Leaving F-Droid(gist.github.com)
gist.github.com
Leaving F-Droid
https://gist.github.com/obfusk/ec0628d1d6b6c70468079de415ad1e2d
96 comments
Fyi, linked in the post is the statement in the fdroid GitLab org, https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/issues/447. This provides a bit more context. It also contains a reply from Hans regarding this statement.
Further context is in the resignation statement of another community council member, which someone made private "because I felt like it" (actual quote and sole justification.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20231117190207/https://gitlab.co...
Edit: since multiple trolls are in the thread, this isn't just one person. Multiple people simultaneously resigned from the community council. Edit: the entire community council. Three people - the fourth was the F-droid board's representative.
More about the community council: https://forum.f-droid.org/t/call-for-volunteers-f-droid-comm...
It sounds like F-droid established a governing board this year and one of their first actions was to address complaints from contributors about how Hans was running things. The board established the community council, Hans kept doing whatever he wanted, and the board didn't act, so much of the community council resigned?
Edit: I think the entire community council quit, given the fourth member is their board representative?
https://web.archive.org/web/20231117190207/https://gitlab.co...
Edit: since multiple trolls are in the thread, this isn't just one person. Multiple people simultaneously resigned from the community council. Edit: the entire community council. Three people - the fourth was the F-droid board's representative.
More about the community council: https://forum.f-droid.org/t/call-for-volunteers-f-droid-comm...
It sounds like F-droid established a governing board this year and one of their first actions was to address complaints from contributors about how Hans was running things. The board established the community council, Hans kept doing whatever he wanted, and the board didn't act, so much of the community council resigned?
Edit: I think the entire community council quit, given the fourth member is their board representative?
> which someone made private "because I felt like it"
Further to making statements in their own community private, it seems even this HN post has been flagged by someone for some reason...
Further to making statements in their own community private, it seems even this HN post has been flagged by someone for some reason...
And I'm unable to vouch for it like I usually can - but I an also flag it if I wanted to?
I don't know what that means. HN moderation is such a black box.
I don't know what that means. HN moderation is such a black box.
@dang given the subject of this post is censoring statements made within their own community, I'm concerned about how quickly this was dropped off frontpage due to being flagged here on HN - wondering if this is potentially an abuse of the flag button (by sockpuppets?).
If not and this flagging was approved by mods for legitimate reasons please ignore this comment.
If not and this flagging was approved by mods for legitimate reasons please ignore this comment.
i might flag this because the statement is to vague to merit any public discussion outside of the people involved. all we get is speculations and accusations, that are not worthy of a discussion on hackernews, in my opinion.
Independently of the veracity of any statements from either side, the simultaneous resignation of 3 of the main foundation members of the primary open-source repository for the largest mobile OS seems worthy of HN.
As I feel it is missing the forest for the trees to flag this, I made a submission that should be more editorially worthy:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38517576
Also note that the accusation is clear: Hans doesn't respect anything proposed by the ComCo, making it useless despite their clear mandate, personally undercutting the ComCo members with vague accusations.
Also note that the accusation is clear: Hans doesn't respect anything proposed by the ComCo, making it useless despite their clear mandate, personally undercutting the ComCo members with vague accusations.
The issue is hard to understand precisely because someone tried to conceal it: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/issues/447#note_1674904906
And someone has tried the same here
And someone has tried the same here
HN links to vague "I'm stepping down" forum/mailing list/blog posts and even tweets all the time.
yes, and sometimes someone can post some helpful background or relevant details.
that doesn't seem to be happening here.
that doesn't seem to be happening here.
The post has many links through which all the available information can be gleaned, and this is *definitely* a news item that plenty of people here would want to be aware of, even without knowing any further detail.
You're involved in this?
You're involved in this?
3 out of 4 ComCo members have resigned, with the clear reason being given is that Hans doesn't respect anything and bullshits his way.
That's true, but then contrast that to the treatment of the openai situation, where there were 1000+ comment threads devoted to vague tweets. (The "I Love You All" = Ilya thing was particularly wacky.)
