[bobross12345678]

I want to express my sympathy towards open source maintainers and builders. Really they go through so much shit they dont need to go through more, but I think this has made most open source maintainers either too sensitive or their fuck-o-meter go crazy.

There is obvious a communication issue from the .net foundation but also from the maintainers themselves.

If they ask you for X permission, you cant just say no, sorry but you are part of an organization and it doesnt work that way, one way or another regardless of what was told to you X years ago, things might change and you will need to take an active stance to it.

Horrible move from the foundation to ABUSE their admin rights and move the repo to GitHub Enterprise, but posting a tweet about your emotions and then trying to find a way to move the repo without reaching out to someone is not the way to go.

Most likely even if the person did reach out to someone, the reply would be dry and late, but this is something that has been cultivated by the maintainers as well. As the article mentions "the communication was shit but it was fine as long as it didnt affect me" - not direct quote.

I think both sides need to reconsider their communication channels and behaviors. They both need to understand that one way or another they have an obligation to each other.

I hope communication and transparency will help to not have similar issues in the future.

[robmen]

You are correct about communication being the core of the issue.

I understand what you are saying with "If they ask you for X permission, you cant just say no, sorry but you are part of an organization and it doesnt work that way". But I didn't say no to the requirement from the .NET Foundation. I was happy to enforce the Code of Conduct. Where I drew the line was granting admin access to an alias. The .NET Foundation owns the copyright but they don't own me. I'll also argue they don't own the issue tracker and other non-source code things in the project. And opinions on that could differ so conversations could be in order.

Also, I didn't spend a lot of time in the blog post discussing the evaluation of repercussions but Bob and I did talk about the for a while. In the end, I decided that those of us that work on the WiX Toolset would be in a better place to communicate if our organization was in "public". I take responsibility for that decision and I'm transparent about what and why I did it.

But, in the end, I agree with you. Communication and transparency will help to avoid similar issues in the future.

[bobross12345678]

Of course I only have the view that is presented as I dont know what is happening further, if there were more talks etc. Maybe I am wrong in that sense and there was more substance than I realize, and as I said I am 100% with you, large organizations should not abuse their power.

I hope that it gets better and I hope to not have offended you. (my comment has already been downvoted as per usual HN environment when someone is not taking the side of the majority )

[robmen]

No worries. I disagree with a couple parts of your position but that doesn't mean you are wrong. :)

I also happen to agree with the bulk of it.

[oaiey]

You are doing the right thing. The .NET Foundation has to learn and change OR release the projects back into the wild (also legally). Otherwise, they will receive the bill by hundreds of project forking and changing names, creating damage to the ecosystem and leaving them with a mess no one wants to take care of.

[robmen]

Those are all possible futures.