Daniel Robbins returns to Gentoo

[Posted February 28, 2007 by corbet]

From:		=?UTF-8?B?UGV0dGVyaSBSw6R0eQ==?= <betelgeuse-AT-gentoo.org>
To:		gentoo-dev-AT-lists.gentoo.org
Subject:		Introducing Daniel Robbins (drobbins)
Date:		Tue, 27 Feb 2007 19:06:17 +0200

It's my please to introduce to you Daniel "drobbins" Robbins. Daniel is
going to work with the amd64 arch team but will probably venture to
other areas too. Daniel doesn't have much experience with Gentoo so
let's give him a helping hand in the start.

In his dark past Daniel has worked for companies like Microsoft so maybe
Gentoo/NT will be a reality after all?

Please give him the usual warm welcome.

Regards,
Betelgeuse

I'm surprised no one mentions it

Posted Feb 28, 2007 20:27 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (3 responses)

Is he still working for MS? No one mentions whether he is or isn't.

I'm surprised no one mentions it

Posted Feb 28, 2007 20:41 UTC (Wed) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] (1 responses)

I remember some news months ago that he had left MS. I think he worked there less than a year, about 9 months.

I'm surprised no one mentions it

Posted Mar 1, 2007 3:44 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

Went to the Southwest to work for a hospital or some such, IIRC.

I'm surprised no one mentions it

Posted Mar 1, 2007 15:54 UTC (Thu) by terber (subscriber, #3311) [Link]

> Is he still working for MS?
No.

> No one mentions whether he is or isn't.
Not fully true:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39252292,00...

He worked at MS only eight months, beacause in his words: "I wasn't able to work at my full level of technical ability and I found this frustrating"

Daniel Robbins returns to Gentoo

Posted Feb 28, 2007 22:46 UTC (Wed) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

Wouldn't it be Gentoo RiVista? (we wouldn't want to add outdated bugs would we, when the competition has all new and shiny ones?)

Daniel Robbins returns to Gentoo

Posted Mar 1, 2007 12:07 UTC (Thu) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link] (4 responses)

He will have to regain trust... To do so, he will have to avoid like hell any project based/derived on/from MS technologies for ever. For instance he could work on removing the gnome mono dependency, and gentoo is, as far as I know, the ONLY distro which grants you a recent gnome desktop without the mono bloats (cool!).

Daniel Robbins returns to Gentoo

Posted Mar 1, 2007 14:48 UTC (Thu) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link] (3 responses)

Regain trust? Why would he need to do that?

He left Gentoo because he needed to pay the bills. I'm glad he decided he can afford to come back. If he has something to contribute, he'll be a welcome addition. If not, he'll find it more productive to move on. Either way, I wish him the best.

Kind Regards

Daniel Robbins returns to Gentoo

Posted Mar 1, 2007 20:48 UTC (Thu) by JohnNilsson (guest, #41242) [Link]

I hope he does. After he left Gentoo all traces of vision dissapeard. So if anything, he might introduce that again.

Not ``regaining trust'', but...

Posted Mar 1, 2007 23:20 UTC (Thu) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] (1 responses)

Remember, he's been on the inside of Microsoft, presumably seen some code, and certainly been in on plans. That means he has to be scrupulous about keeping anything learned there out of his work. If working on something similar, I'm not sure whether even a Chinese wall would suffice, since he'd have direct knowledge, rather than reverse engineering.

Not ``regaining trust'', but...

Posted Mar 2, 2007 16:55 UTC (Fri) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link]

I'm sure he is aware of his contractual obligations. The work Gentoo is doing is fairly orthogonal to anything Microsoft does anyway.

I really don't think rummering on this issue is worthwhile. Also, suggesting he has something to prove or has a trust deficit is just silly. The guy is back doing what he loves.

Welcome back.

Daniel Robbins leaves Gentoo

Posted Mar 5, 2007 1:59 UTC (Mon) by TRauMa (guest, #16483) [Link] (4 responses)

And today, he left again. A short visit it was.

I really fail to understand how anyone gets done anything with all the vitriol on the ML these days.

Daniel Robbins leaves Gentoo

Posted Mar 5, 2007 4:39 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (3 responses)

Here's the message and thread: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/46478/fo...

That's some really conceited behavior from all sides of the argument. Shame all around yet again. I wonder how Gentoo will solve its troll problem...?

Daniel Robbins leaves Gentoo

Posted Mar 5, 2007 9:14 UTC (Mon) by tetromino (guest, #33846) [Link] (2 responses)

Near as I can see, the situation was something like this:

<drobbins> hey guys, can I get my account back?
<drobbins> I will be just a regular dev now
<drobbins> not absolute monarch like back in the day
<gentoo-dev> sure!
<drobbins> excellent
<drobbins> hmm, the old crown and scepter got all dusty
<gentoo-dev> ...
<ciaranm> blah blah blah troll troll troll PMS paludis PMS paludis
<drobbins> what is the meaning of this?
<drobbins> non-devs on my dev-only mailing list?
<ciaranm> yeah. so what are ya gonna do about it, punk?
<drobbins> your kind was not allowed here back in my day
<ciaranm> well, you are not the boss of me!
<gentoo-dev> uhm, ciaranm has been around here for a long time...
<gentoo-dev> and he does good work (when he's not being an asshole)...
<gentoo-dev> and the customs have changed since the revolution...
<drobbins> get off my mailing list, you filthy vagrant!
<ciaranm> stfu n00b
<drobbins> guards, seize this man!
<gentoo-dev> ...
<gentoo-dev> no.
<ciaranm> lol
<drobbins> fine!
* drobbins has quit (uppity ungrateful peasants)

Daniel Robbins leaves Gentoo

Posted Mar 5, 2007 16:39 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

LOL, exactly right. Your writeup deserves a spot on this week's distributions page.

Daniel Robbins leaves Gentoo

Posted Mar 8, 2007 13:52 UTC (Thu) by pbardet (guest, #22762) [Link]

IMO, What is more funny is that when Daniel was in charge, Gentoo worked fine. Since he left, crap has been hitting all over the place and gentoo is no longer suitable for production environment. It's just a "made for geeks product" for people who prefer to spend time maintaining their Linux system than using it.

I had to quit the boat too and moved to Ubuntu, even though it's not 100% perfect. I love the gentoo concept (no releases, source based) but I hate the crap that comes with every other update. When Daniel returned, I was hopeful things would go back to "normal". I sure hope he finds a project where his contributions will be recognized.