning that since
the beginning, when I just started using Gentoo, I've always
felt welcome... something I didn't expect to find on the
internet.

--
Maurice van der Pot

Gentoo Linux Developer griffon26@gentoo.org http://www.gentoo.org
Creator of BiteMe! griffon26@kfk4ever.com http://www.kfk4ever.com

On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 19:55 -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:
> This is kinda bloggish, because it's basically a transcription of an
> IRC monologue. My apologies if it's hard to follow... Nonetheless,
> I'm interested in how other developers feel on the topics I bring up
> below.

<snip>

> Also I find it amusing when people say that Gentoo exists for the
> users. I think that is wrong. Gentoo exists for the *developers*.

This is the reason why *I* use/develop Gentoo. I love it. I could care
less if every single user we have drops us for Ubuntu. I would still
develop Gentoo so long as it is still fun.

> It's our playground, and it's the reason we use a live tree rather
> than switching to an actually sane approach. The users are cool
> because they point out bugs, help solve problems on bugzilla, suggest
> enhancements, provide patches, and notify us of package updates.
> Sometimes they become developers. But the truth is that Gentoo sees
> improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
> developers. And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
> the users second.

<starts slow clap>

Well, Aron, I honestly think that you've hit the nail on the head. I
never have been able to grasp how people could think Gentoo could ever
become a serious player in the corporate world of suits and guys with
nice hair and fake white teeth. Do we really want to go there? Do we
really need to start sending out assclowns in suits to shake hands with
a bunch of clueless corporate types, then schmooze them over golf just
to get people to use Gentoo? What ever happened to "because it's
friggin' cool"?

Don't get me wrong, I love our users. That being said, I work on Gentoo
not because of them, but because of *myself* and *my* personal itches.
It just so happens that there's a group of guys out there that seem to
want similar things, so we've banded together as this loose group of
developers, determined to make the best damn Linux *for us* that we can.
If suits want to use it, great! If not, well, they weren't paying the
bills anyway, so frag 'em! *grin*

--
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead/QA Manager
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 20:36 -0400, Colin Kingsley wrote:
> Thats certaintly not to say that I'm against progress, but if people
> want support contracts, the absolute ultimate in stability, and install
> CD's shipped in pretty boxes with manuals, there are other distros
> available for them.

What's wrong with install CD's shipped with pretty boxes and manuals?
That's something I really wish Gentoo had, not because it would attract
the suits or anything, but because I think it would be friggin' sweet to
open my mailbox and see a shiny new copy of Gentoo Linux every six
months or so.

After all, it's all about the box art, man.

--
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead/QA Manager
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux