I agree with Bobr. As someone who regularly keeps friendly relations between several parties who “know” they are “in the right” I can tell you that it’s unlikely the complete story is being told once emotions take over. When that happens truth takes a back seat to “being right”. From reading the logs, emotions were inflamed far too early with kewbit threatening to stop right at the beginning. You can’t lead a horse to water. At that point, the CSS should have dispassionally lay down the law without insult or consession and either negotiate an end to the CSS or negotiate new timelines and expectations.

My reading of that likely happened is this. Kewbit appears to have classic engineer delusions. Engineers naturally overestimate their abilities and underestimate the difficulties. Experienced engineers or well managed engineers know about this tendency and add buffers and contingencies “just in case”. Kewbit likely thought he could do more than he was able to in the time period, but “knows he is just needs to get over a minor difficulty to make up the time”. When he missed his deadlines, he became defensive and the emotions on both sides started there and escalated.

Could the drama been avoided? From the CSS side, yes. Calling Kewbit an exit scammer automatically ends any hope that can be resolved and brings needless drama. When the deadline was missed and attempts at negotiation (which are not likely show in the published logs) failed, the CSS should have been withdraw and a settlement should be made. At most, it should have been announced, “Due to on project completion disagreements, the CSS has been withdrawn. Anyone else that wishes to take over the CSS may apply with a plan.”

Bad people will always try to find ways to destroy Monero, the community needs more good people who have worked hard and sincerely to make Monero what it is today. It would never have reached this level if it weren’t for its honest community. If you are a developer, you can contribute and monitor CSS and bounty projects for Monero and point out any abnormal activity.

You can always donate to keep the Monero development going and improving as it have always been with no hidden fees or malicious behavior towards the community.

Why was the first milestone ever paid out, without the source code being public?

Maybe I’m missing some details, but from reading the document it seems to me that CCS is 100% at fault here.
If some rando (that’s the impression I have after reading the document, let me know if kewbit actually had some reputation) can show up with some pretty screenshots and get paid without publishing any sources, then I should quit my job and start “exit scamming” CCS on daily basis as it seems easier and pays more… It just shouldn’t work like this, IMHO 🤷
I see Diego suggested a sensible amendment to rule #4 of CCS to prevent this from happening again. What’s the status of this proposal?

This was a bummer to see real time