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CentOS Project Administrator goes AWOL [merged]
| Posted by Dannyarr, 07-30-2009, 02:52 PM |
| Source: Slashdot
The letter can be found on the front page of CentOS.org.
So.. what you guys think? Could cause some issues for CentOS development.
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| Posted by Mach4-Chris, 07-30-2009, 03:04 PM |
| That sounds like a veiled intimation that he either toes the line or "the project" will soon reside at someotherdomain.org
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| Posted by UH-Bobby, 07-30-2009, 03:18 PM |
| That's the way I took it. It doesn't look like anything will be hurt or changed, except maybe the domain itself.
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| Posted by 040Hosting, 07-30-2009, 03:49 PM |
| First of all; i do not know where this is about; but i find the 'open letter' very much attacking the person they 'need' something from, not a good basis to get things done from my point of view; even though the receiver may have called it up himself.
Of course i hope they get to solve the issue which they seem to be having, but would advise them to work on their communication skills or leave it to some who can be a bit more political correct
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| Posted by PeakVPN-KH, 07-30-2009, 06:44 PM |
| Heh...I'd say they may have reason to be upset.
It sounds like he's been holding on to all funds and not releasing details as to the amounts or where they are being spent.
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| Posted by Eric Davis, 07-30-2009, 07:03 PM |
| In the cover letter, as mentioned before, they seem to be attacking him.
Well, wouldn't someone have to have founder?
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| Posted by Mach4-Chris, 07-30-2009, 07:28 PM |
| Asides from internal concerns over 'shared management' issues, by far the most insidious and potentially definitive issue to arise from this whole statement is the question regarding funds that have not yet been accounted for.
If they are of the scale that essential working capital is compromised then the implication that the whole team might up and walk takes on a whole new meaning. Are they already feeling the pinch?
The theoretical possibility of any open source development team forking off, however well precedented, requires funding of some description so where will that come from? The development team?
Until more is known about this aspect, it seems, on the surface, little more than the vocal machinations of democracy versus autocracy, the former keen and the latter reluctant. On the other hand, the underlying financial considerations may foretell far more serious consequences all round.
Only time will tell. But I suspect there is yet more news to emerge that will clarify the true extent of internal unrest that may yet capture the interest of all CentOS users in so far as they will certainly want to monitor this situation very carefully indeed.
With so many alternative OSs available, many may feel this is all completely insignificant whilst those who are deeply committed to CentOS may, understandably, wonder whether that commitment is fully justified until this is resolved.
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| Posted by plumsauce, 07-30-2009, 09:07 PM |
| Exactly.
It may be open source, but as seen in other open source projects, at some point it is possible that someone feels that they own the project and are unwilling to share information.
Sometimes it goes so far as one person all of a sudden declaring that they own the copyright and that they are taking it commercial closed source.
So, what happens if Linus Torvalds goes off somewhere? He has final signoff on all kernel changes.
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| Posted by ragubhat, 07-31-2009, 01:55 AM |
| Will the packages repos and the mirror networks break apart now?
Do our hosting company friends here have any recovery plans for their clients, particularly users having CPanel servers? Some, maybe most hosting companies were 'brain-damaged' when they went about suggesting CentOS, now users elsewhere are getting real scared.
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| Posted by robotwink, 07-31-2009, 02:42 AM |
| I don't understand how they were able to write this letter at www.centos.org while claiming they do not have access. Can someone clarify this?
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| Posted by programguy, 07-31-2009, 02:52 AM |
| They do not share ownership of the domain, centos.org. It is solely owned by lance and it is set to expire in december.
The other items lance directly controls like the ircs and such make it impossible for them to change, alter, or do anything with them should an issue arise or lance decide to shut them down.
The money is also sent to lance, the donations, etc.
So the team is sitting there, able to do a lot and still keep it up while one guy disappears, refuses to account for the money and can shut the project down (website, irc, etc).
Although they have access and can change some things, the person who has sole ownership of these things has just 'flaked' and stop being involved or even communicating.
Not to mention it is unknown how much money is not being accounted for.
Yea, I would say the issue is pretty severe. How would you like to be part of a project and the leader appears to just stopped responding, takes the donations, and the communication lines are out of your control and some about to expire. After all you hard work, it is bad.
