Is it just me?

We've all seen these disputes among development teams of all manner of such projects. Obviously disagreement comes with the territory. If two people agree 100% of the time, one of them is not necessary... is the expression that comes to mind.

But why is it that when the going gets rough, core principles of the whole movement are abandoned? Open source, open discussion, open participation and contribution, learning from each other, whether it's our successes or failures. This suddenly turns into conditional agreements of absolute silence, closed mediations, secrecy, and barely explained personnel changes. The pithy voice in my head is trying to remember whether it's the white smoke or the black smoke that lets us know about the change.

It's not that I can't understand it on a simple level. A mailing list lockdown for a single day, big deal. Staving off the flood of "WTF" messages and caffeine fueled diatribes ending in "SRI r00lz, I'll never use catalyst again!" announcements is fine. But the minimalist onward-and-upward pat on the back (lauded as "professional") teaches us nothing. I'd like to know why. I'd like to know why one opinion won out over another.

I can read between the lines like anyone else, but who can deny that some of the best, most enlightening discussions here on PerlMonks have been heated. Someone feels strongly about something and they end up providing great detail about their reasons. Regardless if you agree, you've probably learned something.

Catalyst has become a very significant project. Aren't we missing the benefit of how such a project is lead? Wouldn't we benefit from the technical details such as how changes impact other projects? Wouldn't we also benefit from seeing other's passion for their projects? At minimum, maybe it would expand our awareness of the community as a whole.

Like I said, maybe it's just me.