Several Stampede Developers Depart

palpatine was one of many readers to write with the news that "[m]any of the developers of Stampede Linux have resigned today, putting in doubt the future of the distribution." The link here connects you to a letter signed by 22 people who have declared their separation from Stampede, including former buildmaster Rob Aagaard and former lead Alpha developer J. Daniel Powell. (Read more.)

The letter is written by Jacob Moorman, who had been until yesterday Stampede's assistant head developer. In part, it reads: "Due to a number of reasons based on the current administrative nature of the Stampede Linux distribution, we are unable to continue supporting the efforts of the distribution. As a group, we feel that the needs of the group have not been supported by the current model of operations."

I asked project founder Matt Woods about the resignations and what they mean to Stampede's plans, in particular to tomorrow's scheduled Stampede .90 release.

Matt attributes the resignation of several developers and other folks associated with Stampede Linux to disagreement among project members about how the Stampede project should be managed.

"The resignations have been brewing for quite some time. The major reason for resignation is the current method of leadership. Those who resigned wanted to see a board of directors that handled all matters (BSD style). They were unhappy with the tiers of leadership that exist today (much like the linux kernel development structure). The current leadership method has worked well up until this point, and shows no indications of future failure."

Happily, he writes, "I am still on good terms with most of the developers, to quote one of them: 'Business is business, friendship is friendship,' that is, the two are unrelated."

And what does the sudden change in personnel mean to Stampede Linux?

"The future of Stampede is not in doubt, we're recruiting more and more developers as we speak (The response from the development volunteer community has been tremendous). Development will be hindered in the short term, but we forsee a future explosion in the speed of the development cycle. Unfortunatly, 0.90 will need to be delayed for a short amount of time (exactly how much time is unclear at this juncture), but users can be assured that 0.90 is coming, and it is coming soon."

Stampede developers past and present are invited to contribute their insight into what caused the rift. If you're involved with (or considering) an open-source project with more than one person, you may want to pay attention to what they say.

Comments

Developers of Stampede

[Anonymous Coward]

Whomever posted this comment is not well informed as I can state what many of the individuals have done:

Jake Moorman: He was the assitant head developer and former lead for 0.90. He developed the SLAB system that stampede currently uses to build the distributions and contributed many packages and much else to the distributions.

J. Daniel Powell: He was the former lead for the Alpha platform port. He had done a lot of research and development for that platform along with being an invaluable member of the team.He also helped a lot with package submissions.

Rob Aagaard: He was the co-founder of Stampede Linux. He had been there from the start with Matt Wood. He was also very vocal about getting the much delayed 0.90 release out the door and did his own build to get the efforts on their way. He is the only reason 0.90 was almost released today.

Gabe Ricard: He worked on many projects and submitted packages. He worked on the Stampede Lite project and on the PowerPC port. He was also very instrumental in getting people interested in Stampede.

David Burley: He spent much time reviewing logs, keeping in touch with the mirrors, and working with end users to resolve issue. He also authored the manual installation instructions which later gained help from Timothy Krell. Not to mention the fact that he submitted packages and other resources the group needed.

Erich Ziggler: He spent many hours helping individuals get Stampede installed and running on thier system. And although not really extremely involved directly with the developmental process, if it were not for him there probably would not be nearly as many Stampede users out there.

Per Linden: A vocal supporter of Stampede both on IRC and on the mailing lists. He put together numerous packages for Stampede and tried to help it become the best it could be.

Michael Gorse: If not for him the 0.90 pre tree that had been used for the past m onth for testing would have never gotten out. He made the first build after the code freeze due to Matt Wood's untimely departure shortly after the code freeze started. This was a horrible time for him to take a vacation.

The list goes on and on. This is a clear description of what the first 8 people listed on the list have done, and the others have helped in many ways also. It is horrible that people are denying them recognition for the work that they have done on the distribution. Also it is of note to mention the reality that there is a reason not all of them have been completely active developers lately. Maybe there is something wrong with the administration. Keep an open mind and read through the letter closely. It just appears that they are unhappy with the way things were run. I am glad they put personal feelings aside.

