Dark day for PHP

Open Source PHP security specialist and member of the PHP Security Response Team, Stefan Esser have had enough, and resigned! The security expert says in his blog

"The reasons for this are many, but the most important one is that I have realised that any attempt to improve the security of PHP from the inside is futile. The PHP Group will jump into your boat as soon you try to blame PHP's security problems on the user but the moment you criticize the security of PHP itself you become persona non grata. I stopped counting the times I was called immoral traitor for disclosing security holes in PHP or for developing Suhosin."Clearly a very strong message sent in public about the spirit going inside the PHP Community. And what makes it worse for them, is that now security holes will no longer be hidden from public, rather security holes will be exposed in advance "For the ordinary PHP user this means that I will no longer hide the slow response time to security holes in my advisories", Stefan says.

This incident however is not the first of its kind. Back in July, PHP lead developer Jani Taskinen also left the team with what's called cryptic message:

"Thank you all for the last 6 years or so. It has been fun
(sometimes) and many times not so much fun. Unfortunately
I have had enough and I don't want to be associated with
this project anymore.

I'm sure most people (the ones who matter) can understand
why. If someone doesn't, I could not care less. Take care.

Please do not reply to this email.

--Jani

p.s. Delete my CVS account. I have no use for it anymore."

The message does not give much details, but its enough to reveal the kind of low spirit and disputes going inside. Open Source is the strongest community if built on honest goals with a united team, but since thats all about it, and its non-profit, disputes like those can quickly break the backbone of it and bring the whole organization down to its knees. Specially with the rise of other alternatives, like Ruby.