LWN: Comments on "Daniel Robbins returns to Gentoo"

Daniel Robbins leaves Gentoo

pbardet — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:52:22 +0000

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.

Daniel Robbins leaves Gentoo

bronson — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 16:39:37 +0000

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

Daniel Robbins leaves Gentoo

tetromino — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 09:14:30 +0000

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

bronson — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 04:39:29 +0000

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

TRauMa — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 01:59:11 +0000

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.

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

peace — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:55:26 +0000

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.

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

Max.Hyre — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 23:20:28 +0000

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.

Daniel Robbins returns to Gentoo

JohnNilsson — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 20:48:30 +0000

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

I'm surprised no one mentions it

terber — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:54:37 +0000

> 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

peace — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:48:02 +0000

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

sylware — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:07:00 +0000

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!).

I'm surprised no one mentions it

smitty_one_each — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 03:44:42 +0000

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

Daniel Robbins returns to Gentoo

vblum — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:46:57 +0000

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?)

I'm surprised no one mentions it

hingo — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:41:59 +0000

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

coriordan — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:27:08 +0000

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