Re: "Why I am retiring from contributing to FreeBSD"

Hi, trasz@,


I am not a committer, nor do I develop large projects of the magnitude 
you have been working on. I am just a simple FreeBSD Porter, helping to 
maintain a few projects. So perhaps I do not have much authority to 
speak here.

You and I have crossed paths a few times during the release of one port 
or another, enough for me to say with certainty that your work is 
fundamental and of great importance to the Project.


I do not know which incidents you mentioned, nor the names of the people 
involved.
I have already communicated with one or two members of core@, with whom 
I have never had any problems.


I can mention only one incident from a few years ago, in which my mentor 
(very active in IRC administration and as Bugmeister) was removed by 
core@, apparently without justification to the Alumni community. He was 
disappointed and permanently stepped away from the project after more 
than a decade of contribution.
I also do not know the circumstances, but I admit that this made me very 
sad.


I absolutely cannot point fingers or state what is right or wrong. As I 
said at the beginning, I am just a FreeBSD Porter, trying to do my best 
for the community, and I am still a baby out of diapers compared to your 
time, knowledge, and experience.


I will say just one thing: do not leave the Project.


I am absolutely certain that core@ is always working (or trying) for the 
good of the FreeBSD Project, just like all Committers and Contributors. 
However, the lack of communication and transparency is causing us to 
lose great and valuable members.


This is not the time to throw shit at the fan, nor to blame one name or 
another. I think it is time to talk and try to find a point of balance, 
so that the community comes together instead of falling apart.


If core@ does not respond, let us all, together and respectfully, ask 
core@ for a position regarding the facts.
To understand all sides, reach a common understanding, and continue in 
harmony.
I have been at two companies that went bankrupt due to internal 
conflicts, not external problems. Let us not do the same here.


FreeBSD is strong, our team is strong, the committers are badass. Let’s 
keep it that way!

~ devnull


On 30/12/25 05:59, Edward Tomasz Napierała wrote:
> Hi, I’m trasz@; over past two decades I wrote the iSCSI stack,
> and autofs(4), and rctl(8), and ZFS ACLs, and reroot, and some other
> bits, working for FreeBSD Foundation and now University of Cambridge.
> Currently I’m in a weird situation where FreeBSD core team (likely)
> won’t kick me out until I release the email archive documenting their
> mishandling of a certain incident, including them lying to my face
> to discourage me from speaking up about it.
>
> Or, they could kick me out for protesting against genocide in a way
> that hurt core team member’s income streams.  Or because a YouTuber
> they like asked them to.  We’ll know the official excuse once it
> happens :)
>
> This email is about something else though.  Normally this would barely
> raise any eyebrows, but given current circumstances it deserves closer
> look: seems like core@ scared away another long time contributor:
>
> https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=50102.0
>
> The background - record of someone’s hurt feelings - can be found at:
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20250616201452/https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=280701
>
> Note that I don’t know the situation and so I’m not definitely claiming
> core is in the wrong here - just that it would be naive to blindly trust
> they are still doing the right thing, given recent history.
>
> The problem, as I see it, is that core@ has learned, consciously or not,
> that they can just ignore the developer community altogether.  They don’t
> even bother answering emails at this point.
>
> Another committer declared that “the proper way is to elect better core
> team next time”.  And so there is this fundamental problem that we grew
> attached to larping democracy with core elections.  Real democracy depends
> on being able to criticise the elected team, which in FreeBSD is not
> currently allowed; any discussion on this topic gets immediately squashed.
> Democracy also requires transparency, which is something that we used
> to have, at least betwen core and developers, until the current core team
> “forgot about it”.  This whole mechanism is fundamentally broken, yet
> we refuse to acknowledge that and instead continue the cargo cult.
>
> So, go read the links above, then ask core@ what happened there.
> Sorry I have to do it like this in public, but my previous, more private,
> attempts have all been ignored.
>
>