Lead PHP Developer Quits

Jasper Bryant-Greene writes "Jani Taskinen, one of the lead developers of the Zend Engine (the engine that powers PHP), as well as a lead developer for the thread safety system and other core components of the PHP project, has quit in a relatively cryptic message to the php-internals mailing list. Jani has been involved with PHP for about 6 years and his loss will undoubtedly be a big blow for the PHP project."

Comments

Message text

[Anonymous Coward]

The server is rapidly getting slower, so:

From: Jani Taskinen
Date: Thu Jul 27 20:28:45 2006
Subject: Good bye.
Groups: php.internals

Thank you all for the last 6 years or so. It has been fun (sometimes)
and many times not so much fun. Unfortunately I have had enough and
I don't want to be associated with this project anymore.
 
I'm sure most people (the ones who matter) can understand why.
If someone doesn't, I could not care less. Take care.
 
Please do not reply to this email.
 
--Jani
 
p.s. Delete my CVS account. I have no use for it anymore.

Re:Message text

[QAPete]

Rage quit FTL!

Seriously, though, a more thorough listing of Jani's contributions over the past 6+ years might better show just how much of a loss it is to have him depart the scene (from http://www.zend.com/person.php?handle=sniper:

• as a lead developer for Zend Engine II
• as a lead developer for TSRM (Thread Safety Resource Management)
• by testing and maintaining the build for the PHP core
• by writing/maintaining tests for the standard functions in the PHP core
• as a lead developer for gd, a core extension
• by working as a developer on imap, a core extension
• by working as a developer on session, a core extension
• by working as a developer on sockets, a core extension
• by providing occasional fixes for the testsuite distributed with PHP
• by applying maintenance fixes to the underlying libraries in bcmath, pcre and xmlrpc
• by providing tests and occasional fixes for xml
• by providing occasional fixes for apache2filter, apache2handler, apache_hooks, cgi, cli, dba, dom, iconv, informix, isapi, ldap, mcrypt, mcve, mime_magic, msql, mssql, mysqli, mysql, ncurses, oci8, odbc, openssl, oracle, pgsql, recode, snmp, soap, sqlite, sybase, tidy and tokenizer
• by writing/maintaining tests for mbstring, mhash, pcntl, pspell, shmop and wddx
• by working as a developer on bugs.php.net

Whatever the reasons were, major thanks have to go to Jani for all of his work. We would be looking at a different www without his efforts.

Re:Message text

[jZnat]

I don't even know what could have caused him to quit now. Could it be the Date class flamewars? That's the only thing that seems to have been unruly lately in the internals mailing list.

Re:Message text

[Andrey]

Jani has undoubtedly contributed a lot to the PHP project, but he is _not_ a lead developer on Zend Engine or TSRM. The original Slashdot post makes it sound like this is some sort of death blow for PHP. It is not. As a simple example, Jani has been gone on a UN peace forces duty in Afghanistan for the past 6 months and while his presence was missed (mostly in bugs triage and build system), the project has not lost any steam or anything like that. Consider this:

% grep sniper TSRM/*.[ch]
TSRM/tsrm_nw.c:/* $Id: tsrm_nw.c,v 1.8.2.1 2006/01/01 12:50:00 sniper Exp $ */
TSRM/tsrm_virtual_cwd.h:/* $Id: tsrm_virtual_cwd.h,v 1.48.2.5 2006/04/10 11:56:18 sniper Exp $ */
TSRM/tsrm_win32.c:/* $Id: tsrm_win32.c,v 1.27.2.1 2006/01/01 12:50:00 sniper Exp $ */
TSRM/tsrm_win32.h:/* $Id: tsrm_win32.h,v 1.19.2.1 2006/01/01 12:50:00 sniper Exp $ */
% grep Jani Zend/*.[ch]
% grep sniper Zend/*.[ch]

I am not sure how his profile on zend.com was compiled, but whoever did it should have been more accurate. Let me emphasize this: Jani is a friend and will be missed, but that was his personal decision made for personal reasons (which I will not disclose here) and will not affect the project.

