Ownership of Omega project.

The project ownership was indeed changed outside of the protocol after a discussion at DrupalCon and me complaining about a lack of administrative permissions and the absence of the original creator (Jake) for more than 2 years. It could've (and probably should've) been set back after the necessary changes have been made but, since there was no sign of life from the original creator for 2 years, noone did so. Given the abandonment of Omega, as well as a silent full abandonment of other Drupal related projects by the original creator, opening an issue about this would've probably led to the same outcome (the project ownership being transferred). Not doing so was definitely a mistake on my side although the result was probably legitimate due to the aforementioned circumstances and project maintenance status. I would like to apologize for not following the official protocol.

Personally it doesn't bother me and I couldn't care less what the node author line at the top of the project contains as long as Omega is being reliably maintained and the right decisions are being made for which I hope we can find consensus in the issue Jake already linked.

Ok, I've read through the issue in the Omega queue and I think it is fair to say, "that mistakes were made". However I don't think that it would be helpful to try to untangle who is at fault for what at some time in the past but instead focus on how to produce an outcome that is best for the community.

It seems that (for various reasons) the forking seems the way to go or am I mistaken? My proposal would be that this happens including the copying of issues relevant to the new project and himerus gets his project back.

For the time being I urge everybody involved to swallow any grudges and proceed in a way that has the endusers in mind, i.e. being transparent about the various branches and the current process.

Having a great respect for both Jake and Sebastian and the huge amount of work, time, effort and talent invested, I also agree that the best route would be to fork Omega 4.x into new project, use "superpowers" to transfer issues related to 4.x branch to new project and let it there live happily after.

My opinion is that whenever there are huge architectural changes that breaks considerably from initial project (in case of themes) should be branched to new project, to reduce confusion in support. Really, there is no possible upgrade path from 3.x to 4.x and also many tutorials and videos assume their version and confuse readers and visitors.

Omega 3.x also deserves to be maintained as there is a huge number of installs, but also Omega 4.x have very strong follower base among more skilled themers.

For that reason (and for cooling canons as it will not benefit anyone), I suggest to leave Omega 4.x inside Omega project and to mimic all commits from new Omega 4.x project to Omega 4.x branch as well (should not be too hard) for the sake of upgrades and to encourage (force) any new submission (issues) to Omega 4.x branch to use new project home (maybe even close that branch for new submissions and delete after transfer to new project).

After all, Omega 4.x is at stable with nothing new planned for Drupal 7 except for security issues and bug fixes, as far as I know so it is not really a problem there.

I would like Sebastian to make a new project and to drive his way to Drupal 8 with his philosophy in approaching theming so we all will benefit: beginners will have Omega 8.x-5.x the way Jake envisioned and power themers will benefit from rigid structure Omega 4.x in new [NewName] 8.x-2.x theme from Sebastian.

Omega 3.x for Drupal 7 will be receiving a few long over due patches, and a revitalized support effort. Omega 5.x for Drupal 8 will be getting a rapid prototype out the door to an alpha/beta stage and hopefully at least be at a good, stable RC prior to a stable D8 release.

the most recent omega 3.x release is from 2012-Feb-19. before moving omega 4.x away, i think the "3.x community" should make an effort to get their project up to speed again.

I feel that it IS going to be appropriate to "clone" the 4.x branch to the new "Khan" project and the "moving" of 4.x issues to that queue will facilitate a clean break.

No, that's not going to happen. We can't end the lifecycle of a project (or a version of a project) in a given namespace and simply move / clone it to somewhere else. The confusion would be even greater than what we have now. I created Khan to have a clean start for 8.x without all the problems we have now due to this situation and to mitigate any further drama. Omega 7.x-4.x, as well as all existing and future issues should and will stay where they are of course. Splitting that up is the worst we can do and highly inconvenient for existing and new users of 7.x-4.x. Also, that is not how the d.o infrastructure works. We can't just "continue" an existing project somewhere else without causing a major impact on things like upgrade path, etc.

Khan is a retreat for me for 8.x because I am sick of this whole situation - That doesn't mean we should damage the existing user base and cause any more confusion in the Omega community.

The unfortunate backlash in the related thread shows that the possibility of the community members in favor of the more advanced way of doing things (Khan) will make things difficult for the beginner users if the issue queue is allowed to become a host of promoting the other project, and convincing people which way is "correct".

So you are suggesting that doing something as disruptive as ending the lifecycle of a project under a given namespace and continue it somewhere else including a move of all related issues and redirecting people to the new issue queue and stopping support of *Omega*-7.x-4.x is actually preferable? Why? We can't do this just because there is a fear of people with different opinions in your issue queue... Which is completely ridiculous anyways given that we are talking about an open source Drupal contrib project.

Moving the code for 4.x is out of question as it would mean that people would have to update their .make files, other Drush scripts, download a differently named project and change the base theme reference in any existing themes if they want to update, etc. etc. -> Unacceptable. And having the issue queue in a different place than the code makes no sense and is highly confusing.

If we were working on a new major release for D7 that would obviously get published somewhere else. However, we aren't. We will work on 8.x in Khan.

Ok, folks. Let us keep a cool head here.

Just to be clear on one thing: The ownership of the project should never have been transferred in the way it took place. I think I am in line with tvn (which is the only webmaster I've talked to so far) when I say that the project will be reassigned to himerus eventually.

We as a community have to find a good way to go forward on a practical level. If there is no consensus between you (forking; letting 4.x live on and certain maintainers only work and commit to that branch; what ever else comes to mind), this might be a very good case for the Community Working Group.

In #4 I specifically hedged with "or am I mistaken". I personally think the easiest way to go forward is that the project gets reassigned to himerus, both branches live on and the 4x maintainers never ever touch 3x and vice versa. On the project page should be a clear description of the specific natures of both branches. For D8 we seem to be fine.

I'll make sure that this gets more attention "internally" and in the mean time hope you guys find a way to move forward.

I personally think the easiest way to go forward is that the project gets reassigned to himerus, both branches live on and the 4x maintainers never ever touch 3x and vice versa. On the project page should be a clear description of the specific natures of both branches. For D8 we seem to be fine.

agreed.

@dddave: In the interest of trying to keep some fences between the neighbors, is there a current d.o issue for adding an issue queue version filter for each branch, so that someone could see all issues relevant to 7.x-3.x separate to those for 7.x-4.x?

@himerus: I would agree. Have you officially escalated this to the CWG yet?

I would very much welcome it if someone could re-assign project ownership. It's getting out of hand and all I want at this point is to have my handle erased from that Project and move on. So, yeah... If any re-assurance was needed from my side: Yes, please, re-assign project ownership to @himerus.

Okay this whole thing is getting way too ridiculous. I went ahead and transferred it back.

https://www.drupal.org/node/506436/revisions/view/7378279/7378797

Thanks Tim.