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
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http://www.nsaplayset.org/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229744.000-hackers-reverseengineer-nsas-leaked-bugging-devices.html
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:27PM (36 children)
So, he was forced out of Debian, based on manufactured evidence? That's all kinds of messed up.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:42PM (17 children)
This stinks as a political retaliation by state, for his activist connections to Wikileaks, Assange and other projects.
My perception of EFF being just a NSA outlet has long history of such indications.
Also, there are reasons why Devuan forked from Debian, and only some of them are technical.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday August 28 2020, @12:34AM (12 children)
And why should those perceptions or indications matter to the rest of us?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Friday August 28 2020, @12:58AM (8 children)
Because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shari_Steele [wikipedia.org] of the EFF.
She was the one who started the falsified campaign against Applebaum. A typical NSA asset.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:21AM (6 children)
If you are correct, she's damn clever, going after her own NSA masters in public like that. So don't ever drink the tea if she offers a cup.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Friday August 28 2020, @05:22AM (1 child)
Just like MiB, hide in plain sight...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:06PM
I should hope so. SNMP relies on them.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @06:05AM (2 children)
You're the NSA, you've identified an organisation/project which is of concern to your 'mission', you need a handle on it, so you have a choice, either have a 'sister agency' ( for plausible deniability reasons) install a planted 'asset', or risk having someone competent and anti your 'mission' in place...
So, which of these two would you choose to have?
Spooks gotta spook, and British spooks have long 'form' for planting agents in all sorts of organisations deemed subversive or potentially dangerous to their interests..If you want a rather fine recent example of their work, have a look at the actions of their 'plants' in a certain Scottish political party supposedly hell bent on breaking up the UK (not in the spooks interest, being agents of said state), they even managed to swing a show trial of the party's former leader out of it, unfortunately for them, the jury found him innocent, but hey, their assets are still ruining...sorry, running that party and that country.
Quite...though considering the nationality of the agency alleged to be behind this, adulterating tea?, just not cricket old chap, they do have some standards....
I once knew an Oxbridge spook who, for emergencies, kept a jar containing an extract derived from Chondrodendron tomentosum and had several small sharp 'plausibly deniable' implements whose blades were kept coated in said extract..so I'd be more inclined to watch out for pointy false fingernails and cultivate a convenient attack of mysophobia...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @06:26AM (1 child)
CAPT. OVEUR: Joey, have you ever heard of Poe's law?
JOEY: no, is that the thing about Hitler?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @12:51PM
Well, I could have added that the Oxbridge spook's father was, for a while, Hitlerjugend 'back in the day' to tick that box..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday August 28 2020, @01:02PM
Look what an amazingly effective job she did. The best they could come up with is she spent lots of donation money on larger team. And accomplished... ?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:01AM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday August 28 2020, @06:51AM
Because, my dear and fluffy khallow, we might be just as bat-shit crazy as the AC is. Possible. Could be. Within a khallow of a critcher.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Bot on Friday August 28 2020, @01:35PM (1 child)
Because this is a comment section. If you are not interested in a comment you skip it. Took you a while to grok this internet huh?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Friday August 28 2020, @03:17PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:01AM
> My perception of EFF being just a NSA outlet
Please don't spread nonsense like this.
Here is a list of EFF court victories:
https://www.eff.org/victories [eff.org]
Nothing in the list aligns with any NSA initiative or goal. Many are very obviously at odds with the police state apparatus, like,
US v. Jones:
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:30AM
Yup.
And here they go again, doing the NSA'a bidding [eff.org].
Asshole.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @03:09PM (1 child)
just no, this is the time corporate control over debian got tighter because the need to force systemd down of the throat of 99% of the moron nerds that use linux and you know what they were successful infecting linux with their shit
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @05:31PM
weak troll needs steroids!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @12:14AM
Just as well, many of us have jumped ship to Devuan already.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:31AM (7 children)
Agreed, if the allegations are true, Appelbaum was terribly wronged.
