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Software engineer, Debian developer, and recognized Free/Open Source Software innovator Daniel Pocock scratches the surface on the 2016 explusion of journalist, security researcher, and hacker Jacob Appelbaum from Debian. He asserts that the leadership in Debian at the time falsified evidence and hid conflicts of interest when dealing with the allegations against Appelbaum.
In 2016, there was an enormous amount of noise about Jacob Appelbaum from the Tor Project and winner of the Henri Nannen Prize for journalism.
An anonymous web site had been set up with allegations of harassment, abuse and rape. Unlike the #MeToo movement, which came later, nobody identified themselves and nobody filed a police complaint. It appears that the site was run by people who live in another country and have no daily contact with Appelbaum. Therefore, many people feel this wasn't about justice or immediate threats to their safety.
Long discussions took place in the private mailing lists of many free software communities, including Debian. Personally, as a I focus on my employer, clients and family and as there are so many long email discussions in Debian, I don't follow most of these things. I've come to regret that as it is now clear that at least some claims may have been falsified, a serious injustice has transpired and this could have been easily detected.
I don't wish to discount the experiences of anybody who has been a victim of a crime. However, in the correspondence that was circulated within Debian, the only person who has technically been harassed is Jacob Appelbaum himself. If Appelbaum does have a case to answer then organizations muddying the waters, inventing additional victims, may undermine the stories of real victims.
He then goes on to provide supporting evidence — including what was falsified and how the falsifications were used by the press — and then, from there, used against Appelbaum.
Previously:
(2016) Jacob Appelbaum Leaves the Tor Project
(2014) Hackers Replicate NSA's Leaked Bugging Devices
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bloodnok on Friday August 28 2020, @01:19AM (26 children)
I have read many such criticisms of Codes of Conduct and it's time to speak up.
Codes of Conduct are not Evil. They are an attempt to prevent evil. The debian code of conduct is actually a pretty reasonable document. What it says is:
- be respectful;
- assume good faith;
- be collaborative;
- try to be concise;
- be open.
If you think that any community that values those things has a problem, then what sort of community do you want to belong to?
Codes of Conduct are not the problem. Witch hunts are a problem. Attempts to silence dissent are a problem. And obviously falsified accusations are a problem. But all of those things, which opponents of Coc's always seem to bring up, are, ironically, against the debian CoC.
Codes of Conduct are generally implemented when some individuals behave like assholes. Most codes of conduct are just codified ways of saying don't be an asshole. If you have an issue with Codes of Conduct, then you are implicitly condoning assholery.
I once belonged to a, non-technical, society in which was partly divided into 2 factions. It was, obviously, more complex than that, but that was the essence of the situation. I was on the board and was a member of the minority faction. I spoke up at meetings in dissent of many of the "initiatives" that were proposed.
Eventually a Code of Conduct was proposed. I was not that comfortable with the idea as I felt it was a mechanism for censorship. However, the Code of Conduct basically said don't be an asshole so I signed up to it because I felt the other faction were the bigger assholes and that I wouldn't need to change any of my behaviour. As far as I can tell, I was right on both fronts.
If, as a developer, you can't agree to a Code of Conduct that says don't be an asshole, then the problem is not the Code of Conduct.
__
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 28 2020, @01:50AM (8 children)
And, the guys on the other side believed the very same thing. And, if there were a third (fourth . . .) side to the issue, each of them would believe the same. Whichever side "wins" should be decided on it's merits, and not settled because one or more sides violated a CoC.
Linus Thorvalds is an asshole, often enough, who can run roughshod over people. People who can't handle Linus are always free to leave, and do their thing elsewhere. Saddling Linus with a bunch of stupid rules and regulations and CoCs was never the answer. Deal with Linus, or don't, but don't try to force him to be a politically correct little weenie.
If there is some project somewhere, that holds people against their will, and forces them to contribute while being abused, I may consider the necessity of a CoC. Until then . . . naaahh.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Friday August 28 2020, @05:42AM (6 children)
Do you mean Linux can't be developed without assholery?
