Not the Gentoo Linux Newsletter, Π edition

If you try to fail and succeed, what have you done?

How to grow minions

Recruiting for runaways

• Think of yourself as a manager: You'll be the one motivating and focusing people. If you can motivate them they'll do whatever they want ;). Which is why you want to work in a self-selected community of people who share interests: your job is to support them in achieving excellence. You don't need to push a strategic vision, since others have joined the project because they like what it's doing, and want to make it better. Let them.
• Communicate your needs. You'll only find new people if there is something they can find. Use all the information channels you can think of! Be clear and concise, and don't forget: effective communication only happens between equals.
• Don't let your ego get in the way. You can't do it without the others, so don't think you are better, or can order anyone to do anything. Try and think of yourself as a facilitator for what the group wants to achieve. This will change over time and as different people are involved. Build a shared vision, and take time to listen to concerns. If you don't, people will stop telling you about them, and your project will lose relevance.
• Cut people slack, including yourself. Everyone has good and bad days. Recognise when you're having a bad one and trust your group to cover for you. When others are low, make sure the work is being taken care of, and then take some time to understand what's happening. They may not want to talk about it there and then, but they will remember that you took that time, and explain it to you when they get back.
• Give positive feedback to users and minions. Only when they feel that they can change things will they reach their full potential. And you'd be surprised to see what 5 people feeding off each other's motivation can do!
• Be transparent. People know what's going on and, if they know you at all, they're likely to pick up on unconscious signals from you. Don't try and conceal your thinking: it only leads to misunderstandings and suspicion. In fact, encourage discussion of what you're doing and why: this might mean the plans change beyond what you envisioned. So what? That's the whole point of a group effort: it's more than what an individual could do. Remember this is not just your baby; she has co-parents and they will fight for her. Be proud of that.
• Most importantly: recognise your own limitations. If you're not really cut out for the motivation thing, if it bores you to tears hearing about other people's problems and all you can think of is getting on with the technical side, that's fine. Don't put yourself up for managing a team; instead try and look for those qualities in someone else, and support them in making an environment where you can just get on with it.
• If you do have the people skills, remember that others will have skills you don't. There will always be disagreement: encourage that in a friendly framework. Don't allow personal attacks, but don't avoid dealing with problems either: if someone's out of line, tell them so as soon as you can: nipping problems in the bud is a lot easier than firefighting. If that someone is you, again trust your group: maybe you need a break.
• Burnout is the number one cause of problems. If anyone is starting to show signs of fraying at the edges, don't just encourage them to brood on it by discussing it. Most especially, do not get into a technical discussion; you're missing the point. Sometimes people need to walk away for a while, including you. If you've set up an effective group, you will be able to: the best way to show something is well-managed, is to show that it will work without you.
• Remember: your role is to keep the crap away from your team so that they can just get on with it. The flip side is that they need to tell you before the crap hits the fan, so that you can get them out of the way. If they're comfortable talking to you, you'll be warned in time. If they think you have too much to cope with, they'll feel less able to burden you, and you'll have less warning. So, keep it chilled.
• Don't be afraid to say: No. Whether to extra work (especially a new architecture;) to clients making unreasonable demands, or even to members who have a wacky idea. Discuss it with your team, and see what the consensus is. If there isn't one, trust your intuition and make the call. Erring on the side of caution is usually a good path, since you should only be making the call when it is not a clear-cut thing. (The rest of the time you're just giving your view, same as anyone else.) If you think your group should take that opportunity, make sure they're with you. If they don't see it, don't force it.
• Keep within the scope of what you can realistically achieve. You can always spike a sub-project to explore a new technology or design: let the most vocal advocate take it on (they'll be passionate about it) perhaps with one or two others, and keep your group focused.
• Encourage their passion. Software development is a creative process. That means there are highs and lows, and that the best work comes from people who care about it. Don't be afraid of emotion: everything is about balance. No emotion and it's soulless, and demotivating. Too much drama, and people get overloaded and switch off. Nurture the creative side of it, as that's where the product comes from.
• Be excellent to each other. Create an environment where people want to be. Like family without having to do the laundry. And if you are nice people will be nice to you, and everyone will drink beer and be most excellent to the others.

Gentoo as a religion?

Passion in the community

Portage needs you!

• Searching on Gentoo Bugzilla
• #gentoo-portage on irc.freenode.net, the channel where the technobabble happens
• svn co svn://anonsvn.gentoo.org/portage/ to get a svn checkout to hack on. This is so 1337 that only 12 people world-wide dare to use it. But RTFM before trying this!

Random Websites that help your Gentooooooo

• f2edb, the file to ebuild mapping database
• Gentoo Packages that Need Lovin'
• dIndex and rIndex for searching depends forwards and backwards

Gentoo in the Press

DNS benchmarks

Gentoo in c't magazine

Overheard on IRC

Tips&Tricks: Emacs

How shit happens

A small parable

Things not to do to your Gentoo

• rm -rf /
• kill -9 -1
• emerge --unmerge python
• cat /dev/dsp > /dev/kmem
• emerge paludis && paludis --uninstall portage
• dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

Random stats

+-------------------------+
|   general statistics    |
+-------------------------+
| architectures |      16 |
|    categories |     151 |
|      packages |   12371 |
|       ebuilds |   25313 |
+-------------------------+

+----------------------------------------------------------+
|                   keyword distribution                   |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| architecture |  stable |   ~arch |   total | total/#pkgs |
|              |         |    only |         |             |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
|        alpha |    3464 |     581 |    4045 |      32.70% |
|        amd64 |    6564 |    3927 |   10491 |      84.80% |
|          arm |    1593 |      68 |    1661 |      13.43% |
|         hppa |    2232 |     581 |    2813 |      22.74% |
|         ia64 |    3099 |     639 |    3738 |      30.22% |
|         m68k |     487 |       9 |     496 |       4.01% |
|         mips |    1312 |     466 |    1778 |      14.37% |
|          ppc |    6102 |    2860 |    8962 |      72.44% |
|        ppc64 |    3289 |     712 |    4001 |      32.34% |
|    ppc-macos |      42 |     109 |     151 |       1.22% |
|         s390 |    1196 |      44 |    1240 |      10.02% |
|           sh |    1409 |      37 |    1446 |      11.69% |
|        sparc |    4663 |    1360 |    6023 |      48.69% |
|   sparc-fbsd |       0 |     304 |     304 |       2.46% |
|          x86 |    9100 |    3105 |   12205 |      98.66% |
|     x86-fbsd |       0 |    2339 |    2339 |      18.91% |
+----------------------------------------------------------+

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