Let's all keep our heads up and speculation down.

-Andrei
http://www.gravitonic.com/

Pity

[LarsWestergren]

Harsh words, sounds like there is some personal conflict involved. Or maybe he just got tired and wanted to move on to something different. Best wishes to all involved anyways.

Unfortunate for the Zend team, but I'm sure it won't be the death of PHP. There are many other developers, and you can still run PHP sites with other engines, for instance, the Quercus engine in Cauchos Resin I'm sure there are similar modules available in the mono/.Net world and others.

Jani Taskinen who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jani "sniper" Taskinen
Jani worked on the PHP core and the Zend Engine.

Jani has contributed to php.net in the following ways over the last 12 months:
        * as a lead developer for Zend Engine II
        * as a lead developer for TSRM (Thread Safety Resource Management)
        * by testing and maintaining the build for the PHP core
        * by writing/maintaining tests for the standard functions in the PHP core
        * as a lead developer for gd, a core extension
        * by working as a developer on imap, a core extension
        * by working as a developer on session, a core extension
        * by working as a developer on sockets, a core extension
        * by providing occasional fixes for the testsuite distributed with PHP
        * by applying maintenance fixes to the underlying libraries in bcmath, pcre and xmlrpc
        * by providing tests and occasional fixes for xml
        * by providing occasional fixes for apache2filter, apache2handler, apache_hooks, cgi, cli, dba, dom, iconv, informix, isapi, ldap, mcrypt, mcve, mime_magic, msql, mssql, mysqli, mysql, ncurses, oci8, odbc, openssl, oracle, pgsql, recode, snmp, soap, sqlite, sybase, tidy and tokenizer
        * by writing/maintaining tests for mbstring, mhash, pcntl, pspell, shmop and wddx
        * by working as a developer on bugs.php.net

Re:Good riddance... although a sad one!

[jkrise]

where's your wildly succesful open source project?

Huh... I made Linux-jkrise.. I once recompiled the kernel to fix some USB CDMA modem issue - does that count?

If they deliver the code and can keep the project together with their style, then can act how they want.

Actually, just a coupla' days back, I remember reading this stuff about a PHP book.
"This book, written by my colleague, Andi Gutmans, and two very prominent PHP developers, Stig Bakken and Derick Rethans, holds the key to unlocking the riches of PHP 5. It thoroughly covers all of the features of this new version, and is a must have for all PHP developers interested in exploring PHP 5's advanced features"

Zeev Suraski, Co-Designer of PHP 5 and Co-Creator of the Zend Engine

Looks like there's more than one creator of the Zend Engine... not just Jani. And that's the reason why I think inflated egos are bad in Open Source development teams.

From IRC, the reason:

[mkavanagh2]

"_sniper_" is Jani Taskinen.

<_sniper_> hehehehe..
<_sniper_> all other members of the UN security council wanted to condemn Israel for attacking the UN post but USA (freedom and democracy) vetoed it....Israel says the resolution was fair.
<_sniper_> hell yeah..
<_sniper_> NUKE ISRAEL!
<_sniper_> I'm so full of that fucking country..
<Shai-Tan> indeed
<_sniper_> Eye for an eye..I'll kill one Israel officer for one of ours, is that fair?
<_sniper_> I bet I'll be hanged for that.
<_sniper_> They kill one of my brother-in-arms-for-peace..I think I'm entitled to kill one of their nazis.
<_sniper_> Hezbollah, where can I enlist?
<_sniper_> FYI: I don't care at all what anybody thinks about me. I'm going to be openly anti-Israel from now on. This was the last straw for me. Fuck you jews.
<_sniper_> I will also quit this project. As long as it's backed by some Israel company, I don't want to have anything to do with it.
<_sniper_> Good bye.
<-- _sniper_ (~jani@a88-112-115-63.elisa-laajakaista.fi) has left #php.pecl

Seriously. Not kidding.