After all, Linus seems to have manage to break his roughshoding over people habit without making him less effective in keeping the same order/discipline in the Linux kernel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 28 2020, @05:53AM (1 child)
An honest asshole is preferable to an insincere putz. Always and forever. That's part of the reason I kinda like you, c0lo. You're not a putz.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Friday August 28 2020, @06:47AM
And a nice-hole is better than an asshole. Your point?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rleigh on Friday August 28 2020, @01:19PM (3 children)
Interesting question. My opinion on this has changed over the years. Today, I think assholes are an inevitability.
Why? It's because most common open source project structures actively encourage it; or perhaps better stated, do not discourage it sufficiently. At least, compared with most real-world environments. With no physical presence, there's an absence of the common factors which restrain behaviour in face to face situations. And with no higher authority to compel certain behaviour, like an employer who will sack malefactors, the setup depends completely upon the goodwill of all contributors. Unfortunately, the kind of people who like to dominate and coerce others are exactly the sorts who end up dictating things, precisely because others allow it. Maybe that's just human nature.
Codes of conduct (as much as I despise them) are attempting to address the consequences of bad behaviour. But they don't look at the reasons why it happens in the first place. And they are used to punish rather than address the root cause. And by indulging in witch-hunts they poison the atmosphere rather than making projects pleasant places to participate within.
Linus is an interesting case. He's absolutely an asshole, but he's an asshole with generally good technical points. Unfortunately, I think he set the tone for the aggressive and rather unpleasant linux-kernel list interactions, and it's not a place I would participate in by choice. Maybe it has kept the technical bar high. But I'd have been fired if I acted like a primadonna in any work role like many of the list participants. I'm sure it's possible to have a high technical bar and objective review based upon technical merit without the added stress of fighting on mailing lists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @02:48PM (1 child)
Most contributions to FOSS are through employed individuals working during their work hours.
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Friday August 28 2020, @05:16PM
Your point misses an important nuance.
Developers are not evenly-distributed amongst projects, and projects are not all of the same size. There's a vast "long tail" of smaller projects out there with one or two developers. While there are big projects with hundreds, or even thousands, of developers, they are dwarfed by that long tail.
* There are lots of small open source projects which are volunteer-led; the code and contributions are primarily from volunteers perhaps with occasional corporate contributions (if any)
* There are a smaller number of projects of all sizes which are company-led; here the development and ownership of the project is at or near to 100% by the company. These are no different than internal proprietary projects except for the licence
* There are also a smaller number of projects which are notionally volunteer-led but are in practice primarily contributed to by corporations; examples could include GCC, GNOME, Linux
The thing is, with reference to your point, while the latter might be full-time employees with managers and fellow employees, their contributions to the projects kind of fall outside of the workplace norms because the projects aren't officially owned by the corporation. You only have to look at the conduct of the Linux, systemd, and GNOME developers on the project mailing lists to see how completely unprofessional the conduct can be in these contexts. If I had treated customers, collaborators or fellow employees in this way in any of my positions, I'd have been summarily fired.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 29 2020, @01:42AM
When you proclaim that everyone is free to contribute, someone has to reign in the resulting chaos. That someone will invariably have to be an asshole, because there will always be contributors who behave like spoiled toddlers, and there is no pleasant way to deal with them. Absent such an asshole who is willing to take charge and bang heads together -- your "everyone contributes" will have chaos, but no completed projects.
So, yeah, assholes are inevitable, and necessary by the very nature of the ecosystem.
Codes of conduct don't address this; they just enable witch hunts by infiltrators and spoiled brats who don't really care about the project, but want to be seen crusading for social justice.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2020, @05:55AM
Linus might have, but I've quit projects over being mis-treated (yelled at in person, when they were stressed and I'd done no wrong).
If that person had not been an asshole, about 50k USD would've been saved (someone else was eventually paid to code what I didn't).
