Martin Nowak is officially MIA

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 17 June 2015 at 18:35:48 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:
> You wouldn't just not go to work for two weeks and then show up 
> at your desk as if nothing happened. This kind of stuff needs 
> some level of planning, barring exceptional events. For 
> example, Adam could tell his readership "I'll be on vacation 
> next week, so no issue on August 9". Which is totally fine.
>
> I'm very happy Martin is doing well but I am disappointed about 
> this unprofessional behavior. In fact I could only assume the 
> worst because he seemed one of the most serious people I've 
> dealt with, so this came as quite a major breakage of trust.
>
> With this we revoke Martin's role as release czar. His github 
> access will remain the same for the time being.
>
> Until a replacement is found I will fumble with the release 
> process myself, and I could use all the help I can get. In fact 
> it would be a nice gesture of Martin to help with the 
> transition. I'll be also counting on help from the more 
> process-oriented members of the community. One note - 2.068 
> will be delayed because I have a house move to deal with for 
> the time being, not to mention being busy with std.allocator 
> and std.collection.

As most others here have noted, this seems too harsh, 
particularly for a volunteer position.  The truth is that release 
manager is a role that basically nobody wants to do, as it has 
responsibilities but basically no compensating reward, and by 
removing Martin from the role, you might actually have made his 
life easier!  It doesn't sound like a punishment to me.  As I 
recall, our last release manager also disappeared for awhile, 
likely because he had a real job to do.

Martin probably made a mistake by not making clear that he would 
be away from contact for a while, but I wonder if it was ever 
made clear to him that a head's up was expected, particularly if 
a release wasn't imminent.  I understand that you would like for 
us "to evolve from a tribe to an organization," but I always 
thought that was unrealistic for a volunteer community with 
essentially no money coming in.  The fact is nobody is paying 
Martin to show up at a "release manager" desk every day.

Unless and until companies using D, like Facebook, Sociomantic, 
EMSI, and whoever else is using the work of this community to 
make money for themselves, deign to invest back some money behind 
functions like these- release manager could probably be done as a 
half-time position- they will not be done to the standards of a 
commercial entity.  Which is likely fine with the rest of this 
volunteer community, as we can't ask for what we're not willing 
to chip into providing either.