Lead PHP Developer Quits 809
Jasper Bryant-Greene writes "Jani Taskinen, one of the lead developers of the Zend Engine (the engine that powers PHP), as well as a lead developer for the thread safety system and other core components of the PHP project, has quit in a relatively cryptic message to the php-internals mailing list. Jani has been involved with PHP for about 6 years and his loss will undoubtedly be a big blow for the PHP project."
Re:Looks like... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hmmmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Emotions picked up from reading the email (Score:1, Interesting)
Betrayal ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Dont know much about PHP and dont know the insides of what happens with the group but judging by the reaction I wonder if I can hazard a guess about what happened. When someone who is obviously a major driving force behind a movement of this kind quits with so much bitterness as to turn his back on his own creation, the best I can gather is he feels theres nothing left worth working/fighting for. Maybe internal politics is causing a serious strain on his ability to function and some of the fights may have wrongly undermined his credibility in the eyes of others. Its sad when people hog the limelight of someone elses hard work and alienate the people who matter for their own personal shortsighted gains. I've seen it happen all to often.
Angry Old Men (Score:1, Interesting)
Not only is it okay for people to actually pursue happiness, it's also okay, and healthy, for people to express how unhappy and upset they are. Seems that some people on this thread should take note of this.
Re:From IRC, the reason: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:From IRC, the reason: (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Good riddance... although a sad one! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Shock! (Score:2, Interesting)
Seeds of conflict? (Score:5, Interesting)
I found these:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=11329681 6720289&w=2 [theaimsgroup.com] 5 7711671&w=2 [theaimsgroup.com] 0 9820157&w=2 [theaimsgroup.com]
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=1153255
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=1153312
...which hint at conflict. Maybe one of those blew up in a way he didn't like. However, I don't think those really are the issues. I would guess it's something off-list. It's too bad. I have friends working at Zend. You never want to see someone so useful walk away.
I must admit that I'm impressed with the mailing list -- Jani said "don't reply" and nobody did. They're either a disciplined bunch, heavily moderated, or Jani's leaving just didn't have much impact.
-Tony
Re:From IRC, the reason: (Score:2, Interesting)
Jani has served as a peacekeeper around the globe, the conflict had killed one of his co-workers. Truely sad indeed.
Re:Shock! (Score:2, Interesting)
Ubiquitous. Now it makes sense to say that something exists at a certain level of ubiquity--that is it exists in varying degrees of proliferation. For instance, I personally exist at almost zero ubiquity: there is only one of me, and therefore I am highly unique. In dealing with persons, this makes less sense, as every person may said to be unique.
In dealing with traits, however, it makes much more sense. If you have 1000 people and one trait appears in 900, it may said to be very ubiquitous, and not very unique. If, however, it only exists in 3 people, it will be said that it is not very ubiquitous at all--or fairly unique. What if a trait only appears in 1 in every 1,000,000 people--that would be rather unique (although you would currently expect to find about 6,000 people in the world with the trait).
Thus anyone who thinks that unique is a binary condition has made a rather simple logical mistake that should be corrected.
Re:From IRC, the reason: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
And since he hasn't actually killed anyone in his frustration and rage, he's still miles behind the bomb-flingers of the world in the lameness department.
Re:From IRC, the reason: (Score:2, Interesting)
.
Comparing all Arabs to the Wahabists is like saying all Americans are like those mid-west bible thumping fundies, or that GW is a typical American.
You should also keep in mind that for most of the history of Palestine post Roman occupation apart from the period around the crusades, Jews and Arabs have lived reasonably successfully together in the Middle East, up until The foundation of the modern state of Israel. Yes, there were incidents of anti-semitism, but these were not the norm for about 1600 years.
Re:From IRC, the reason: (Score:2, Interesting)
Independant, trustworthy corroboration: (Score:3, Interesting)
http://news.php.net/php.internals/25044 [php.net]
I hope this settles any speculation about who is or is not a Mossad agent fabricating stories to destroy the internet.
Re:From IRC, the reason: (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose we'll find out sooner or later, I doubt Jani will be silent on the issue much longer. Absence of a response isn't proof he did say and mean it, but it would certainly be very foolish in any other case.
If we follow Occam's razor then surely he would deny the words if the logs aren't true while if they are he would apologise for a sad, emotional rant. I suspect returning from his decision that he cannot work on PHP as long as Israeli Zend backs it is rather impossible at this point, but that decision in itself is respectable even for people like me who disagree with the logic (or even viewpoint) behind it. It is his right not to want to work with Israelis, but for his own sake I hope he tries to do some damage control.
And I think his PHP contributions are not the most notable background here. He's a UN peacekeeper and has in fact been stationed in Lebanon. If you think the PHP team is not going to be happy about this publicity, think of how the UN should feel when there own forces make such emotional hateful rants in public after a "friendly" fire incident - as bad as that incident may be. That might also be why he has no priority to defend himself towards the open source world, he's probably doing all he can by now to keep his job and avoid an official investigation. Or maybe he's preparing a libel case (or would IRC/Slashdot constitute slander?).
What does Israel have to do with it? (Score:1, Interesting)
PHP will be stronger (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:From IRC, the reason: (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Come on guys.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Even with the posted IRC logs, this may not be the entire story. I haven't scrolled through enough of the 600+ comments yet, and I can't verify the legitimacy of the quotation. But let's assume it's valid. The guy is supposed to be in Afghanistan right now. That means he is taking preventative medication for malaria. At least one of the anti-malarial drugs typically administered by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, mefloquine (a.k.a. Lariam), occasionally causes mental problems [fda.gov]. It's rare - usually, mefloquine just causes an upset stomach or insomnia - but it's possible that the degree of this fellow's reaction is induced by the medication. If he lost close friends in the attack, it's also conceivable that he was so overcome that his comments on IRC were made in the heat of the moment, especially given the following (very low-key) email. It's probably better to give the fellow the benefit of the doubt, concentrate on his positive contributions, and move on.
Re:Looks like a stomp and a doorslam. (Score:3, Interesting)