I disagree, we might not be able to acertain the truth but I certainly want to know that there is some potential issues.
true, but without details we are not able to find out anything about the nature of these issues, and therefore it is not possible to draw any conclusions that would be helpful.
i am an f-droid user, and i am certainly concerned if there are issues in the community. but this post does not help to enlighten matters and i feel it will only attract vocal outsiders who have nothing substantial to contribute.
this issue needs to be handled internally by the active f-droid contributors, and if they are not issuing public statements with details on what is actually going on then the rest of us should stand back.
i doubt any message here is going to be helpful in resolving issues or even just learning more.
i am an f-droid user, and i am certainly concerned if there are issues in the community. but this post does not help to enlighten matters and i feel it will only attract vocal outsiders who have nothing substantial to contribute.
this issue needs to be handled internally by the active f-droid contributors, and if they are not issuing public statements with details on what is actually going on then the rest of us should stand back.
i doubt any message here is going to be helpful in resolving issues or even just learning more.
More details are available, but were hidden by one of the remaining project members. They're still available on archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20231117190207/https://gitlab.co...
Issue 448 is said to be relevant as well, and similarly hidden, but isn't available on archive.
The fact that a remaining project member seems to be actively hiding otherwise public discussion which would keep us more informed, seems to itself be noteworthy ("Because I felt like it" was the reason given). Indeed, that action seems to be an example of the unilateral and arbitrary exercise of power with which the former contributors are raising concerns.
One wonders if a precedent can be set for getting an HN story of potential wrongdoing buried by hiding or destroying reports or evidence of it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231117190207/https://gitlab.co...
Issue 448 is said to be relevant as well, and similarly hidden, but isn't available on archive.
The fact that a remaining project member seems to be actively hiding otherwise public discussion which would keep us more informed, seems to itself be noteworthy ("Because I felt like it" was the reason given). Indeed, that action seems to be an example of the unilateral and arbitrary exercise of power with which the former contributors are raising concerns.
One wonders if a precedent can be set for getting an HN story of potential wrongdoing buried by hiding or destroying reports or evidence of it.
The top comment now link archived issues with more context.
We now know that at least 2/3 of the board had resigned.
I don't know what more do you want ? As you said we won't solve anything but with such important issues I want to be informed and not hidden and flagged.
Especially since the current plan for the mentionned Hans is to continue business as usual with no change ...
I don't know what more do you want ? As you said we won't solve anything but with such important issues I want to be informed and not hidden and flagged.
Especially since the current plan for the mentionned Hans is to continue business as usual with no change ...
> this issue needs to be handled internally
What a truly odd sentiment from someone with an apparent interest in open-source community-led projects.
What a truly odd sentiment from someone with an apparent interest in open-source community-led projects.
on the contrary. open source (or free software) doesn't mean that every dispute has to be out in the open. there must be room to handle disputes privately, and the actions by some of the people involved here seem to show that they do not want to handle this in public. (whether that is justified or not is a different question, but again, without details we are unable to make that judgement)
i find that dragging disputes into the public is often used for one side to draw support in their favor. i don't think that this is happening here, as the statements made are to vague. but in general i am not a fan of making such things public as it prevents people who are involved from opening up and sharing their concerns in the internal discussion for fear of having them made public too.
we need to give people in dispute the space to resolve their issues without forcing them to face the court of public opinion.
i find that dragging disputes into the public is often used for one side to draw support in their favor. i don't think that this is happening here, as the statements made are to vague. but in general i am not a fan of making such things public as it prevents people who are involved from opening up and sharing their concerns in the internal discussion for fear of having them made public too.
we need to give people in dispute the space to resolve their issues without forcing them to face the court of public opinion.
> doesn't mean that every dispute has to be out in the open
Of course not, nor did I imply such an extreme.
> we need to give people in dispute the space to resolve their issues without forcing them to face the court of public opinion.
This only functions with balanced moderating forces within an internal dispute - where there is a clear power imbalance (e.g. a technical lead who holds exclusive keys to things), resolution of a dispute in private will typically lean heavily in favour of those holding defacto power, leaving "the court of public opinion" a sole remaining last resort.
Of course not, nor did I imply such an extreme.
> we need to give people in dispute the space to resolve their issues without forcing them to face the court of public opinion.
This only functions with balanced moderating forces within an internal dispute - where there is a clear power imbalance (e.g. a technical lead who holds exclusive keys to things), resolution of a dispute in private will typically lean heavily in favour of those holding defacto power, leaving "the court of public opinion" a sole remaining last resort.
