Zachary T Welch wrote up a summary of his experiences as a Gentoo developer, and why he believes forking Gentoo into Zynot was necessary.
I don't know any of the actors personally, but Zachary paints Daniel Robbins (the founder of the Gentoo project) in a very unflattering light. I'd love to hear Daniel's side of the story one of these days.
In any event, Zachary certainly gets it: Zynot is founded upon a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that owns the various bits of IP around this Gentoo fork. Gentoo, on the other hand, is founded upon a commercial corporation, and Zachary asserts that Daniel has some interesting ideas on how to make money from Gentoo in a somewhat opaque and self-centered fashion. Much of the history that Zachary outlines describes a difference of opinion of what's best for Gentoo as a project, and what's best for the individual players involved (and the conflicts between them).
Yet another sign of growing pains in open source. These issues are a long way away from posting to comp.sources and disclaiming liability...
