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Michael Smith Leaves Core

Posted by michael on from the seasons-change dept.

Donald Burr of Borg writes "Following in the footsteps of Jordan Hubbard, Michael Smith leaves the FreeBSD core team. Reasons cited are similar to those that jkh gave, including displeasure at the bureacracy and politicking, and FreeBSD not being "fun" anymore."

3 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. OT - On the bright side... by questionlp · · Score: 3, Interesting
    On the bright side of things, Michael Lucas (who has been actively involved in FreeBSD in one way or another) has been appointed as the FreeBSD Project Donations Liaison Officer.

    Back on topic, it is kind of sad that two respected people have left the FreeBSD core team, but things have to evolve and projects need to become somewhat dynamic rather than stay stagnant. Companies cannot survive with the same set of people on their board of directors forever either (though some wish that isn't the case).

    As projects get more committers, programmers, and commenters, the harder it is to keep focused and be able to agree on the same thing. I think that Linux has shown some of the same symptoms (disagreements between how kernel patches should be handled, etc.).

    Just some of my thoughts... that's all.

  2. Re:BSD _is_ dying, apparently by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's that the project's governance is broken, and that far too much time is spent arguing petty matters with little effect beyond making the participants unhappy.

    "We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personalities?"

    His harshest words are reserved for the "politically obsessed" and the "grandstanders, the prima donnas"

  3. Re:Why FreeBSD? by Geekboy(Wizard) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    FreeBSD has the most "political" core group. AFAIK, Net and Open are more concerned with the code being correct, and working, rather than if a part of the man page is in bold or not. I've seen arguments go on for a week after the subject they are debating is fixed, and works quite well. The bikeshed is burnt to the ground. ;-)