There is no space left. The people "in dispute" have left the project, and no one in the F-Droid space is really speaking up against Hans doing whatever he feels like despite the final (short-lived?) existence of councils and boards.
i respectfully disagree. the power issue can not be solved by the court of public opinion either. at best it can shame the people who refuse to be reasonable, but when that happens the damage is already done, and a reasonable solution is no longer possible.
just look at this case. from our perspective here, there are only two options: hans continues as before, or hans is entirely removed from the project. i don't see any way to come to a solution where both sides continue to be able to work together.
such a solution is only possible before the naming and shaming in public begins.
an amicable solution requires that the parties involved can speak without fear of retribution. dragging this into the public makes that pretty much impossible.
if the parties can not solve the problem on their own, they can find mediators (from their community or from outside) to help. if that is not enough the inner community, the active contributors can get involved, and only if that fails too, it may be right to make the issue public. but, at that point the choices usually have already been made (as we can see here again, with some of the people involved resigning) and our public opinion and discussion here can do nothing that would improve the situation.
just look at this case. from our perspective here, there are only two options: hans continues as before, or hans is entirely removed from the project. i don't see any way to come to a solution where both sides continue to be able to work together.
such a solution is only possible before the naming and shaming in public begins.
an amicable solution requires that the parties involved can speak without fear of retribution. dragging this into the public makes that pretty much impossible.
if the parties can not solve the problem on their own, they can find mediators (from their community or from outside) to help. if that is not enough the inner community, the active contributors can get involved, and only if that fails too, it may be right to make the issue public. but, at that point the choices usually have already been made (as we can see here again, with some of the people involved resigning) and our public opinion and discussion here can do nothing that would improve the situation.
> if the parties can not solve the problem on their own, they can find mediators
Mediation is typically only possible where either both parties are willing (clearly not the case here) or where the mediator has some leverage with any unwilling parties (seemingly not to be found here either, at least sofar).
> the power issue can not be solved by the court of public opinion
Honestly you may well be right but this is precisely why I cited it as an unfortunate last resort. It's pretty clear here that even the very formation of the council was in itself an attempt at internal mediation after years of problems.
As unlikely as it is that going public will lead to a solution whereby the council members rejoin the existing project and have a long and fruitful collaborative relationship with Hans into the future, it does at least open the door for a larger number of potentially beneficial options.
Even the "nuclear" option (fork and rival), while wasteful in terms of human effort, has some potential to lead to a project that much better serves the open source community. Having such discussions in an open forum can help people better weigh up the pros & cons of joining vs forking indispensable community projects such as this.
Mediation is typically only possible where either both parties are willing (clearly not the case here) or where the mediator has some leverage with any unwilling parties (seemingly not to be found here either, at least sofar).
> the power issue can not be solved by the court of public opinion
Honestly you may well be right but this is precisely why I cited it as an unfortunate last resort. It's pretty clear here that even the very formation of the council was in itself an attempt at internal mediation after years of problems.
As unlikely as it is that going public will lead to a solution whereby the council members rejoin the existing project and have a long and fruitful collaborative relationship with Hans into the future, it does at least open the door for a larger number of potentially beneficial options.
Even the "nuclear" option (fork and rival), while wasteful in terms of human effort, has some potential to lead to a project that much better serves the open source community. Having such discussions in an open forum can help people better weigh up the pros & cons of joining vs forking indispensable community projects such as this.
> me for trying to hold Hans accountable for blocking protecting marginalised community members from abuse
I think understanding this statement is key. Blocking what protections? From what abuse? How and when were they blocked? Without that context, it's hard to say this text has any more clarity than the text accuses Hans' responses of having.
I think understanding this statement is key. Blocking what protections? From what abuse? How and when were they blocked? Without that context, it's hard to say this text has any more clarity than the text accuses Hans' responses of having.
There might have been other stuff but the best I could tell from the linked pages: "blocking protection" refers to not giving full owner or mainter permissions to gitlab instance. Which are the required account levels to allow editing and deleting parts of issues and merge requests and other content. But those account levels also include a bunch of important technical permissions like managing deployment keys, access tokens, branch protection settings, none which should be required for people enforcing CoC.
Default Gitlab setup doesn't have roles which would be suitable for community moderators. But it seems like Gitlab Ultimate has support for custom roles which could have solved that issue. No idea if F-Droid is in the Gitlab Open-Source program which gives open source projects access to premium features.
