Amidst the fun and learning at the camp, there were also some sad moments. One of these was the early departure back to the UK of Stephanie Hankey, as her three-year-old daughter Ruby was sick with a severe case of chicken-pox. Another saddening moment was the departure of Denis 'Jaromil' Rojo the "nomadic rastafari of south Italian origins" and maintainer of dyne:bolic, HasciiCam MuSE and FreeJ. See http://www.rastasoft.org/

After a series of misunderstandings, Jaromil wasn't with us anymore. Instead, he sent across an angry letter outlining what he interpreted as the reasons for not being around. See http://lists.caltha.pl/pipermail/asiasource-l/2005-February/000390.html

Coming to grips with it, a camp 'morning circle' took up a discussion on the issue, which surely caused a lot of pain for all involved. Sunil Abraham of Mahiti.org began by stating very bluntly: "Where exactly do we lay the blame? Both Mahiti.org and Tactical Tech would like to take the full responsibility for what happened with Jaromil. We think it was an organisational failure. At this camp, we tried out many new experiments and some failed."

Sunil's humility was widely appreciated, more so when he said: "Jaromil is such a hugely likable person, and such an important person in this new world we would like to create (being a significant contributor to Free Software)..."

He went on to liken what happened to a flame-fest (BytesForAll has seen one recently, involving this chronicler too see postings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers ). When this happens in the online world, as it usually does, there's a real world to recover in. But here, the personal attacks can simply escalate.

Jean-Claude "Don't-call-me-doctor-or-I'll-be-offended" Guedon of the University of Montreal argued that the organisers were not to blame.

But free software developer Schuyler Erle (who's into an impressive list of things including digital cartography, wireless networking, intelligent search engines and the Semantic Web and lead developer of NoCathAuth, the wireless captive portal) said: "We're all passionate about the things we believe in. When intentions don't work out, we need to look at the structures we have. We need to look at how things can work out better in future ... and to channelise this passion."

Andy from Australia wanted track participants to have more "control" over what's going on. But Marcell Mars felt that being a facilitator meant a certain responsibility. "You can make content in proprietorial software and yet make the content free. We can work in this hybrid situation," argued Marcell, one of the founders of the multimedia institute mi2 at Croatia. "We didn't gather here so that people can improvise all the way," he felt. Marcell made it clear that Jaromil was his friend.

Kamal from Nepal said a deeply committed developer of FLOSS should not be made to feel unwanted, the problems apart. Patrice praised Jaromil's qualities and his "strong moral persuasion", but felt his harsh encounter with India in the post-tsunami days might have caused a perception mismatch. "I extremely appreciate that the organisers have taken responsibility for what's happening. It's not a responsibility of guilt, but a responsibility of strategy," the Dutch geographer-turned-cultural activist commented.

Arun Mehta felt that a "good question had been asked badly" in the points Jaromil raised: Is it a good strategy to ensure that all facilitators only use FLOSS?

Javier called for a reconciliation. Patrice intervened to ask: "Should we not talk more than what we all do about FLOSSophy (the philosophy of FLOSS)?"

While most felt something had gone badly wrong, many also felt that appropriating blame wasn't the solution. This is a story about the not-so-easy match between the geeks and the not-for-profit world. Surely, we live and we learn...