Sigh. [Off Topic]

[volsung]

Is it really that much fun to sit here and troll/flame/argue with each other over how Linux is dead, GPL is communism, and we should all go back to running MS products. Yes all, the honeymoon is over and Linux sucks. You suck, and you're a moron. In fact you're a hypocritical, unintelligent hippie moron who probably hasn't passed puberty. . .

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Is this really so enjoyable that dozens of people spend their time ripping on anyone and everyone? It makes me sad to see so many people enjoy telling other people how stupid they are. Why is there so much destruction?

I've even caught myself slipping into the pit of unbounded criticism. Just a couple of weeks ago someone made me realize that I had accused them of attitudes that I didn't know they had. I just assumed the worst of them and proceeded accordingly, and unjustly. It scared me to see such a change occur in myself on an online forum. Being rude and self-righteous is contagious.

Is this the inevitable source of destruction for any online communication more interesting than Instant Messenger? Put enough people in one place and give them the ability to interact, and *WHAM* perfectly good and normal people distort their opinions and views just so they can rip on some guy.

Is it just me, or does anyone else long for discussion where the object is to share knowledge and not to gain conversational dominance? Maybe it's distorted hindsight, but I remember being able to do that once upon a time.

Sigh. I'll go crawl back into my hole now. You may now offtopic me into oblivion and pour hot grits down my pants while telling me that I'm a hypocritical, uninformed fool. That's what discussion is about these days, I guess.

Par for the course

[Tarzan]

These sort of rifts have been happening in open source since the dawn of time when it was called free software. I think it's a healthy part of normal development. Without dissension, there is no innovation.

--
Index of Alternative Operating Systems

Reason Why I Left && Other Information

[khemicals]

First, I would like to point people at a copy of the unedited e-mail that was sent out by Jacob Moorman on behalf of myself and the other 21 developers and supporters of Stampede GNU/Linux. A copy of it can be found here. A copy of Matt Wood's response to (what I presume to be from /.) an e-mail message to him can be found here.

"Stampede developers past and present are invited to contribute their insight into what caused the rift." As stated in the resignation letter the reason why we left is based on the current administration model of Stampede GNU/Linux. I cannot comment for others beyond that as they all have different feelings and reasons which make them feel the way they do. So the rest of this comment is from my point of view and my feelings. Despite how it may be worded.

For one to be involved in such a project you expect several things. Some of them are legal protection, financial support and a say in how decisions are made. Each one of those issues will be addressed separately in the following:

Legal Protection: Being involved in an Operating System distribution there are concerns that your advice to persons on IRC and elsewhere could damage someones data or files. Although never the goal, it does happen and is inevitable. The user types in the command wrong or misinterperates the advice or suggestion given. I have a brain fart and am not thinking straight and miss a step. . . These are just a few examples of what could happen.

I am not 100% certain about my legal protections if a user damages their system while following my advice. The Stampede Linux Foundation is indeed a Non-Profit Organization in Utah, but I was never shown any proof that it was a Federally recognized non-profit (I believe the technical name is 401-C3 status). Thus I have no legal blanket protecting me from a lawsuit. Although I am a poor college student and they would not get much from doing so (besides a few computers... which would hinder my Free Software development projects) it is still not something I want to see happen to myself or others.

Financial Support: Being so involved in the Stampede GNU/Linux Distribution and other efforts I have been traveling to the Linux World COnference and Expo's in both NYC and SJC (the past 2 anyways) and was also at The Bazaar. My trip to The Bazaar was partially funded by Earthweb, but my trips to LWCE were not funded by anyone but me.

The issue of funding trips for core developers had come up and was never addressed. It is in my opinion that at least some of the cost should have been deferred off onto the distribution. Stampede does have some money (not a lot but enough to do that a few times for several people). Also being the college student I am there is only so much money to go around. I get a lot out of meeting those who use what I work on. I also learn a lot about up-and-coming projects from other groups.