But, Daniel Pocock is engaging in the same sort of attacks without evidence that he claims others made. Here he is spreading a rumor that Zini "might" have been party to a rape:
I don't think this author is credible from just that passage alone. He appears to have a vendetta himself. But, hopefully his post will prompt discussions within Debian, and the truth will come out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @03:50PM
Daniel has integrity and an autistic desire for rational thinking and justice. The man has integrity and he stood up for several Debian developer colleagues in the past, even if he stood there alone. If I have read Daniels character right, I believe that he would stand up for Zini just as he would any other Debian developer.
I can follow what you say somewhat, but since Zini was spearheading the Debian campaign against Appelbaum, he implicitly claims to know the truth or as Daniel said is incompetent (I would add a third, naive). Daniel is not saying Zini was there, he presents Zinis confidence in what happened as a snarky comment. There is a huge difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @03:51PM (5 children)
To whomever modded parent as flamebait, please explain yourself.
There is nothing "flamebait" about the parent post. But, using this inappropriate mod does serve to hide comments from others. At this point, it appears you have very strong feelings on this subject, and a reasoned, "Lets wait for evidence and confirmation from a less biased sounding source before we gather the torches and pitchforks," comment offends your sense of outrage. So, you inappropriately modded the comment to bury it.
While I love that Soylent was brave enough to allow any registered user to mod posts, and that they provide generous mod points, abuse, like this, of mod privileges makes this community a poorer place.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 29 2020, @01:28AM (3 children)
When I don't know the truth of something, but find the material of interest... I use the "interesting" mod. As I did in this case. I have no idea who is right or wrong here, but this was a different perspective, thus worth bringing into the light so others may comment on it. How else can one get to the truth of what is apparently a tangled mess?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @03:10AM (1 child)
Interesting is fine. The question was from when the post was modded "flamebait".
I don't know how common it is, but when I see posts modded troll or flamebait, I usually do not expand and read them. I'm certain there are folks who are better than me who do (your reading the post and re-modding it "interesting" is proof of that. But, I would be very surprised if there wasn't a sizeable percentage of readers who, like me, tend to skip over flamebait and troll modded comments.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday August 30 2020, @11:13PM
I've seen so many good comments modded flamebait and troll that I kinda ignore those tags; if anything they're a cue that maybe I should look closer, in case it's an unfair mod (eg. name-calling to indicate disagreement).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @03:18AM
I should have added to the line, "Interesting is fine"... Even Disagree and modding down is fine. It is tagging a post that is not to my eye in any way flamebait as flamebait tht I objected to. Flamebait has a specific meaning.
So, I asked that person who tagged the post flamebait to explain why he/she did that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:10PM
lol you have a right to disagree, just as anyone else has a right to "flamebait". get over yourself.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by driverless on Friday August 28 2020, @06:34AM (7 children)
No, it's the Applebaum fanboys back again trying to convince everyone that a poor innocent sexual predator is just misunderstood and was framed by all sorts of nasty people conspiring against him. Just like that nice man Epstein, and the charming Mr. Weinstein, both just poor misunderstood victims.
I've interviewed one of Applebaum's victims. There's no way she was making things with that specific amount of accurate detail up.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Friday August 28 2020, @06:39AM (6 children)
I've interviewed one of Applebaum's victims. There's no way she was making things with that specific amount of accurate detail up.
But not in the context of the Debian project, which is what the article is about. As one of the other posts here pointed out there is no reason why it can be true that both the Debian material was falsified and he was a real creep. However, falsifications are not the way to go about things. If those in the Debian project had wanted him out because of his behavior in other projects, then they probably could have arranged that. Lying and falsifications are not helpful to anyone in the long term.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Friday August 28 2020, @07:04AM (1 child)
You also need to look at Pocock's comments on this. I'll admit I couldn't force myself to plough through all the drivel although I tried really hard... it's just paragraph after paragraph of unsubstantiated whining and moaning, he said, she said, on and on, there's nothing there apart from one person's endless whine. It's like a 1980s Fidonet squabble, each side digs up mountains of minor trivia and tries to bury the other side with it while trying to maintain the rapidly-dwindling interest of a bunch of bored bystanders.