Default Gitlab setup doesn't have roles which would be suitable for community moderators. But it seems like Gitlab Ultimate has support for custom roles which could have solved that issue. No idea if F-Droid is in the Gitlab Open-Source program which gives open source projects access to premium features.
This is quite serious. The only point of f-droid is to be a community repository, if it is controlled by a single individual doing harmful things with no oversight, it is over as far as I'm concerned.
There are many points of F-Droid
If things stand like this though in all likelihood people should switch to a clone project maintained by the people who left (and there will be a huge mess)
If things stand like this though in all likelihood people should switch to a clone project maintained by the people who left (and there will be a huge mess)
Like Linus on the kernel?
What is weird about this situation is I can't find any public information about Hans holding any special powers in the project. He's neither the original creator nor an officially appointed BDFL. Maybe he just happens to hold important access rights in the system that let him block people? Or is more assertive than others? Hard to tell
One of the issues raised is that the Council approved maintainership privileges for one individual & Hans refused to grant them - this gives me the impression that 1 single individual has exclusive access to grant such privileges (typically "Owner" role): it seems pretty unusual for a community project to have a single Owner role. Even just for efficiency & them being a bottleneck / bus-factor.
He's "Technical Lead"
https://f-droid.org/en/2023/03/20/f-droid-board.html
https://f-droid.org/en/2023/03/20/f-droid-board.html
Linux is explicit about their governance model...
Sure you can consider Linux over as far as you’re concerned.
Sure, linux can be over, f-droid can be over... i mean linux doesnt even work except for the use case of convenient cli, file management, and networked servers.
I'm quite unclear on what thos drama is about and what the consequences of it are.
Just from reading the linked pages, looks like they did't have any clear governance structure, tried to established one and failed due to sabotage from a person holding de-facto powers.
+1. This style of public post that say "I'm leaving because of problems which I am not disclosing" are odd.
Who are you talking about? Hans?
"According to Hans, "many people" have expressed "concerns" about me -- though for some reason not during the period expressly meant for people to voice those, apparently only to him in private, mysteriously never mentioned before now, and that cannot be named for some reason.
Concerns that are simultaneously both too unimportant to address so I can defend myself (and apparently not an issue for me joining ComCo), yet more than enough for Hans to unilaterally block me from getting Maintainer status on gitlab, even though the board -- including Hans -- voted to grant me that, which Hans then blocked for weeks using a myriad of counterfactuals as justification."
"According to Hans, "many people" have expressed "concerns" about me -- though for some reason not during the period expressly meant for people to voice those, apparently only to him in private, mysteriously never mentioned before now, and that cannot be named for some reason.
Concerns that are simultaneously both too unimportant to address so I can defend myself (and apparently not an issue for me joining ComCo), yet more than enough for Hans to unilaterally block me from getting Maintainer status on gitlab, even though the board -- including Hans -- voted to grant me that, which Hans then blocked for weeks using a myriad of counterfactuals as justification."
The author, who notes:
> Sadly, this is not a single incident -- if it was I would still believe things could be fixed -- but a pattern of behaviour that has continued for years. I've tried to be patient, hoping we could still resolve things, give everyone the benefit of the doubt as I constantly have. But clearly, this is not possible as long as Hans refuses any and all accountability for his actions, and any attempts at mediation to resolve the interpersonal friction and conflicts. > > Hans' actions have repeatedly hurt me (and others)
This post is light on details. If there were many incidents, some details would be available.
> Sadly, this is not a single incident -- if it was I would still believe things could be fixed -- but a pattern of behaviour that has continued for years. I've tried to be patient, hoping we could still resolve things, give everyone the benefit of the doubt as I constantly have. But clearly, this is not possible as long as Hans refuses any and all accountability for his actions, and any attempts at mediation to resolve the interpersonal friction and conflicts. > > Hans' actions have repeatedly hurt me (and others)
This post is light on details. If there were many incidents, some details would be available.
And the fact several other people have resigned?
I'm not suggesting the aggrieved party is making false accusations. I just don't understand the intent behind a public letter that has no details/references.
Who is the intended audience? How are they meant to evaluate the letter?
Who is the intended audience? How are they meant to evaluate the letter?
Trouble travels in packs.
