Jordan Hubbard recently announced that he was stepping down from the FreeBSD core team, "After giving it a fair bit of thought over the last few weeks, I have decided to step down from core. I am doing this for a variety of reasons, any one of which would probably be sufficient grounds in and of its own and, taken in combination, certainly constitute ample justification for doing so". His reasons included a lack of time and energy, a feeling that the core group isn't what it once was, and a recent lack of personal enjoyment. He currently works for Apple as an engineering manager for the BSD based Darwin Project. He intends to continue contributing to FreeBSD as well.

Jordan was one of the founders of the FreeBSD project, early in 1993. At that time, it was actually a patchkit to Bill Jolitz's 386BSD. However by December of 1993, FreeBSD 1.0 was released. More historical details can be found here in the FreeBSD handbook.

For historical interest, I also include a letter he wrote in 1997 when resigning from the offic of FreeBSD Project President - an office that ended then. He has since been a member of the FreeBSD Core Team, until his recent resignation.

An active discussion on Jordan's resignation can be found on Slashdot as well as on Daemon News.

From: Jordan Hubbard
Subject: Resignation from FreeBSD core team
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 13:55:05 -0700

Guys,
After giving it a fair bit of thought over the last few weeks, I have decided to step 
down from core. I am doing this for a variety of reasons, any one of which would probably 
be sufficient grounds in and of its own and, taken in combination, certainly constitute 
ample justification for doing so:

The first and certainly foremost reason is a lack of time and energy. I simply no longer 
have the time to devote to doing what I would consider an adequate job of being a 
responsible core member and the "honorable" thing to do in such cases is clearly to step 
down and let the next election hopefully sweep someone else with more time and energy 
into the position.

Another reason, and I hate to say this but it probably needs saying, is that being in 
core is honestly not what it once was. For a old-timer like myself, who was used to a 
core team that was far more cohesive and generally on the same page, it's simply a 
painful experience a lot of the time. Perhaps this is due to overly rose-colored 
recollections of the old core on my part, and I do certainly recall us having more 
than our share of disagreement and inefficiency in the past, but on the balance core 
still feels too much like the pre-WWII Polish Parliment sometimes, where we're fully 
capable of arguing some issue right up to the point where tanks are rolling through 
the front door andd rendering the wthe front door andd rendering the whole debate 
somewhat moot. I'm also not blaming this on the democrmoot. I'm also not blaming this 
on the democratic modehole debate somewhat moot. I'm also not blaming this on the 
democratic model we've adopted, a stance which would be hypocritical at best since 
I'm one of the folks who argued strongly in favor of it, but I guess it's going to 
take a few more iterations before we get it right. It will also probably be a lot 
easier for truly new people who don't have a lot of preconceived notions of what core 
is to make that happen.

Finally, it also bears noting that while being part of the FreeBSD project is many 
things, it should always be "fun" to at least some degree for its participants or 
there's really not much point in being involved. Being in core, where one gets to deal 
almost solely with conflict resolution and bureaucracy, is not fun in any sense of 
the word and while being in core constitutes the bulk of my involvement, without any 
cool development work (which I also haven't had time for) to counter-balance it, it 
simply leaves me with less and less enthusiasm for FreeBSD. Better to pull the 
ejection handle now than to let things get to the point to where I'm simply bitter 
and annoyed ALL of the time vs merely some of the time. :-)

While my time has been very limited lately, I hope to get back to a point where I 
can start actively contributing to FreeBSD again, and the best place for me to 
make those contributions is not in core. I would therefore like to officially 
tender my resignation and request that I be removed from the core mailing list at 
the earliest opportunity. Thanks!

- Jordan

From: Jordan K. Hubbard
Subject: My resignation as president of the FreeBSD Project.
Date: 1997/02/05

This short notice is just to announce my resignation as President
of the FreeBSD Project, effective immediately, coinciding with the
elimination of that position.

This is entirely my own decision and was not prompted by anyone
on the core team - if anything, they will probably be as surprised
as anyone at the news (except for David & John D., with whom I've
already discussed the matter).

I do this for several reasons, all equally important:

1. The position of President has always been somewhat at-odds with
   our democratic core team structure and purely titular since to
   give the president any real "power" would also destroy the carefully
   balanced dynamic of core, and that would hardly be a desirable outcome.

   The reason the position of "President" was originally created at all
   was to give ISVs and other corporate contacts a more official-sounding
   person to talk to, and while this has been valuable to a certain extent
   I don't think that it's quite proven useful enough to justify the
   further existance of the position.  As it is, it only creates the
   illusion of a "super core member", which the president is not, and
   creates false expectations of authority.

2. The president is generally assumed to be talking for FreeBSD at all times,
   depriving the wearer of that particular thorny crown of the right
   to voice strong opinions or otherwise be outspoken without damaging
   the reputation of the project.  I'm not a punch-pulling kind of guy
   (as you no-doubt already guessed) and I almost certainly never will be,
   so it's time for me to have my own voice back and be able to talk to
   people without it being taken as implicit that I'm somehow speaking
   for all of core.  If being "presidential" also means constantly
   turning the other cheek then I'll never be presidential enough and it's 
   just not an adjustment I care to make (I'm not that kind of person) so
   I should step down from that responsibility.

3. Dropping back to core team status will make it easier for me to
   shed additional FreeBSD responsibilities, should I decide that I
   need to do that in the future, and get some semblance of a life
   back.  I've been doing this for 4 years now and I'm tired.  Just how
   tired I will need to evaluate before making any further decisions, but at
   least the burden of this artificial position will no longer be mine.
   It will, in fact, be no ones' and I think this is a vast improvement.

In discussions with David and John, it was also expressed that the
position was never really that popular with the core team and that
my stepping down should coincide with the complete elimination of
an unnecessary and somewhat flawed position, and so it will be.

So, as of now the FreeBSD Project now longer has a President.  It is
run purely by the core team, as it always was in truth, and now
I'm just the PR guy, release engineer and plain old run-of-the-mill
core team member.  As if that wasn't enough. :-)

     Jordan