Is there any part of that screed that actually makes a valid, substantial point supported by real evidence? Just so I can skip to it and read that bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @10:38AM
>It's just paragraph after paragraph of unsubstantiated whining and moaning, he said, she said, on and on, there's nothing there apart from one person's endless whine.
So, iow, just like the victim you interviewed? It works both ways with these things.
The guy can drivel all he wants, what matters (at least for me) is not even whether he is right or not. What matters is that he raises awareness on how debian handled this. And it looks not good for debian (regardless on whether it is correct, this should have been handled differently to avoid exactly the doubt that he is raising in his "drivel"). I hope Debian learns from this, rather than tries to bury it (like you do). But I jumped ship long ago (because I bet they will not learn and try to paint this guy black instead).
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday August 28 2020, @07:07AM (3 children)
Argh, hit Submit too soon: In particular if there's a third-party source of information on this that's a bit more coherent and to the point it'd be interesting to see it. I agree that if they cooked up something in order to get him out it's not good, but Pocock's rambling screed isn't helping him make his case.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Friday August 28 2020, @07:27AM (2 children)
I meant "... there is no reason why it can't be true that both the Debian material was falsified and he was a real creep." Damn typos.
There is another summary based on Pocock's post [debian.community]. However, you'd have to look to see if it adds in any additional source material. It looks like Techrights has some more specifics about the abuse by the Debian project [techrights.org].
The whole thing is so messy that it turns people off from the project, which is what IMO one of the things the strife is intended to do. It's also so convoluted and filled with intrigue and lies that no one "on the spectrum", which means most developers, will be able to follow all the details and see who has been behind the power grab.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by driverless on Friday August 28 2020, @09:47AM (1 child)
Yeah, I've never been much of a fan of Debian's politics, which is why I use it via one level of indirection (Ubuntu). It's meant to be a fricken OS distro, not a political/social justice movement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @03:43PM
Yes, democratic processes (eg. Debian) are messy and can be chaotic. A lot of people prefer the stability of an autocratic regime (eg. Ubuntu), so that all the big decisions are handled for them - even if it means fewer choices and less freedom.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by rleigh on Friday August 28 2020, @07:22AM
It is very messed up. It also brings into question previous cases internal to Debian, where we were told people had to go due to their terrible actions. Were these cases based on hearsay as well? Being a distributed project, where you only know a handful of people in person, you only have the words of others to go on, and as a result it would be fairly easy to defame someone and provoke a response from the wider body of developers who would be completely in the dark as to the reality of the situation. As the post here details, there may be conflicts of interest or interpersonal conflicts the rest of us are completely unaware of, but the project-wide actions come down to a popularity contest based upon opinion founded upon what is basically gossip.
I regret to say, I was even a participant in one of those discussions. In hindsight, I wish I'd not involved myself. In that case, it was an individual being disruptive and rude on mailing lists. Looking back, I'm unsure if it met the bar for the treatment he got (expulsion, though he might have resigned). The behaviour was inappropriate, but was it sufficient to be banned? It's arguable.
I'm thankful I'm out and no longer involved of any of this nonsense. Unnecessary politics is poison in a volunteer-driven project (or any endeavour for that matter).
(Score: 2, Troll) by EEMac on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:28PM (11 children)
https://www.amazon.com/SJWs-Always-Lie-Thought-Justice-ebook/ [amazon.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by EEMac on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:30PM
https://www.amazon.com/SJWs-Always-Lie-Thought-Justice-ebook/dp/B014GMBUR4 [amazon.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:43PM (1 child)
It's in my library. And, I recommend anything and everything written by Vox Day.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @02:10AM
His followup, Corporate Cancer, seems apropos....
