An Open Letter To The FreeBSD Core Team
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Because of several events happened during the last 6 months we - the
BSD Users Group Hamburg - are concerned about the continuing future
success of the FreeBSD operating system.
Our concerns are technical as well as organizational in nature and they
are in detail:
We see a linuxization of FreeBSD happen. FreeBSD development
seems to become event-driven rather than driven by careful
design.
Rather than providing technical arguments, people try to gain
influence by formal status.
While we believe that a very good technical background is
required for being a core team member, we feel that communicational
and organizational management skills are a conditio sine qua non.
While being a wise core team member is an invaluable contribution,
worthful contributions can be supplied along other ways as well.
Almost no substantial technical discussion takes place anymore
on -hackers; some of the core team members doing architectural
work in the deeper kernel areas seem not even being subscribed
anymore. No other adequate place for such discussions seems to
exist.
We feel that the core team neither takes nor defends a clear
technical position. Because of this, several people seem to run
against rubber walls.
Source code policy is not consistent.
We are very upset about persons leaving and the circumstances
which led to their leave and which accompanied it.
Our point is that currently no clear direction is set (or at least not
visible to anyone outside core) and that random events cause damage in
all directions and trigger people to leave.
We fear that the current situation will drive away as many people as
possible directions exist. System organizing decisions are in any case
better than to thermalize and being killed by entropy.
We ask the core team to reconsider what they think the purpose of the
core team is, and what the best way is to achieve it.
The Founders of the BSD User Group Hamburg
Stefan Bethke <stb@hanse.de>
Martin Cracauer <cracauer@cons.org>
Lars Gerhard Kuehl <kuehl@lgk.de>
Hellmuth Michaelis <hm@kts.org>
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