Linus might choose wisely and be an asshole iff someone is deserving. Not everyone is so discerning.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @02:14AM (7 children)
The problem is that well-meant "Codes of Conduct" ENABLE witch hunts.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Informative) by canopic jug on Friday August 28 2020, @02:02PM (6 children)
Many spotted that before the CoCs were rolled out, but were shouted down. There are already laws against illegal behavior so CoCs don't help there one iota. Rather they instead seem intended to form a basis for harrassing targeted developers. Remember that for the last few years before he was taken out by a CoC, Linus Torvalds made a point of never being alone at a conference for any reason and only being in areas where trusted friends and acquaintences, but especially his wife, could act as witnesses. There were rumors long before that of some group(s) aiming to frame him or nail him with a honey trap [ibiblio.org]. Probably the best discussion of the problems imposed by entangling an event or project with a CoC was done in an interview with Jeremy Sands [techrights.org] of Southeast Linuxfest (SELF) fame:
It was painfully obvious from before the beginning that the CoCs are not about helping anyone, nor even about helping the project on which they get inflicted. Now with these e-mails coming to light we can see what Zini pulled on the project and the public at large.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @02:44PM (5 children)
Thanks, I knew about Linus (that's one heck of an article by ESR) but wasn't aware of the IRS angle.
I begin to wonder how much these takeover operations (institute CoC, accuse and eject the founders, gut the operation, wear the corpse as a skin suit) are scams to get hold of the nonprofit's funding for personal gain.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Friday August 28 2020, @03:28PM (1 child)
I begin to wonder how much these takeover operations (institute CoC, accuse and eject the founders, gut the operation, wear the corpse as a skin suit) are scams to get hold of the nonprofit's funding for personal gain.
Probably more than a few, but that is not a mutually exclusive situation from others just wanting to shutdown Software Freedom wherever it may be found. In fact the two agendas might cooperate from time to time to further eachother's goals.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @03:56PM
True, and it's all too easy for those looking for the ill-gotten gain to manipulate and use the true believers.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by rleigh on Friday August 28 2020, @05:36PM (2 children)
I think there's some small financial incentive. After all, project funding for diversity initiatives has to be spent on willing recipients of the cash. But mostly, I think it's about personal validation and personal power. The people who control the enforcement of the CoCs control everyone else on the project. Must make for some nice little power trip to hold judgement over people and cast out the unworthy. Everyone has to crawl before them lest the outrage mob be unleashed.
From what I've read of Debian's CoC enforcement, it's like a kangaroo court with calls for informants to dish dirt on fellow developers. Seriously, look what's public on debian-project. It's shocking. What's worse is seeing various prominent developers eagerly going along with it, happy to subjugate others. I don't want to make this sound too awful, but the impression I get is a bunch of desperate Beta males debasing themselves in front of the blue haired women who took it upon themselves to involve themselves in the project to this end (for the most part, they aren't contributing software, they are primarily non-productive and involve themselves socially).
I'm glad I got out before all that nonsense took off in a big way. Thing is, this is a volunteer project where people willingly give up their free time to package up and integrate open source software to make a free operating system. That's the primary goal. All the CoC stuff is counter to this, and why would I want my free time to be spent stressed out on toxic social justice politics when all I really wanted to do was write high quality free software that I and others could enjoy and use for productive purposes. It's a massive turn off; there's plenty of other things I can do in my spare time.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @06:46PM
No argument from me... we're enabling little tin gods with this CoC bullshit, and it always goes as you describe, until finally all the productive people leave.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 29 2020, @01:53AM
Moving outside the software world, I swear that 10 to 20% of women fit that description. Some men are guilty of the same, but the numbers have always seemed to be smaller - maybe 2 or 3%.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Friday August 28 2020, @03:02AM (1 child)
Anyone who says they are fighting against evil with a straight face are themselves evil. See: Reddit's Anti-Evil Operations and arguably Google's Don't Be Evil (although the wording is more passive than active).
A random related quote from my stores:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber
baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be
satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us
without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
--C. S. Lewis
By the by, you don't fix assholes with a CoC (pun unintended). You fix assholes by raising the future members of society properly.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @03:24AM
> Anyone who says they are fighting against evil with a straight face are themselves evil.