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:09AM (7 children)
An interesting review of this book (mainly of its author) with references. Sounds like one of those, "Some Nazis are good people too" folks that Cheeto is always talking about:
(Score: 3, Troll) by Captival on Friday August 28 2020, @01:30AM (3 children)
Funny how much your type suddenly care about claimed minority DNA percentages when it's not a Presidential candidate with a (D) next to her name under the microscope.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:38AM (1 child)
Who is "they"?
Never mind, "they" is anybody who you disagree with, but instead of accepting that people are individuals with opinions, you make any individual you disagree with, or presents uncomfortable facts to you as an amorphous group without any humanity. Then you can claim that this, invented by you, group that you have placed this individual in, is inconsistent. This is a straw man since this person never, as far as any of us know, mentioned caring or not caring about indigenous ancestry outside of this quote.
I personally think it was silly and petty of the author to bring up. And I am guessing that it was done to do something similar as you are doing. To try to rub it in the faces of "they", from his perspective.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @05:35AM
I think that the author was trying to build up a case of hypocrisy, the point being potentially raised as an example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @05:32AM
And that whataboutism is relevant how, exactly?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @04:18PM (2 children)
Vox Day is an asshole whose main motivation is to get to say, "See, I was right." (SJWs Always Lie would be a lot better if he didn't inject so much 'personal experience'.)
However, he's also dead on about SJWs and their infestations.
Vox's "SJW Attack Survival Guide" (which may be freely distributed and reprinted) is required reading for anyone who might come under attack.
Here's an HTML copy:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/08/vox-day/sjw-attack-survival-guide/ [lewrockwell.com]
Here's a PDF:
http://www.milobookclub.com/mart/SJW_Attack_Survival_Guide.pdf [milobookclub.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @08:35PM (1 child)
Lew Rockwell? Milo's books? Man, you are so deep in the bubble that SJWs probably actually are attacking you, in your mind! I suggest ye get thee to a bunker.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 29 2020, @01:34AM
Shoot the messenger much? I didn't particularly care what source, other than being legible and a good link; these just happened to be the first that I knew where to find offhand. There are hundreds of copies available from a broad spectrum of sites. I could have quoted the whole damn pamphlet instead. Then you could shoot at me!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:33PM (2 children)
soon enough everyone's head get chopped off, including those that started the whole thing.
and then it gets taken over by a "hero" who turns into a dictator.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @12:00AM
This is just a natural consequence of giving a movement free rein to destroy careers and lives with copious media amplification and no accountability. You get frivolous accusations of grown adults being preyed upon because muh power dynamic, or dumping of unwanted emotional labor, or mild flirting. You also get anonymous rape accusations. No proof needed, no consequences for the accusers. At projects like Debian, remove the Applebum and other targets, and fill the empty positions with your temporary allies. Repeat until the organization collapses, and use your resume to move on to the next thing to infiltrate and destroy.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday August 28 2020, @10:16AM
It's more a mix of the inquisition and the McCarthy era red scare of the 1950s at this point.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:41PM (30 children)
Any organization that swallows a CoC is suspect. The CoC is really only useful when they decide to crucify someone.
https://www.debian.org/code_of_conduct [debian.org]
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(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.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(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.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(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%.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Friday August 28 2020, @03:25PM (1 child)
They are not stupid. They have taken over the mantle of salesman with no equals. They have sold the public Marxism under the disguise of BLM. They have sold thug culture to the public. They have sold hatred of free speech among Americans who used to cherish and hold sacred the First Amendment. Now they are busy prepping their marketing materials to sell reparations from those who have never owned slaves to people who have never been slaves.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @04:23PM
In other words, the whole thing is a pyramid scheme.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @08:36PM
But, . . . Runaway has a CoC, or so I hear tell. Did it fall off?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @12:12AM
Plenty of #MeToo hitjobs also involve anonymous accusers and no police reports. The Debian crew were just ahead of the curve.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 28 2020, @12:28AM (8 children)
Debian now has no ethical credibility on top of losing its technical credibility by going whole-hog on SystemD. I will never, if I can avoid it, ever let SystemD pollute any machine I own outside of a VM, for similar reasons to why no Microsoft OS will ever touch my bare metal.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday August 28 2020, @12:48AM (3 children)
XP and Windows 7 are actually not so bad in operation. Just don't run any Microsoft software on them, and they'll work well when the need arises.