Re:From IRC, the reason:

[mkavanagh2]

As per anon-sibling, Zend is based in Israel and IIRC the two founders of Zend are also Israelis. They're probably not best buddies with Jani now, but I'm not sure anybody was ever best buddies with Jani.

Re:From IRC, the reason:

[ovatto]

It probably has something to do with this: http://virtual.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intN WSAID=13246&group=General

Re:From IRC, the reason:

[Anonymous Coward]

Jani has served as an UN peacekeeper. So probably, very much.

Re:From IRC, the reason:

[aaronwormus]

Jani just returned from a 6 month peace-keeping tour in Afgahnistan, one of his co-workers was killed in what was called a deliberate attack on a UN position.

Regardless of stupid things that he said, I think it's VERY poor taste to post an emotional outburst (which was timestamped at 2am - yes, it's real) and to make such a big deal over this.

Move on people...

Re:From IRC, the reason:

[Nestafo]

I have no specific information about this incident, but if the IRC log is not a fake, this might be related:

http://wfrv.com/topstories/topstories_story_206180 457.html

One of the four UN peacekeepers killed by Israel was a 29-year old Finn.

Re:From IRC, the reason:

[Badly Configured]

Without making any comment on the previous post, it might be worth mentioning that Jani himself has served as a UN peace keeper in Southern Lebanon and has been at the receiving end of both Israel and Hezbollah fire. This may entitle him to have strong personal feelings about the recent death of a Finnish peace keeper at the same location, along ones from other countries.

more logs because the internet likes pasted logs

[mkavanagh2]

Names changed because I like search/replace.

<apples> i don't think you should have posted it at all
<apples> and you could atleast have posted the whole thing
<pears> bananas jani is a good friend of ours
< bananas> I didn't have the whole thing
<pears> bananas: posting something out of contest is bad, and its not going to do him any good
<apples> the whole stuff on slashdot is actually crap
<apples> but that is nothing new
* pears is debating with himself whether to post to slasdot
<hedge> don't
<trees> well I kind of feel sorry for this now, I didn't expect pasting a few lines to a friend to turn into something
ike this :S
<pears> i have this feeling that it is unfair to jano
<pears> jani
<trees> however I wonder why he said that?
<pears> not to mentioned his life long peac keeping contributions
<hedge> it is, but IMO it's too late to change anything
<pears> serving among other places kosovo and lebanon
<pears> and being there himself (at the post where the 4 un peackeepers were killed by isreal)
<pears> and currently serving in afganistan
<pears> all that, and thanks to the IQ of our "friends" bananas and trees here
<pears> he comes as some nazi anti-semit biggot
<apples> trees: don't you say stupid things when you're drunk?

Re:What are his reasons?

[morrisonsean]

Seriously, why the sour grapes?

He's pissed because one of the UN peacekeepers killed by the Israeli airstrike this week was Finnish. He's Finnish, and was supposedly a UN peacekeeper at one point. The projects he was working on were hosted by an Israeli company.

So he had an anti-semetic rant and quit.

digg link (which has a lot more insightful commentary, btw)

Re:Israel is not "attacking the civilian populatio

[ray-auch]

Israel is attacking military targets that Hezbollah has purposly intermingled amongst civilians

like civilian airports ? power stations ? sewage works ?

pretty big targets to be hit "accidentally".

In fact, Israel has taken pains to inform civilians

And then killed them when they flee their homes in response to those warnings.
And then attacked red cross ambulances evacuating the wounded.
And attacked the UN convoys taking aid to those too frightened to move.
And the unarmed UN observers (in a bunker, apparently detroyed by precision guided weapon, after repeated requests from the UN not to hit those coordinates).
And then shelled the UN rescue effort for the observers.

Sure, Hezbolla is throwing back random unguided rockets, but the IDF does not have that excuse, they are supposedly using modern precision guided weapons, it's pretty hard to believe all these are all accidentally off-target.

Finally, today's news quote:

The Israeli military's radio station in south Lebanon today warned that the army "will totally destroy any village from which missiles are fired toward Israel".

So, in their own words, this is defintely purposeful.

Fact is neither side cares about civilian lives.