April 13, 2003

State of the Disunion, XFree86-style


For those who came in late, Keith Packard (KP), who has done a great deal of work on the XFree86 software that so many Open Source OSes depend upon, recently lost his commit access. He's completely unhappy with the way XFree86 is run, and has been for some time. In the last few weeks he's taken to asking -- with the support of others involved in developing for XFree86 -- if the current XFree86 organization will be making any changes towards more transparency -- and if so, when.

Well, now he has his answer, and I'm certainly sure that it puts his mind to rest just as well as it does mine! [note: in this transcript, EE is Egbert Eich]

From the
teleconference minutes:

KP: What should we talk about this week?

??: Has there been any response from XFree86?

EE: The board plans to publish a mission statement. Nothing has been

made public yet, so I cannot comment.

Ooooh, a Mission Statement. Whoopee! Yee haw! Now we can all go dance in the streets to celebrate! I mean, after all, didn't the last 6 or 7 Mission Statements you got from various companies you worked for immediately address everyone's concerns and solve all the problems???

I just don't know what to say except: "Folks, you just can't make this sh*t up."

Posted by mark at April 13, 2003 12:50 AM