theFinn: return to development?

[code reader]

One question though which may seem dumb and all but, who is now in charge of phpbb?

this question is not well-defined.
what do you mean when you say "phpbb"? the code? the web-site? the people?
it is quite clear that acyd burn is in full charge of the code. there are other people in the "development team", and there are a few outside this team who also contribute to the code (shs, dhn, and a few others, i think), but acyd has full undisputed authority over the code, and this include olympus and phpbb-2.
other teams seem to be quite autonomous: mod team, style team, support team etc.
the web-site (not this one: i'm talking about phpbb.com) seem to be managed by the team, with most decisions received in consensus, but, from the look of it, the "focal person" seem to be shs`, who also function as chief administrator and team speaker (ie, he seem to be making all the non-code related announcements).

note that this is purely my understanding of things. i have no inside knowledge, and i may be wrong on some or all of the above.
the last time someone tried to create a well-defined "corporate structure" was long time ago, when the man at the helm was psoTfx, and the answer to the question "who is in charge" was simple, as he was in charge of everything.
atkinson's style was very different, so even when he was in the picture, he never was "in charge of everything", at least not since some very early stages of the project.

[Lastof]

The closest person to being "incharge" as far as I can tell is SHS', the only remaining member of the management team (previously both him and theFinn were in that team).

He was promoted to that position upon psoTFX's departure, the position then being left vacant, and has seemed to be the main organisational force since then, at least on the public face.

[Gumfuzi]

Bertie

yeah, Bertie for president!

[SamG]

…he never was "in charge of everything", at least not since some very early stages of the project.

This caveat salvages your post, IMHO. James was very much in charge of very nearly everything throughout the life of phpBB 1. Even maintenance items like purging inactive phpBB.com members was James' bailiwick. The only real exception, I think, was phpBB hacks, which weren't always at phpBB.com and were under the day-to-day direction of John Abela. The transition from James to Paul in terms of overall (but not exclusive) management took place gradually and, I think, quite naturally, and with James' full consent, so far as I know. The same sort of transition has happened with Jon, it appears—except that now the journey to the Jon side is complete.

[Nicholas the Italian]

Bertie

Actually, this explains a lot. The entire story finally unfolds. It's all about him and his thirst for power.
Firstly he tries to make phpBB3 crawl, in order to cause unsatisfaction and force the leader of the project to leave; one developer allegedly "resigns", another one mysteriously disappears, later on we have an alleged maintenance to phpbb.com servers and tzak, an highly unlikely incident happens, phpbb.com is down - what happens in those 8 days? nobody knows, but when it's back on we have phpbb3, theFinn is in a spot, big B's men have seized the offial site and phpbb3 is announced within March - still something goes wrong, theFinn does not yet give up under his pressure, so big B decides to continue with his delaying strategy, report a mass of invented bugs, cause a general uproar, he moves all his infiltrated agents in the crowd to encourage protests and put theFinn in minority - finally, the coup d'etat takes place: theFinn is forced to resign (only God knows how), and SHS' - big B's public façade, his right arm, his puppet - formally takes his place; suddently, as you see, the number of bugs falls...
You'll see, phpbb3 is going to be out soon, and as it will advance everywhere, every board administrator and user in the world will raise his voice to thank and vow eternal loyalty to the one who made this possible, to the god of all forums, to the lord of all communities - him - big B - Bertie.
From his room of the buttons he'll be able to watch over us all, to control what we say and what we do - soon he will control all the information in the world, he will be the one who decides what we see, what we hear, he will secretly drive every nation Administration, in his room, with his ever-faithful SHS' beside him - and they'll be drinking tea and laughing for how stupid, stupid, we all have been...

[The Anaconda]

Bertie

Actually, this explains a lot. The entire story finally unfolds. It's all about him and his thirst for power.
Firstly he tries to make phpBB3 crawl, in order to cause unsatisfaction and force the leader of the project to leave; one developer allegedly "resigns", another one mysteriously disappears, later on we have an alleged maintenance to phpbb.com servers and tzak, an highly unlikely incident happens, phpbb.com is down - what happens in those 8 days? - nobody knows, but when it's back on we have phpbb3, theFinn is in a spot, big B's men have seized the offial site and phpbb3 is announced within March - still something goes wrong, theFinn does not yet give up under his pressure, so big B decides to keep his delaying strategy, report a mass of invented bugs, cause a general uproar, he moves all his infiltrated agents in the crowd to encourage protests and put theFinn in minority - finally, the coup d'etat takes place: theFinn is forced to "resign", and SHS' - big B's public façade, his right arm, his puppet - formally takes his place; suddently, you see, the number of bugs falls - phpbb3 will be out soon, and as it advances everywhere, every board administrator and user in the world will raise his voice to thank and swear eternal loyalty to the one who made this possible, to the god of all forums, to the lord of all communities - just him - big B - Bertie.
From his room of the buttons he'll be able to watch over us all, to control what we say and what we do - soon he will control all the information in the world, he will decide what we see, what we hear, he'll secretly drive world Administrations, in his room, with his ever-faithful SHS' beside him, and they'll be drinking tea and laughing for how stupid, stupid, we all have been...

bravo!

[code reader]

…he never was "in charge of everything", at least not since some very early stages of the project.

This caveat salvages your post, IMHO. James was very much in charge of very nearly everything throughout the life of phpBB 1. Even maintenance items like purging inactive phpBB.com members was James' bailiwick. The only real exception, I think, was phpBB hacks, which weren't always at phpBB.com and were under the day-to-day direction of John Abela. The transition from James to Paul in terms of overall (but not exclusive) management took place gradually and, I think, quite naturally, and with James' full consent, so far as I know. The same sort of transition has happened with Jon, it appears—except that now the journey to the Jon side is complete.

not for argument, more for curiosity:
you seem to be quite knowledgeable, so you may know the answer to this one:
wasn't bartVB the development team head for quite some time before psoTFX? i thought that james have relinquish this post long before paul took over. i thought (though i may be wrong here) that this happened during the life of phpbb 1.x
and btw, i never hinted that anything on this team was ever a coup, or "non consensual".
so far as i know, each and every passing of the baton was always "with full consent". no one forced james, bart or paul out. on the contrary, when each of them leaving (or, as was the case with james, distancing) the community felt a loss.

[SamG]

I don't recall Bart ever being development team leader, but my recollection could be faulty. The kind of situation you see here, from late March, 2002, is consistent with what I remember.

Edit: This "phpBB Group" list goes back to late September 2001.

[code reader]

actually, i was thinking from sometime in summer 2001 is when bart became "chief developer".
iiuc, either late (nov-dec) 2001 or early 2002 paul took over. him being lead developer on march 2002 is consistent with my understanding of the history.
that's why i said james was not "in charge of everything" from very early in the project.
of course, since he started it, there was a time he was the only person "on the team", so clearly there was a time he was in charge of "everything", but i believe responsibilities were delegated almost as soon as there was "a team".

iiuc, for a long time james had the theoretical authority to override any other team member on any phpbb-related issue, so in theory you are probably right.
however, i doubt very much that this authority was ever exercised, so, in practice, less than a year after the project started, other people oversaw, with practically full independence different aspects of the project.

[MHobbit]

The same sort of transition has happened with Jon, it appears—except that now the journey to the Jon side is complete.

You do not know the power of the Jon side.