Open Letter to Lance Davis(CentOS related)

jlgreer1 · 08-01-2009, 11:29 AM

That is great news. Thank you for posting.

Jeff

sblantipodi · 08-02-2009, 12:17 PM

can you explain me better how this things has been solved?
CentOS will continue with a single point of failure ?

scottro11 · 08-02-2009, 01:27 PM

Firstly, it was made into a far bigger deal than it actually was by everyone outside of CentOS. In the Fedora forums, it was titled something like This doesn't look good, which I later convinced them to change to, "The sky is falling!!! Oh...wait"

There were some issues with being unable to contact one of the main developers who had been there from the early days--because he was there from the early days, he had control of some things. Real life probably got in the way--remember, they all had day jobs.

So, someone posted the open letter as a way to more or less push the issue. On the right hand side, next to the letter, was a another section--it had the word "facts" in there, so of course, no one freaken' read it.

I've seen that the project was almost dead, that they were threatening to fork, etc. Various folks involved in CentOS and myself were somewhat amused--one send a group of us an email that said, "I thought I'd see it on the evening news."

Basically, facts are boring. Look at the evening news. Especially if it's about a subject of which you have some knowledge, no doubt you'll see how they completely sensationlize it.

There was a minor issue, quickly solved. That's about all that happened.

okcomputer44 · 08-02-2009, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottro11

There were some issues with being unable to contact one of the main developers who had been there from the early days--because he was there from the early days, he had control of some things. Real life probably got in the way--remember, they all had day jobs.

Lance Davis has all the paypal donation that is why cut the partners off from the main centos site the paypal link and he has the whole domain name under his control. (dns, zones, etc...)
As well as all google ads money was send to his account too.
He changed the domain control to not to be seen who the real owner is.

One of the main key person "DAG repository" just left the developer team because of that.

No one has ever reached the paypal account except Lance Davis and no one knows how big was the donation on a monthly basis. Dag Johan(DAG repo) said I only guess the donation was about 4 digit in euro/month.

Basically the CentOS right now is in deep.......

I'm really crying because I think CentOS is one of the best Linux distro I've ever worked on.(free)

Anyway what about the reputation?
What about the main key developers?

The whole project is just falling a part.

The DAG repository has more than 95000 rpms and that is the main third party repository for CentOS.

Laz

sblantipodi · 08-02-2009, 02:31 PM

I don't understand if they are fixing this "single point of failure" or not...

scottro11 · 08-02-2009, 02:34 PM

That's not why Dag left. He hasn't left in the sense of having nothing to do with the project, he's still quite active with rpmforge and the wiki.

I wouldn't say it's falling apart. Honest.

The main developers, KSingh, Russ, Jim Perrin, Ralph, and yes, Dag, though not officially, are all quite active. Dag is still maintaining and working with rpmforge. Not sure about Johnny and Donovan.

The reputation--perhaps it's worth noting that on the forums, there weren't even any posts about it until today, when all the brouhaha was done.

I think that most of us who use CentOS professionally looked at the letter, looked at the part on the right, showing that nothing is going to stop, and sort of shrugged.
It's the outside world that seems to have, IMVHO, over reacted here. The "threatened to create a fork,

Please, there is really no need to worry at this point. I believe that Dag stated his reasons for not remaining an official developer elsewhere, and I'm too lazy to look at this point.

I think it's great that people are concerned, but I think that we, as humans, always tend to think the worst.

scottro11 · 08-02-2009, 02:35 PM

@sblantipodi, sorry, I overlooked that part. I believe you could consider that fixed, as it will now be between different people, not just one.

scottro11 · 08-02-2009, 04:58 PM

@okcomputer44, doing a bit more reading, it seems you are right and the financial issues were one of the reasons (though, as far as I understand, not the only one) that caused Dag to leave the team--though rpmforge is alive and well.

This sort of thing is, of course, the trouble with opensource projects that become bigger than expected. All the same, my impression is that it will be sorted out, probably in the near future, and hopefully, to the point where it won't happen again.

chrism01 · 08-02-2009, 11:19 PM

If you look at the front page now http://www.centos.org/ its basically all resolved. Lance re-appeared and signed over the domain names etc and agreed to work with the team. See 'open letter' on RHS.

okcomputer44 · 08-03-2009, 05:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottro11

That's not why Dag left. He hasn't left in the sense of having nothing to do with the project, he's still quite active with rpmforge and the wiki.

DAG said this: http://planet.centos.org/

Quote:

"
The burden of keeping things private

Now that the cat is out of the bag I can discuss one part of what bothered me within the CentOS project for more than 2 years. Something which was unknown to outsiders, but also not discussable inside of the project because of the fear of the repercussions of bringing up this topic during a meeting. If you cannot discuss, you cannot fix.

The CentOS project does not have any recurring expenses, the project works with volunteers. And those volunteers pay with their own time, their own resources and sometimes travel expenses (for those who joined one of the promotion events). The project does get hardware and bandwidth donations and they are very valuable. In the end there is no need for money to keep the project running as-is.

But that of course does not mean that money couldn't help grow the project and that is why (I think) initially when the project was set up there was an effort to raise money. Google adsense, sponsorship on the website and even Paypal donations from users. How much, I cannot say because I don't know. I heard some vague numbers, likely in the 4 digits EUR range per month but real figures are only known by one person.

For at least three years people were donating money and sponsors were paying for website ads while the money was not flowing into the project, where it went to I can only guess. Raising the question was a risk to the project so everybody stayed quiet for the sake of the project hoping it would resolve itself. But this evidently has a burden on its volunteers, especially those that do invest their time and effort into the project.

Sadly such things never resolve themselves, they only get more ugly. I commend the project for coming clean and I didn't expect it would happen as quick as it did. But once the financial issues are resolved, there is a lot of work to turn the project into a real community project that can release even when one person is out of office, that is owned by a foundation and that makes the best use of the power of its the community.

Keywords here are trust, delegation and leadership (all three go together).

All in all, this is very good news from the CentOS project team ! Hope to see the first CentOS elections in 2009 ;-)

by dag at July 30, 2009 04:43 PM
"

scottro11 · 08-03-2009, 07:34 AM

@oku, see my post 2 posts above yours.

Bruce Hill · 08-03-2009, 05:43 PM

Just a comment, not flame bait.

The oldest surviving Linux distribution has had no such issues,
and is owned and controlled by one man ... Slackware.

These issues always arrive when you have democracy and committees.

unSpawn · 08-03-2009, 06:56 PM

Yes, the farce is strong in some...

MensaWater · 08-04-2009, 08:15 AM

Quote:

One of the main key person "DAG repository" just left the developer team because of that.

What is your source for that?

The Dag Wieers post clearly states that the project isn't going to the end and mentions nothing about him leaving. It was also posted BEFORE they had the meeting with Lance Davis. The post about the meeting suggests they've worked out most of the issues in that meeting and have a timeline for resolving the remaining ones.

hottdogg · 09-09-2010, 12:03 AM

It's been more than one year later now. I know this issue has been 'resolved' by centos team. What I want to know how is Lance Davis involvement in centos project as of now? does he still have influence in centos important aspects ? Or he is leaving centos for good? or he is just a part of the core team/commitees?
No meaningful info I can get from centos website.

Maybe after the settlement, the team doesn't want to make this thing such a big deal( which could scare or distract users) which is a good thing. But I'm just curious about current Lance Davis-centos team relationship situation.
Tnx in advance for any info about this.