Stefano Mazzocchi, a force behind many Apache XML-related projects, has announced his intent to suspend his Apache involvement.

Citing exhaustion as the reason, Mazzocchi no longer feels he is in a position to benefit the projects he started:

I find myself with no energies, I find myself with very little to say, I find myself arrogant and frustrated, I find myself harmful for the very projects I care about.

... this project needed somebody to create both the technology and the community around it.. but the more you've helped the advancement of something, the more you are going to harm its evolution in the longer run.

Since Mazzocchi's announcement, many tributes to his efforts have been posted to the Cocoon mailing lists. One of Mazzocchi's reponses to these shows an interesting picture of the dynamics of open-source project involvement.

Just think about it and return [to] it often: you are never far enough from your ego to be safe.