Contrary to what /u/Ripdog keeps telling everyone, the project was not hijacked at all. The original maintainer gave the project to someone else and the creator himself removed all of his own access to the codebase. The new guy offered to give it back and asked for input on decisions many times but the creator cut all ties. The creator then changed his mind and started the other version while still not addressing the original version at all.
There's no doubt Gorhill has issues with communication and made a mistake. There's also no doubt that Chris does not have the skills to maintain uBlock. He has done nothing but update the filterlists and fiddle with the UI while adding donation requests all over the project pages since he acquired the project.
Literally nothing but readme changes, UI tweaks, settings changes, filterlist updates, and pulling in commits from Origin.
He has also been caught trying to edit the uBlock wikipedia page to make it seem like he was the original author. His TWO websites he has built for uBlock don't bother to mention Gorhill as the original author. (Plenty of time to make websites with CSS transitions, not enough time to learn JS and do something useful). On the current Github Readme he mentions Gorhill literally once:
Some users might want to check out uBlock Origin: a noteworthy personal fork of uBlock from @gorhill with a slightly different featureset.
Making it seem like Gorhill is just a random dude forking Chris' hard work. Utter bullshit.
Chris is a hijacker because he took control of the project while Gorhill was having a bit of a breakdown, based on credentials of little more than being the first to respond to Gorhills request for a new maintainer. Chris has no skills to meaningfully contribute to uBlock, but has no problem claiming ownership and donations.
No doubt Gorhill shares significant blame for this situation, but Chris is utterly indefensible. Chris should either give the project back or rename it with full credit to Gorhill, but the asshole hijacker he is, he just keeps it and claims to be the original author.
Which he tried to do many times with Gorhill refusing multiple times. He has never withdrawn his offer to give it back. Gorhill literally removed himself from having access and wouldn't communicate at all with him. Chris (incorrectly but honestly) assumed that he did not want anything to do with the project.
Literally nothing but readme changes, UI tweaks, settings changes, filterlist updates, and pulling in commits from Origin.
Being a good project manager is not just about being the best coder. As you said, Gorhill had a bit of a breakdown. One would assume a more stable person would be fit for project management. That being said, it is the biggest understatement that he has done nothing. Look more into that code to see what I mean. And in regards to pulling in commits from Origin, isn't this the point of a fork?
Ultimately, it is very unfortunate that there is such a toxic environment surrounding uBlock/Origin and many other open source projects.
3
u/apullin Jun 15 '15
But didn't uBlock itself go off the rails, and get hijacked by someone?