[CentOS] Open Letter to Lance Davis

[Johnny Hughes]

Neil Aggarwal wrote:
>> Rip-off is a harsh word.
> 
> Maybe, but it seems to accurately describe the
> situation as it is coming out.

This is potentially true, that some of the developers, who would use the
money in question to attend meetings or obtain hardware or software
(since we have never been directly compensated for working in CentOS),
might have to figure out another way to pay for said items.

> 
>> "Don't cry over spit milk"
> 
> The problem is this situation is erroding the trust 
> in this project.  

Why ... we are under no obligation to tell people how how we spend
monies.  There are costs that are incurred for any organization.  We are
probably going to disclose how monies are spent in the future because we
choose to.  If you run a private organization, must you tell me how you
spend your money?  You get an OS and can chose to donate monies or not.

There was an initial out lay of time, effort, infrastructure, etc. made
by several people to get CentOS off the ground.

What the developers expected, and what might certainly still be the case
is that there is an account with monies that exists.

None of what we are talking about affects the distribution of CentOS. It
effects who we might send to Linux meetings, what advertisements the
organization might pay for in a magazine, which of the developers may or
may not be compensated (none of the developers have ever been directly
compensated in the past, that may or may not be true in the future).

Lance did a lot of things for this Project early in it's inception and
he deserves to be compensated for his actions and work.  He has not done
much for the organization in the last few years, and he needs to provide
some information to the other people in the organization.

He also, IMHO, needs to turn over several things to a group of people so
that we can manage it more openly and have several people involved more
in the day to day operations of that part of the organization.

> 
> To me, the larger problem is the fact that the rest
> of the team kept it under wraps for so long.  That 
> immediately begs the question of what else they are 
> hiding or potentially will hide in the future.  
> 

We are hiding nothing ... why exactly does CentOS need to provide that
information to you?

> The reason stated was that it would make the project
> "look bad".  What happens if they discover something
> else that would make the project "look bad"?
> Would they try to hide that too?
> 

We were not then and not now hiding anything.  It is purely and internal
matter as to how some things need to be controlled.  If the CentOS.org
domain where not involved, then most if this would be being handled
privately among the developers/primary officers.


> 	Neil

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 252 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20090730/09afe6aa/attachment.sig>