Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the CoC dept.

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


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 28 2020, @01:50AM (8 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 28 2020, @01:50AM (#1043080) Journal

    I signed up to it because I felt the other faction were the bigger assholes

    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.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=2, Underrated=1, Disagree=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Friday August 28 2020, @05:42AM (6 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 28 2020, @05:42AM (#1043152) Journal

    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.

    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)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 28 2020, @05:53AM (#1043155) Journal

      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

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 28 2020, @06:47AM (#1043179) Journal

        An honest asshole is preferable to an insincere putz.

        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)

      by rleigh (4887) on Friday August 28 2020, @01:19PM (#1043267) Homepage

      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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @02:48PM (#1043330)

        And with no higher authority to compel certain behaviour, like an employer who will sack malefactors....

        Most contributions to FOSS are through employed individuals working during their work hours.

        • (Score: 2) by rleigh on Friday August 28 2020, @05:16PM

          by rleigh (4887) on Friday August 28 2020, @05:16PM (#1043406) Homepage

          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

        by Reziac (2489) on Saturday August 29 2020, @01:42AM (#1043588) Homepage

        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

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2020, @05:55AM (#1044839)

    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.