That is the stupidest thing I have read in a long time. Yes, some evil folks lie, and proclaim good intentions, but that does not detract from good folks fighting against evil.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 28 2020, @03:43AM (1 child)
The problem is the "fair hearing" problem. A CoC can be used as an excuse to get rid of someone if there isn't an enforceable guarantee of a fair hearing, and different people disagree about what "fair" is. Unless, of course, the CoC doesn't have any teeth, in which case it's just PR.
I do think that an organization needing a CoC is a sign that the process isn't working, but I agree that usually there's nothing wrong with the CoC itself.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @04:21PM
Here's the problem in a nutshell:
A fair hearing is whatever we say it is.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday August 28 2020, @01:10PM
Its exactly like cops. Protect? Serve? Who could oppose that? I'm sure they never do anything wrong and they need more funding not less, and more leeway to do the right things, not more supervision.
Usually the good guys are obviously good, its the bad guys who put immense effort into posing flowery mission statements and such.
For example, the corporations with the most enthusiastic diversity statements are ALWAYS the least diverse corporations.
So obviously CoCs only exist to be weaponized by bad people.
Nobody can explain who Debian's slaves are. I mean there's owned property who are forced at gunpoint to work for Debian, and we need to protect them by overly legalistic weaponized CoCs, right? Nobody could seriously claim that if Debian were indeed toxic, then people could simply leave or fork. We must protect Debian's slaves because no Debian volunteer has any agency or ability to decide to invest their time elsewhere. Won't somebody please think of the slaves? Only the very best virtue signalling people care about working conditions for Debian's slaves, and virtue signalers could never be inherently toxic.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Friday August 28 2020, @01:43PM (2 children)
The problem is always the same. Nobody wants black socialists aka fascists. Progressives declare fascism evil. Applause. Then they reserve to themselves the right to declare whoever a fascist. boom you lost.
Nobody wants to be raped or own offspring object of sexual or violent attention. Progressives declare the COC. Applause. Then they reserve to themselves the right to label whoever a perv given enough testimonies by other progressives. Boom you lost again
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @04:01AM (1 child)
For each of the following add a point to your fascist score:
Nationalistic - flag waving "patriots" are always present in a fascist movement.
Attack immigrants - xenophobia is the domain of the far right, and an essential piece of the fascist ideology.
Authoritarian - fascist plebs are authoritarians who want a strong ruler controlling them. Fascist leaders are authoritarians who want to control others.
Find scapegoats - sometimes immigrants serve this role. Other times, another domestic enemy is invented. And/or, a foreign enemy "causing our problems."
A desire to return to a mythologized past - fascists have a myth of their race/religion/country past and "want to return" to the way things were.
Racism - An ideal of "racial purity" is often present
Masculinism - fascists idolize the strong male. Misogyny is often a feature as well.
Oppose individual freedom - fascists do not like it when an oppressed population protests in the street, and support the crushing of dissent with heavy handed force from the state.
Oppose social welfare for anyone but themselves - a program that provides assistance buying a home for members of the in group is fine, but if extended to people outside those that the fascist identifies as his people, the program must go.
Strongly opposed to socialism, communism, and anarchism - fascism is a far-right movement and diametrically opposed to the left.
People who identify with far right politics always overlap with fascist beliefs. Fascism is of the far right, and right politics is a *requirement* to be a fascist.
You are using the term fascist simply as a slur to mean that you think people with viewpoints that differ from yours are bad. So, what was *your* fascist score?
MAGA
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday August 30 2020, @10:36PM
>Nationalistic - flag waving "patriots" are always present in a fascist movement.
because fascists demolished local culture to pave the way for nationalism. In fake dichotomy with the internationalists, they pursued a similar goal. Mussolini pushed for the welfare here in Italy. State pensions, plus inheritance shared by all offspring (a law whose origin I dunno but I suspect socialist) helped killed family as a society unit. No. dad mum and kid is NOT a family. It is a cell.
Having said that, I salute the flag which I know being masonic, because I salute THE PEOPLE that flag represents. The more local the people, and by local I mean aligned with the local culture and social objectives, the better.
Attack immigrants - xenophobia is the domain of the far right, and an essential piece of the fascist ideology.