Bonus points for using open-source applications on them with corresponding Mac/Linux ports, and you won't be locked down to proprietary formats; more extra bonus points for using portable application [portableapps.com] versions, so you're not locked down to installed copies/settings on any particular host.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @02:20AM
Agreed on portable everything, as much as possible. And XP64 forever. :)
Side note: I've made the peculiar discovery that Win7 is itself portable, once you've clobbered the activation. (If I need Win7, I no longer bother installing; I just clone the existing disk.) It will even boot from a USB HD, much to its own surprise. Same with Win10, tho I try to avoid the nasty thing.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @06:10PM
Just a small aside here I would avoid standard versions of windows after XP like the plague if you plan on using them for server duties. I had a nightmare of a time running servers with tens of thousands of active connections on Windows 7 since it was never designed with that in mind. The whole machine would slow down and lock up eventually, and that was on a stock install. After switching to Windows Server everything is fine and dandy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @08:38PM
Actually, just don't run any software on them. In fact, Microsoft works best if the power switch remains in the "off" position, and you just send in your license fee.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @02:11AM (3 children)
The popular Linux distributions are all controlled by assholes who have their own interests, not the users', in mind.
This is how everything works. Well, it was fun in the beginning anyway before the bureaucratic/commercial distros became dominant.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @03:15AM (2 children)
I can't even control a joystick with my asshole, much less a whole distro.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @10:10AM (1 child)
Pfft, amateur.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday August 28 2020, @01:44PM
Be kind, he tried. Tried hard.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @12:59AM
He could be a creep *and* they kicked him out via dirty methods.
Does no one remember the movie 'Presumed Innocent?'
(Score: 5, Interesting) by boltronics on Friday August 28 2020, @01:01AM (6 children)
Time to give GNU Guix another shot, me thinks.
I tried it back when Debian's systemd was a big issue, but Guix was too immature back then - this was well before the 1.0 release - and an upgrade broke my machine to a point where I was told I should just reinstall. I ended up going back to Debian instead.
Now that GNU Guix is up to 1.1.0, I expect it would be stable. The list of supported packages has massively increased in size, and it looks like there is unofficial support for things like AMDGPU microcode too (so I can actually use acceleration with my graphics card). Should make for a fun weekend activity.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday August 28 2020, @04:38AM (2 children)
Does guix install alongside another Linux system with the usual dual boot?
-- hendrik
(Score: 1) by Wong McGregor on Friday August 28 2020, @05:08AM
Apart from forming the basis for a distro, Guix is a package manager that can, like Nix, be installed on top of other distros.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday August 28 2020, @08:57AM
I never tried the graphical installer but the manual installation procedure [gnu.org] works fine for dual booting according to this: https://www.hubert-lombard.website/GuixSD/html/GuixSD-0.16_en-Dual-Boot-avec-Debian-Testing.html [www.hubert-lombard.website]
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 28 2020, @04:07PM (2 children)
PCLinuxOS. No systemd. No assholes. Good update support (rolling). Available as barebones or kitchen sink in several desktops. The most "just works" of the many distros I've tried, and the only one that became a permanent everyday OS in my house.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday August 30 2020, @11:01PM (1 child)
afaic pclinuxos has a stellar (user satisfaction)/exposure factor, I never see it on the web, but users do seem very satisfied.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday August 30 2020, @11:08PM
Yeah... it's a one-man-band plus some help on the edges and a couple folks who do community spins, and it really doesn't get much exposure. But those of us using it are a happy bunch.
Was actually thinking about that a while back... why do I prefer it? why don't better-known distros manage to steal me away? and concluded it boils down to good choices by the management.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.