CentOS: Project in Peril

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DATELINE - July 30, 2009

An open letter was sent to Lance Davis, primary administrator, describing the problems experienced by the other major members and contributors to the CentOS project.


Here is that letter, in its entirety that's also posted on the front page at centos.org:

July 30, 2009 04:39 UTC

This is an Open Letter to Lance Davis from fellow CentOS Developers

It is regrettable that we are forced to send this letter but we are left with no other options. For some time now we have been attempting to resolve these problems:

You seem to have crawled into a hole ... and this is not acceptable.

You have long promised a statement of CentOS project funds; to this date this has not appeared.

You hold sole control of the centos.org domain with no deputy; this is not proper.

You have, it seems, sole 'Founders' rights in the IRC channels with no deputy ; this is not proper.

When I (Russ) try to call the phone numbers for UK Linux, and for you individually, I get a telco intercept 'Lines are temporarily busy' for the last two weeks. Finally yesterday, a voicemail in your voice picked up, and I left a message urgently requesting a reply. Karanbir also reports calling and leaving messages without your reply.

Please do not kill CentOS through your fear of shared management of the project.

Clearly the project dies if all the developers walk away.

Please contact me, or any other signer of this letter at once, to arrange for the required information to keep the project alive at the 'centos.org' domain.

Sincerely,

Russ Herrold
Ralph Angenendt
Karanbir Singh
Jim Perrin
Donavan Nelson
Tim Verhoeven
Tru Huynh
Johnny Hughes

Over the years, there have been failures to renew the centos.org domain prior to expiration and other associated problems with the non-shared administration of the project--assumed to be mostly the fault of Lance Davis.

The major problem right now seems to be with control of the domain that is registered privately with Tucows in Canada.

Here is the domain registration information:

Domain ID: D103409469-LROR
Domain Name:CENTOS.ORG
Created On:04-Dec-2003 12:28:30 UTC
Last Updated On:15-Jul-2009 21:54:30 UTC
Expiration Date:04-Dec-2009 12:28:30 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Tucows Inc. (R11-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:tutBz5Gni1LW5TtF
Registrant Name:contactprivacy.com
Registrant Organization:Contactprivacy.com
Registrant Street1:96 Mowat Ave
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Toronto
Registrant State/Province:ON
Registrant Postal Code:M6K3M1
Registrant Country:CA
Registrant Phone:+1.4165385457
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:centos.org@contactprivacy.com

Domains registered in this fashion include no direct contact information and the domain is set, as you can see, to TRANSFER PROHIBITED.

It is my sincere hope that CentOS continues as it has in the past--without the bumps and problems. I also hope that the project and Linux in general doesn't receive a backlash from this oddity.

I told Karanbir Singh (mentioned in the letter above) in a private email that I would participate and help in any way that I possibly can in the CentOS project.

Karanbir Singh is scheduled to be on on Friday, September 11, 7:00pm Eastern. Listen in and get information straight from the source.

Lance, if you read this and don't want to deal directly with the CentOS members, for whatever reason, contact me--via email or DaniWeb private messages and I'll help you take this to resolution.

Dani AI

Generated

posted the original alert about the July 2009 open letter from several CentOS developers raising serious governance and single-point-of-control concerns. That public call-out reflected real risks: a long‑absent founder retained control over the project’s domain and financial access, which alarmed contributors and users. (lwn.net)

The immediate crisis was resolved: the community made contact with the absent founder and control of key resources (domains) was returned to the project the following month, and CentOS continued to grow (later becoming formally sponsored by Red Hat in 2014). These outcomes show both how fragile community infrastructure can be and how community pressure plus clear, documented escalation paths can work. (lwn.net)

Practical checklist for any community project to avoid the same failure mode:

  • Move critical assets (domains, registrar accounts, payment accounts) to organization-managed identities with multiple administrators and documented emergency procedures. See open‑source governance and launch guidance. (linuxfoundation.org)
  • Keep public records of donations/spending or a transparent accounting (even a simple ledger page) so contributors and sponsors can verify funds. (todogroup.org)
  • For domain incidents, document contact attempts, contact the registrar immediately, and follow ICANN transfer/registrant-change processes (registrars can’t indefinitely refuse a legitimate registrant). If recovery fails, plan to mirror repositories and repoint clients to a new domain. ()

Example (minimal yum repo switch) — use your new mirror URL and trusted GPG key path:

[base]
name=Custom CentOS mirror
baseurl=http://new-mirror.example.org/centos/$releasever/os/$basearch/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-Custom

Lesson: technical projects survive when governance, access, and finance are intentionally de‑centralized and documented. The 2009 episode was a warning that led to more transparency and better practices across many projects. (lwn.net)

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