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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: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday August 28 2020, @10:20AM (6 children)
Is there one left that has its integrity halfway retained AND at least nominally sensible support?
Don't get me wrong, Debian was solid, but I have made the experience when a company switches from being a tech company to being "inclusive" or whatever bullshit term is the one du jour to virtue signal (apologies when I don't keep up with it, I have work to do), the quality of their technology slides as they suddenly deem the "background" of a person more important than their abilities. Why I should give a fuck as the user of their products is beyond me.
So is there a distribution left that cares more about what's inside the skull of their developers than what's on the outside?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday August 28 2020, @01:23PM (2 children)
FreeBSD seems apolitical compared to Debian and Linux in general, and unlike linux distros, everything just works and seems to have been designed by engineers instead of marketing departments.
There's a certain feeling you get from working with the engineering of something like a GM product or a Walmart product vs genuine aerospace hardware.
Its worth pointing out that just like how the corporation that has the most extravagant corporate diversity statement has the least diversity, so they compensate with statements (see Google, Apple, left coast tech in general) there is a similar thing going on where the more extreme the virtue signalling the more likely the employees are whites and white Jews. The louder the screeching about women and people of color, the less likely you are to actually see women or PoC working there. So ironically the average debconf looks like a male-only jar of mayo wrt demographics, whereas unlike linux distros there are actual women and non-white people working on FreeBSD, and doing an excellent job BTW because its a meritocracy not a internal politics worshipping virtue signalling kafka trap like linux distros.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Tokolosh on Friday August 28 2020, @02:15PM (1 child)
FreeBSD fell under the same CoC magical thinking some time ago. Apologies in advance for the link to the other site.
https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/06/12/1430203/new-freebsd-code-of-conduct#comments [slashdot.org]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @04:01PM
Camel's nose, in the tent.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:23PM
Anytime an organization grows past a very small size, parasites appear to attach themselves to the host.
It's a universal human problem. I would say then your search would rule out any large, popular distributions. Is Slackware still alive? Your distro would have to be flying under the radar of the normies and SJWs.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @04:10PM
PCLinuxOS. See my comment above. It took me a loooooong time to find a linux I could stand to use, let alone love. With KDE on top, it is now my first alternate for systems that don't get along with XP64. (Yes, I'm a trifle retro.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @06:46PM
Gentoo. It does everything you want, unless what you want is a support contract (but the community support is good enough).