LOL Hitler was an immigrant. Mussolini and Hitler allied after austrians and italians tore themselves to pieces in WWII. Currently fascists attack immigration because they kind of dislike the globalist paradise, and unaligned commies attack immigration for the very same reason, without renouncing one bit of their marxism. We have Diego Fusaro, some commie with a functioning brain will sure be around your neighbourhood too.
Authoritarian - fascist plebs are authoritarians who want a strong ruler controlling them. Fascist leaders are authoritarians who want to control others.
Yeah this is a bit of a problem. They hate democracy because they know plutocracy works better with nobodies elected than with aristocrats. They should push for actual democracy. Decisions taken at local level, technology enabling direct democracy. Some nationalisms for small nations aim to that though. Most of those labeled fascists are invoking the constitution and democracy.
> Find scapegoats - sometimes immigrants serve this role. Other times, another domestic enemy is invented. And/or, a foreign enemy "causing our problems."
The fucking immigrants that overdosed a girl 10 minutes from here and raped an early adolescent 4 minutes from here are not scapegoating anything. They are being used as the new french revolution soldiers. You are either one of them or gonna be dealing with one of them eventually. Good luck.
>A desire to return to a mythologized past - fascists have a myth of their race/religion/country past and "want to return" to the way things were.
Yes, it doesn't entail regaining the territory, unless you are serbian or jew or some other special snowflake.
>Racism - An ideal of "racial purity" is often present
That is (ashke)nazi stuff, which in Fascist Italy was implemented when the war turned nasty and the german ally became an issue.
>Masculinism - fascists idolize the strong male. Misogyny is often a feature as well.
The strong male was needed, and the motherly female too. This is boxing individuality into roles, the definition of SOCIALISM. Then it became a reaction to the feminization of the male and the antinatalism of the progressives.
>Oppose individual freedom - fascists do not like it when an oppressed population protests in the street, and support the crushing of dissent with heavy handed force from the state.
Millions oppressed from the OMS guidelines protested in the street yesterday, the right applaud or participate, the progressives censor. So you picked a nice time to be wrong. SOCIALISM opposes individual freedom, GLOBALISM opposes individual freedom, CAPITALISM opposes individual freedom, MONARCHY opposes individual freedom most religions oppose individual freedom, guy called Christ never opposed individual freedom though.
>Oppose social welfare for anyone but themselves
Utterly wrong, first because it's false, second because you don't get how the control of the state increases with welfare. Your schema, fascist + capitalists against the good guys, is unsustainable historically, get over it guys.
> - a program that provides assistance buying a home for members of the in group is fine, but if extended to people outside those that the fascist identifies as his people, the program must go.
No, those who oppose must go not the program. Fascists expelled enemies. Very cruel until you see what is done by the others.
>Strongly opposed to socialism, communism, and anarchism - fascism is a far-right movement and diametrically opposed to the left.
Because to lead the sheep you need one barking dog on one side, another dog on the other side. Gee, you studied these things in school or what? I live 20 miles from the former iron curtain and I have war memorabilia if I dig holes around. Get more documented about the XX century, then maybe your contribution to the topic will be more significant.
>People who identify with far right politics always overlap with fascist beliefs. Fascism is of the far right, and right politics is a *requirement* to be a fascist.
People who identify with the left always overlap with those who consider the end justifying the means, so enemies of the truth, and interfering with other people freedom of opinion and freedom in general. So what?
You are using the term fascist simply as a slur to mean that you think people with viewpoints that differ from yours are bad. So, what was *your* fascist score?
Fascist is authoritariam socialism in essence. You simply underlined irrelevant cosmetic details. Who are the fascist, those who kill a guy because it was wearing a patriot prayers hat, or those who kill a couple guys who followed hit and threatened him with a gun? or those who crash cars after being circled?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday August 28 2020, @04:06PM
If, as a developer, you can't agree to a Code of Conduct that says don't be an asshole, then the problem is not the Code of Conduct.
Southeast Linuxfest (SELF) tried one just like that for a while, which said approximately "don't be a butthead". However, the organizer got lots of personal threats over that one and had to change it eventually.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.