They will survive. either they will get the domain and control or they will fork to a new one.
I doubt any of the donations will ever make it to the project as he did the bernie madoff thing one would presume. And that is bad since people donated to keep centos up, not pay lance's mortgages.
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| Posted by zendzipr, 07-31-2009, 03:10 AM |
| They don't have the ability to manage the DNS or domain records. There are members who have access to the site and it's management. From what I have read, the lead has been gone since sometime in 2008. I am surprised it took this long to become public.
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| Posted by Dimitrigr, 07-31-2009, 03:36 AM |
| Next to the open letter on the centos.org site there is more information from the developers stating their commitment to continue with the project regardless.
Apparently they do have contingency plans in case the centos.org domain disappears.
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| Posted by JSHosts, 07-31-2009, 08:17 PM |
| I read this yesterday on their website. I hope it's just a misunderstanding and that CentOS doesn't become abandoned. CentOS is my favourite distro.
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| Posted by UNIXy, 07-31-2009, 09:05 PM |
| He's probably just vacationing in some remote, undisclosed location and can't check his inbox
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| Posted by colobroker, 07-31-2009, 09:12 PM |
| People are all upset that Lance took all the proceeds from adsense and paypal donations and is not going to return. There are a bunch of links about this if you google "lance centos missing" you can read more about the concerns. He does own the centos domain, so the project may even move to a new name.
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| Posted by brianoz, 07-31-2009, 11:46 PM |
| FWIW, centos.org uses child nameservers, which means that the IPs will have been hardcoded into the registrar. That means it's they can't move to other servers without changing the name (or getting access to the servers).
I'm confident they'll resolve the issue one way or another, given a little time; can't see any need for worry.
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| Posted by eth00, 08-01-2009, 07:54 AM |
| If you don't have access to the nameservers does not matter where they are pointed. Anyways it does not matter, the domain is now under shared control.
Looks like they reached some sort of a happy medium for now and he is turning things over to the community.
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| Posted by dotHostel, 08-01-2009, 08:31 AM |
| This remember me Mozilla Foundation vs Mozilla Corporation and the $ 70+ million paid by Google:
Last edited by dotHostel; 08-01-2009 at 08:39 AM.
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| Posted by net, 08-01-2009, 08:48 AM |
| Man, I hope this is not another Hyper thing :-)
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| Posted by TCH-Dick, 08-01-2009, 05:15 PM |
| Centos.org was updated today with the following:
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| Posted by KMyers, 08-01-2009, 05:50 PM |
| That is sweet
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| Posted by KarlZimmer, 08-01-2009, 08:11 PM |
| Recovery plan? For what? It is not like installed versions of the OS would cease to exist or hosts local repos would somehow be confiscated.
How is it at all "brain-damaged" to suggest/recommend CentOS? Are you suggesting it is wrong to recommend any open source project, since if developers lose interest they'll just stop the project? Thing is, if it is popular enough, as CentOS is, it would continue, maybe with a name change, but it would continue.
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| Posted by rankris, 08-01-2009, 08:17 PM |
| ahhh my Blood pressure shooted up after hearing this!!!! now in the site says most of the issues with Lance has been resolved.
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| Posted by dotHostel, 08-02-2009, 06:04 AM |
| This is just wishful thinking.
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| Posted by KarlZimmer, 08-02-2009, 04:54 PM |
| Is it? I personally know several groups that would be willing to pay for developers for CentOS if the project as is were to just vanish. Anyway, with CentOS, it isn't as if they're the only ones making RHEL compatible distributions, Scientific Linux, StartCom Enterprise Linux, etc. There were even more projects like that before CentOS became the dominant player, thus if CentOS were to vanish, there is certainly enough demand/interest that something else would take it's place.
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| Posted by foobic, 08-02-2009, 07:13 PM |
| IMO Karl is 100% correct. This is the key advantage of open-source, that if one group of developers stops, any other individual or group is free to continue the project. HyperVM provides a great example of the closed-source alternative scenario.
But it's good to hear the CentOS group have patched up their differences.
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| Posted by dotHostel, 08-02-2009, 07:26 PM |
| The present scenario: millions of people around the world making real money with CentOS, including Lance Davis, and the developers making no money.
IMO the "open letter" sounds as blackmail.
HyperVM provides great example of cheap software.
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