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

Re:Looks like...

[giorgiofr]

That message is as fake as they get... I would guess somebody hijacked his mailbox and had a bit of fun :D

Re:Hmmmmm

[AccUser]

Looks like he is usually unhappy...

Betrayal ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure most people (the ones who matter) can understand why. If someone doesn't, I could not care less. Take care.

Dont know much about PHP and dont know the insides of what happens with the group but judging by the reaction I wonder if I can hazard a guess about what happened. When someone who is obviously a major driving force behind a movement of this kind quits with so much bitterness as to turn his back on his own creation, the best I can gather is he feels theres nothing left worth working/fighting for. Maybe internal politics is causing a serious strain on his ability to function and some of the fights may have wrongly undermined his credibility in the eyes of others. Its sad when people hog the limelight of someone elses hard work and alienate the people who matter for their own personal shortsighted gains. I've seen it happen all to often.

Seeds of conflict?

[Anthony Boyd]

I found these:

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=11329681 6720289&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=11532555 7711671&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=11533120 9820157&w=2

...which hint at conflict. Maybe one of those blew up in a way he didn't like. However, I don't think those really are the issues. I would guess it's something off-list. It's too bad. I have friends working at Zend. You never want to see someone so useful walk away.

I must admit that I'm impressed with the mailing list -- Jani said "don't reply" and nobody did. They're either a disciplined bunch, heavily moderated, or Jani's leaving just didn't have much impact.

-Tony

Re:Ironic

[Eric S. Smith]

Ironic that a former "peacekeeper" says "Nuke"... Very lame, regardless of the reason.

You'd probably say much the same thing if someone dropped a laser-guided bomb on your colleague's head.

And since he hasn't actually killed anyone in his frustration and rage, he's still miles behind the bomb-flingers of the world in the lameness department.

Independant, trustworthy corroboration:

[mkavanagh2]

A partial quote of the log from a trusted member of the PHP community with a timestamp not included in my quote.

http://news.php.net/php.internals/25044

I hope this settles any speculation about who is or is not a Mossad agent fabricating stories to destroy the internet.

Re:Come on guys..

[Xenophon Fenderson,]

Even with the posted IRC logs, this may not be the entire story. I haven't scrolled through enough of the 600+ comments yet, and I can't verify the legitimacy of the quotation. But let's assume it's valid. The guy is supposed to be in Afghanistan right now. That means he is taking preventative medication for malaria. At least one of the anti-malarial drugs typically administered by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, mefloquine (a.k.a. Lariam), occasionally causes mental problems. It's rare - usually, mefloquine just causes an upset stomach or insomnia - but it's possible that the degree of this fellow's reaction is induced by the medication. If he lost close friends in the attack, it's also conceivable that he was so overcome that his comments on IRC were made in the heat of the moment, especially given the following (very low-key) email. It's probably better to give the fellow the benefit of the doubt, concentrate on his positive contributions, and move on.