Re: [tlug] No more Gentoo

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2007 at 08:18:55PM +0900, Josh wrote:
> On 11/08/07, burlingk@example.com <burlingk@example.com> wrote:
> 
> > Looks to me like he is kicking himself in the rear for not
> > having done more.
> 
> Well, Daniel Robbins "quit" Gentoo in a pretty public way a few years
> back, and there were hard feelings on both sides. So I dunno how
> entitled to kick himself in the rear he is.

Speaking as a non-Gentoo developer--in other words, someone with far
less knowlede than Josh--but as someone from the outside, I vaguely
remember this and my feelings at the time. 

Part of it was money--he was in debt for what would be a ludicrously low
sum to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, 30,000 USD or something like that.  

Whether this was because he'd used up his own funds for Gentoo or not, I
don't know.  I remember thinking it was very sad, considering that he'd
done pretty much what a Gates or a Jobs had done, but because it was
Linux, 30,000 was a large sum for him.  

Secondly, with all due respect to all the people who have worked on
Gentoo, my own impression was that he singlehandedly began its
popularity with superb documentation.  Back then, good docs were far
rarer than they are now.  Even now, compare the Linux ifconfig man page
to say, FreeBSD's.  Now, tell me how you create an alias on an interface
in Linux--just from knowledge in reading that man page.  As opposed to
FreeBSD which has (gasp) examples, including those of adding an alias. 

Mr. Robbins' docs made it possible for the novice to completely install
an operating system and feel like a Linux pro.  The installation, at
least back then, was pretty complex, especially a stage 1 install--that
might have been all there was at the time.  

So, my own impression is that he had a right to consider it his.  

These things are never simple, but my point is that he almost
single-handedly created it and made it popular. 

Lastly, when LinuxWorld was still in NYC, Jack Morgan was still around,
and was coming to NYC with Mr. Robbins and Seemant.  I loaned them a
monitor and they showed up at my job.  When I led them to the monitor, I
said, "Walk this way," and did the old joke of some kind of silly walk.
Only Mr. Robbins imitated the silly walk, Jack and Seemant just walked
normally.  Sigh.  So, ever since then, I've always thought he was a
great guy.   :)

Of course, I think Josh is a great guy too, but in the case of Gentoo, I
always thought Daniel Robbins did have certain bragging rights.

  


-- 

Scott Robbins

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