72 lines
3.5 KiB
Text
72 lines
3.5 KiB
Text
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN" [
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<!ENTITY base CDATA "..">
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<!ENTITY date "$Date: 1998-08-03 09:42:03 $">
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<!ENTITY title "Jordan's Resignation Letter">
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<!ENTITY % includes SYSTEM "../includes.sgml"> %includes;
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]>
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<!-- $Id: resignation.sgml,v 1.2 1998-08-03 09:42:03 wosch Exp $ -->
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<html>
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&header;
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<p>This short notice is just to announce my resignation as President
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of the FreeBSD Project, effective immediately, coinciding with the
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elimination of that position.</p>
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<p>This is entirely my own decision and was not prompted by anyone
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on the core team - if anything, they will probably be as surprised
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as anyone at the news (except for David & John D., with whom I've
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already discussed the matter).</p>
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<p>I do this for several reasons, all equally important:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><p>1. The position of President has always been somewhat at-odds with
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our democratic core team structure and purely titular since to
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give the president any real "power" would also destroy the carefully
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balanced dynamic of core, and that would hardly be a desirable outcome.</p>
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<p>The reason the position of "President" was originally created at all
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was to give ISVs and other corporate contacts a more official-sounding
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person to talk to, and while this has been valuable to a certain extent
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I don't think that it's quite proven useful enough to justify the
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further existance of the position. As it is, it only creates the
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illusion of a "super core member", which the president is not, and
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creates false expectations of authority.</p>
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<li><p>2. The president is generally assumed to be talking for FreeBSD at all times,
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depriving the wearer of that particular thorny crown of the right
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to voice strong opinions or otherwise be outspoken without damaging
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the reputation of the project. I'm not a punch-pulling kind of guy
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(as you no-doubt already guessed) and I almost certainly never will be,
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so it's time for me to have my own voice back and be able to talk to
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people without it being taken as implicit that I'm somehow speaking
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for all of core. If being "presidential" also means constantly
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turning the other cheek then I'll never be presidential enough and it's
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just not an adjustment I care to make (I'm not that kind of person) so
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I should step down from that responsibility.<p>
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<li><p>3. Dropping back to core team status will make it easier for me to
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shed additional FreeBSD responsibilities, should I decide that I
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need to do that in the future, and get some semblance of a life
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back. I've been doing this for 4 years now and I'm tired. Just how
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tired I will need to evaluate before making any further decisions, but at
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least the burden of this artificial position will no longer be mine.
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It will, in fact, be no ones' and I think this is a vast improvement.</p>
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</ul>
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<p>In discussions with David and John, it was also expressed that the
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position was never really that popular with the core team and that
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my stepping down should coincide with the complete elimination of
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an unnecessary and somewhat flawed position, and so it will be.</p>
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<p>So, as of now the FreeBSD Project now longer has a President. It is
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run purely by the core team, as it always was in truth, and now
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I'm just the PR guy, release engineer and plain old run-of-the-mill
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core team member. As if that wasn't enough. :-)</p>
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<p align=left>Jordan</p>
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&footer
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</body>
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</html>
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