Although I see nothing wrong with the development model we used for a long time for other groups, it did not work for ours. The above issues and others could have been easily resolved in what would seem to be a more 'fair' manner if there was a group of individuals who could vote on such issues.

On April 6 Rob Aagaard attempted to switch Stampede over to a Board of Directors from its current model. Matt Wood was disagreeable to doing such and I didn't like his response. Not to mention the fact that he refused to be at the meeting. This is not to say that I agree with the manner the meeting was conducted, but Matt should have been present to diffuse the situation and discuss the issues with us openly like he says he will. At any rate this situation led me to believe that there would be no change and that action must be taken. Voila, the resignation.

Although I was not the developer to say "Business is Business, Friendship is Friendship", those sentiments are mine exactly. And even more than that I will continue development on tools, utilities and new specifications for which Stampede was working only under a different group which aims towards supporting my efforts. The Marble Horse Free Software Group (MHFSG) is working on a new revision of the Stampede Linux Package format, specifically version 5a. Not to mention a few other projects I am working on. The projects are less Stampede centric as they should be useful to all distributions and homebrewed systems alike. None-the-less Stampede is free to use them and their input will be regarded at the same level as others.

Lastly I would like to thank Stampede for the good times I had with them. I have no hard feelings and would like to continue a good relationship with the people involved. Those who need to contact me know where to find me (IRC: openprojects.net NICK: khemicals).

Regards,

David Burley

former Stampede jack-of-all-trades

Re:Reason Why I Left && Other Information

[John Murdoch]

I am not 100% certain about my legal protections if a user damages their system while following my advice. The Stampede Linux Foundation is indeed a Non-Profit Organization in Utah, but I was never shown any proof that it was a Federally recognized non-profit (I believe the technical name is 401-C3 status). Thus I have no legal blanket protecting me from a lawsuit.

David!

Completely apart from the discussion of what happened and what the consequences are, you should be aware that membership in a not-for-profit organization does not provide you with any legal protection whatsoever.

What is generally termed a "not-for-profit" organization is recognized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The law pertains to whether or not profits of those organizations are taxed. It says nothing--nothing--about any kind of legal protection for group members. Any kind of protection for liability (in the case you describe, liability for errors and omissions) would only come from an insurance policy taken out by the not-for-profit on behalf of its leaders (expensive) or members (hideously expensive).

For the record: I am not a lawyer. I have been the business manager of a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit that fought the IRS over our status--we won at the Court of Appeals level over a precise definition of the IRC and the specific intent of Congress in establishing not-for-profits. (If you're a lawyer, look up "Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing v. Commissioner.") I have also been covered by E&O by a not-for-profit, have written claims-handling systems for a large insurance company that issues E&O policies, and am presently covered under liability policies for two not-for-profit organizations in my community.

John Murdoch

Re:hmmm. optimized debian?

[nconway]

AFAIK, pentium optimizations have been reject by the Debian developers for several reasons.

- they rarely enhance performance at all - pgcc has problems compiling quite a lot of software - any good optimizations that pgcc developes are eventually folded back into gcc/egcs - Debian runs on many different platforms, and spending time producing 2 x86 distrox probably isn't a very good way to use Debian's resources

Check the debian-devel archives for more info.

Short Amount of Time

[roman_mir]

The new developers will have to learn the design,the documentation, the code the style and approach. This is not going to be a 'short period of time'. For them to restart a product, it may take a while, say 3 month (in the best case.) I am working on a project that has being around for almost 10 month, and during that time we had new developers come into play, well, if it is a very good developer, it takes about 1.5-2 months for him/her to really understand the architecture, the structure and be productive. For a less than a perfect developer, this time can be doubled. The more experienced a developer is the less time it takes him/her to adopt.
I hope these managers can find some one really good, or they may loose this product.