Ridiculous. This is 3 out of 4 ComCo members - which were vetted only a few months ago - and Hans and others are unable to provide any explanation, not even to those whose reputation is questioned by him and only him (when he is far from being a neutral arbiter).
This is worse character assassination than any "woke" bullshit. But thanks for outing yourself as someone completey unserious.
This is worse character assassination than any "woke" bullshit. But thanks for outing yourself as someone completey unserious.
Without more information this just comes across as yet another Code of Conduct struggle session. Depending on which position an uninformed observer - and that means all of us here - takes it is either the result of Hans being an authoritarian *-ist/*-phobe hell-bent on playing power games or of Hans successfully fighting the multi-headed woke Hydra which intends to turn the project into yet another vessel for spreading its ideology.
I'm an avid F-Droid user so I do have a vested interest in the project remaining active and on-target. As it stands I do not know whether Hans' actions helped to keep the project healthy or had the opposite effect. Does anyone here know more?
I'm an avid F-Droid user so I do have a vested interest in the project remaining active and on-target. As it stands I do not know whether Hans' actions helped to keep the project healthy or had the opposite effect. Does anyone here know more?
[deleted]
Ideology has already prevailed. They refused to let the Gab app on FDroid because they allow "things like racism, sexism, verbal abuse, violent nationalist propaganda, discrimination against gender and sexual minorities, antisemitism and a lot more things".
Interestingly enough they allow 4Chan apps which has all of those things. It is almost as though they are opposed to Gab specifically not against those things and were just coming up with an excuse and hoped nobody saw their double standards.
Interestingly enough they allow 4Chan apps which has all of those things. It is almost as though they are opposed to Gab specifically not against those things and were just coming up with an excuse and hoped nobody saw their double standards.
I briefly joined some F-Droid Dev rooms in hopes of helping with their speed/capacity issues by chasing some CDN sponsorships or expanding the mirror list, however the possibility that any commercial provider or user-provided mirror might have access logs enabled was enough to end the conversation. I 180'd after that. Never was a community-run project IME.
> Never was a community-run project IME.
That's the impression given by posts linked here. The initiative to begin trying to transform it into a community-run project seems to have kicked off roughly 12 months or so ago[0] - and by all accounts seems to have been met with significant resistance from the bdfl that preceded it.
[0] https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/commit/031eeb78c8e35960a9a...
That's the impression given by posts linked here. The initiative to begin trying to transform it into a community-run project seems to have kicked off roughly 12 months or so ago[0] - and by all accounts seems to have been met with significant resistance from the bdfl that preceded it.
[0] https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/commit/031eeb78c8e35960a9a...
The thing is that the BDFL was never appointed as such, either. The project's founder is Ciaran Gultnieks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciaran_Gultnieks
and Ciaran, while largely silent, still "holds the master keys" (figuratively and somewhat literally).
As an F-Droid member myself, albeit a completely tangential and pointless one, the only things I know about why Hans is _de facto_ leader and cannot be overridden even by the bodies created for overseeing the entire project are a couple of factors mentioned right here: that he is the only one with Owner access on GitLab, and that he is Technical Lead, "initially", in the board:
https://f-droid.org/en/2023/03/20/f-droid-board.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciaran_Gultnieks
and Ciaran, while largely silent, still "holds the master keys" (figuratively and somewhat literally).
As an F-Droid member myself, albeit a completely tangential and pointless one, the only things I know about why Hans is _de facto_ leader and cannot be overridden even by the bodies created for overseeing the entire project are a couple of factors mentioned right here: that he is the only one with Owner access on GitLab, and that he is Technical Lead, "initially", in the board:
https://f-droid.org/en/2023/03/20/f-droid-board.html
> Hans is _de facto_ leader
In these kind of situations, "de facto" is usually the same as "actual" for all practical purposes.
In these kind of situations, "de facto" is usually the same as "actual" for all practical purposes.
you mean that the f-droid maintainers did not want to rely on mirrors that would log downloads?
sounds a bit extreme on the privacy front, but not entirely unusual. i see no relation to how the project is run though. on the contrary, i expect community run projects even more likely to reject logging because it only takes a few vocal people to demand that. meaning the more people have a voice, the more likely demands for privacy come up. see debian and their popularity counter for example when they could just log all the downloads instead.
sounds a bit extreme on the privacy front, but not entirely unusual. i see no relation to how the project is run though. on the contrary, i expect community run projects even more likely to reject logging because it only takes a few vocal people to demand that. meaning the more people have a voice, the more likely demands for privacy come up. see debian and their popularity counter for example when they could just log all the downloads instead.
