[csw-maintainers] Why I'm retiring

[Philip Brown]

This message is both an explanation, and a warning, to maintainers
past and present.

Firstly, the current board has subverted fair democratic process.
The way the latest voting process and ballot was manipulated, should
be considered an outrage.
At every step they have steered it on a narrow course, putting
blinders up to obscure any way but their chosen course.

Now they won't even allow wording on the ballot to indicate in even a
minor way, "hey, there's something worth reading on the detailed
write-up"??

There have been claims of "well we can vote on amendments to the
proposal, after we pass the proposal".
Given the way this vote has been run... and for that matter, the two
preceeding ones as well!... it seems pretty clear that it would be
anything but a fair vote.

It's sad enough that they are doing this; but what is far sadder, is
that no-one else seems to CARE.
Whether or not you agree with the direction they are taking things
technically, this abuse of power should greatly concern all
maintainers.

It *should*. Yet it does not seem to worry anyone but me.

On top of the abuses of power, there are bad software development
practices, such as "just grab from the svn tree, we dont want to be
hassled with making proper releases of core utilities". As exemplified
by the handling of gar in general, and re-emphasised recently with the
mercurial/csw-upload-package issues.
These attitudes seem to be entrenched, without hope of fixing.

It used to be that CSW was a place that cared about technical quality,
and user experience, above all other considerations.
The priorities seem to now be "is it convenient to the maintainer, and
is it easy to code in gar?"
All else is secondary to those considerations.

It seems the integrity of the organization has passed the point of
being savable.
Therefore, I hereby tender my resignation from opencsw.

Philip Brown
July 3, 2011