[Sussex] Gentoo forked...

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff

On 27 June 2003 at 12:37 Geoffrey Teale wrote:
> .. a lot of good points from Steve.

Glad to like them.

> One thing I'd like to address - Gentoo has a closed developers list - 
> unlike Debian.  This causes some controversy.

I didn't know that and I'm not surprised that it causes some controversy,
because it is wrong; very, very wrong!
 
> The list is readable  by anyone online, but only invited developers can 
> post to it.  This isn't about secrecy (after all, anyone can read it!) - 
> it's about allowing the developers to use the list to get on with work 
> rather than dealing with a million posts and flames off topic.  Anyone 
> who's been on the Debian developers lists know that they are polluted to 
> the point of irrelevance.  Gentoo tries to avoid this and uses it's 
> forums for public debate.

While the may cut down on the amount of spam read by the developers (a good
thing) it cuts you off from ideas from outside the list (which is bad).
Okay so you could post to one of the open forums, but which one?  Which one
it the developer I need to target reading (if any)?

While this may not be about secrecy but it is censorship, and _all_[1]
censorship is bad.  The restriction implies that only some developers' views
are valid or worth reading.  Good ideas can come from anywhere, and by
blocking
views in this way Gentoo is restricting itself from "getting the right[tm]
answer".

Steve

[1]
Only censorship of some materials to minors is justified.