I recently began charting the freefall of the Gentoo Linux distribution. The project peaked in 2003 but has been in steady decline since Daniel Robbins got up from the captains chair. The release history on distrowatch gives a good 30-thousand foot view, showing that the 2008.0 release that recently shipped was the end of a 14 month dry spell since the previous release. In nearly the same time frame the tireless Ubuntu machine continued churning through its 6-month release cycle and shipped two major updates. Even Gentoo Is For Ricers, the preferred depot for anti-gentoo sentiment, has maintained a reverent silence on gentoos inability to get updates out the door.