I'm talking literally just access logging though. Expecting even an individual, let alone a business, to run a publicly accessible web service without any form of access logging is just absurd IMO.
I'd expect privacy-inclined people to care vastly more about detecting and tracing indicators of compromise or similar over avoiding access logging on the open internet.
Edit: Use actual English.
I'd expect privacy-inclined people to care vastly more about detecting and tracing indicators of compromise or similar over avoiding access logging on the open internet.
Edit: Use actual English.
i agree with you, but knowledge and understanding of these issues varies a lot. my confusion was your apparent conclusion that in a community run project this would have been better.
I would indeed expect a community-run project to have been better (at evaluating the trade-offs of access logging [which occurs on every other web property F-Droid users utilize]). If only because there would have been more than one voice that mattered, and thus consensus would be required rather than unilateral dictation.
Is the confusion a result of disagreement, or of my explaining my perspective poorly?
Is the confusion a result of disagreement, or of my explaining my perspective poorly?
it's disagreement. i fully understand your perspective, however from what i have seen, there is a tendency for the consensus lean towards the lowest common denominator that all can agree on. iaw. the most paranoid wins (ok, not that extreme, but it illustrates my point)
of course the upside of community input is that you also have more moderate voices and technically knowledgeable ones that can explain the risks and help reduce peoples worries.
of course the upside of community input is that you also have more moderate voices and technically knowledgeable ones that can explain the risks and help reduce peoples worries.
Yeah that makes sense. One of those things I'd love to see play out both ways and watch what happens lol.
F*ck Sylvia too???
I do remember not liking Hans much, I hope they start their own project but this is a huge mess and a horrible news for Android!!!
This gives me the same feeling as the prior Linus and RMS attacks. Like an organised attempt to weaponise CoC to destroy the public image of someone important in open source. Hopefully it fails.
Thank you, sockpuppet account created one day ago to comment on a flagged story
What is ComCo?
Community Council https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/issues/447
[deleted]
is it just me or has there been an unlikely number of strange restructurings recently?
unity and openai as the most high profile, but also in niche places like yahtzee crowshaw / escapist mag, and now even fdroid
maybe a covid aftershock, have there been any others?
unity and openai as the most high profile, but also in niche places like yahtzee crowshaw / escapist mag, and now even fdroid
maybe a covid aftershock, have there been any others?
unity and escapist are down to money.
Openai is ego based
Openai is ego based
ecmascript(2)
Nothing quite shows how deserving one is of filling a responsible role than dragging personal conflicts into the public and - without providing proper context - blaming other people for it.
My congratulations to Hans; as it turns out, he has done the F-Droid project yet another excellent service.
My congratulations to Hans; as it turns out, he has done the F-Droid project yet another excellent service.
I see this more as whistleblowing on this bypass of their own process and governance. If personal conflict is the reason given for bypassing all procedure, what else can they do than mention it? Doesn't seem like "dragging" it in to me.
Do you have some other insight? tfa seems to paint hans as a passive aggressive dude. in the gitlab issue, another person shows up and gave a similar statement about hans. and in the latest reply by hans, it seems that he takes the L.
Hans did not “take the L”. Its pretty obvious he’s trying to push past it ASAP with a vague semi-apology and asking that “bygones be bygones”, without taking any serious time or effort to address the issues and concerns.
Multiple people simultaneously resigned from the community board at the same time, which makes it very clear it's not this 'one person dragging their personal stuff into public'.
> My congratulations to Hans; as it turns out, he has done the F-Droid project yet another excellent service.
From the outside it looks like Hans is not following rules and procedures. This is never good for an active community.
From the outside it looks like Hans is not following rules and procedures. This is never good for an active community.
You could have at least seen the joint statement[0] to know that it's not just one person complaining.
[0]: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/issues/447
[0]: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/issues/447
"According to Hans, "many people" have expressed "concerns" about me -- though for some reason not during the period expressly meant for people to voice those, apparently only to him in private, mysteriously never mentioned before now, and that cannot be named for some reason."