Raptor Computing Systems Community Forums (BETA)
Water Cooler => Open Source and Libre Systems => Topic started by: pocock on August 19, 2025, 08:30:06 am
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On Sunday, Phil Wyett revealed he is another victim of cyberbullying in the Debian environment. They were benefiting from his work every day but he didn't feel valued and he has quit.
A lot of people reached out to me after seeing news about Phil. I don't have time to answer people personally but I did create a summary of the Phil Wyett & Debian controversy (https://danielpocock.com/en/phil-wyett-evidence-debian-zizian-plagiarism-moderm-slavery/) on my blog.
Have a look at the screenshot at the bottom, the huge number of packages he co-maintained. He was very active on the debian-mentors list (https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/) helping other newcomers.
I'm also updating the full history of Debian, based on debian-private (https://danielpocock.com/en/debian-history-harassment-abuse-culture-evolution/). New things are added into the timeline at least once per month.
For every one person who suffers like this, there are probably another 20 people who quit very quietly or don't join at all.
The impact of this decline is more acute for projects like POWER porting (and any other non-x86 architecture) because we don't have a lot of people here in the first place.
This is not about Phil and it was never about me either.
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But excuse the question, from what you're saying, it seems like they're targeting the developers on our architecture at this point... First with you, now with this other guy... I think we need to report this to the higher-ups, if they exist, otherwise it's going to end badly here...
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It is with the higher-ups
Techrights has many articles about their case in the UK High Court (https://techrights.org/n/2025/08/19/Things_One_Learns_as_a_Litigant_in_Person_at_the_UK_High_Court.shtml)
More details will appear soon I suspect
Remember, it is not only about the people they attack publicly. It is about thousands of other developers who are using open source software but not making any contributions because they fear public reprisals.
Every time I go into a job at some company, I always find a huge archive of bug fixes and patches that they can't be bothered sharing because of the perceived friction.
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Other than the mailing list posts, I do not know the specifics of why Phil Wyett left. However, as a straight white male who thinks rainbows are beautiful, I disagree with Daniel's assessment of other events at Debian. My reading of his posts on his web site and tracking down collaborating evidence of the events he writes about suggests those are cases of a non-straight white male community saying No to straight white males trying to impose their worldviews on others and the straight white males then claim they are victims of oppression and bullying.
Daniel justified in bringing his concerns about Debian to this forum, and he is entitled to his views, but I encourage forum members to consider his posts in the full context of his web site.
tim
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... suggests those are cases of a non-straight white male community saying No to straight white males trying to impose their worldviews on others and the straight white males then claim they are victims of oppression and bullying. ...
Dr Norbert Preining didn't try to impose a worldview, he simply used the wrong pronoun. English is not his native language.
If the LGBT+ people want to share rooms with each other at DebConf they are free to do that. Nobody is asking questions about what they do in their room. But they are telling straight people we can't bring a partner to DebConf. We can't share our room with a partner and we can't share the food with a partner. But they invite LGBT+ people from external groups and they share the money with those people and they call it diversity. Look at the big fuss about DebConf6 and the DebConf fight (https://disguised.work/debian/amaya-rodrigo-sastre-holger-levsen-debconf6-fight/). I was not at DebConf6 so I wasn't involved in that in any way.
Look at the DebConf25 budget (https://lists.debian.org/debconf-team/2025/03/msg00000.html):
expenses:travel:bursary:diversity 10,000 EUR
; to do: to be discussed with the bursaries team
expenses:travel:bursary:general 60,000 EUR
; to do: to be discussed with the bursaries team
The money is divided at a ratio of 6 to 1.
The typical straight to LGBT+ ratio in society is 10 to 1
The men to women ratio in Debian is 70 to 1
Therefore, the 6 to 1 ratio for travel funding is a bit odd.
They don't give a list of people who received the money so the rest of us don't know how much work those people do.
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Dr Norbert Preining didn't try to impose a worldview, he simply used the wrong pronoun. English is not his native language.
Allow me to give a specific example, from your web site:
"In 2021, David Arroyo Menéndez, a researcher from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and author of the Damegender software posted statistics about diversity on the debian-women mailing list. Steve McIntyre, a former Debian Project Leader, sent a public reply threatening to censor Arroyo Menéndez if he published any more statistics. "
https://danielpocock.com/en/about/
A reading of the actual email exchanges offers a different interpretation. David Arroyo Menéndez insisted on using binary gender pronouns, which violates the Debian Code Of Conduct. This was not his first time. Please read Steve McIntyre's response for yourself:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2021/01/msg00001.html
In short, Mr. Arroyo Menéndez had repeatedly imposed his worldview on the community and the community said please stop.
As noted in a positive light in Daniel's post, Mr. Arroyo Menéndez is the author of Damegender, a tool that "detects" gender in software code
https://github.com/davidam/damegender/
In addition to my B.Sc. in physics, I have a Master's degree in Resource and Environmental Management, a decidedly social science degree that relies heavily on human participation with strict ethical guidelines. I find nothing in Mr. Arroyo Menéndez's work that holds up to standard practices on collecting such data.
I have thoughts that Mr. Arroyo Menéndez's work could easily be used to identify and target female programmers, as it appears to expressly try to "de-anonymize" contributors from groups who might otherwise face harassment and harm. He is free to develop such software, of course, but the use of it on communities can reasonably be refused (i.e., "I do not consent to"), without Mr. Arroyo Menéndez claiming to be a victim, or others pointing to this as an example of oppression.
To be honest, I find Mr. Arroyo Menéndez's work to be, well, creepy, not unlike someone wanting to work with children to be closer to them for reasons not all in the interest of the children.
As for the distribution of funds, there is no shortage of groups run by straight white males that misappropriate funds and divert them to personal use. Your web site identifies two such instances, but you appear to omit the "straight white male" as perpetrator identification.
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I don't want to be rude, but ideological disputes should not be discussed in the “Operating Systems and Porting” section. Generally speaking, this is a technology forum, not a forum for activists of various stripes, right?
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No, this is a reasonable place to discuss Daniel's concerns about Debian, which is the most common operating system that runs on Raptor computers. He has a position about the leadership of Debian. I disagree with his interpretation of the events.
What should not be permitted is the constant silencing of these discussions within tech communities, who frequently drive off valuable people by doing so. We do not live in a vacuum, and we need to speak up against hate and violence. If you do not want to read the discussion, simply do not.
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Look at the DebConf25 budget (https://lists.debian.org/debconf-team/2025/03/msg00000.html):
expenses:travel:bursary:diversity 10,000 EUR
; to do: to be discussed with the bursaries team
expenses:travel:bursary:general 60,000 EUR
; to do: to be discussed with the bursaries team
The money is divided at a ratio of 6 to 1.
The typical straight to LGBT+ ratio in society is 10 to 1
The men to women ratio in Debian is 70 to 1
Therefore, the 6 to 1 ratio for travel funding is a bit odd.
They don't give a list of people who received the money so the rest of us don't know how much work those people do.
I have thought about this quite a bit, because obviously corruption is an issue that needs examination. However, two things stand out in your analysis. One is that you have identified "men" and "women," when the Debian community is quite clear on avoiding binary gender identification. Second, the "70 to 1" ratio is appalling, and if true, I would readily defend the disproportionate amount of money on "diversity" as woefully inadequate. It should be at least "6 to 1" in the other direction, to encourage the participation of non-straight white males in the Debian community.
I do not see corruption here. I see a diverse and inclusive community attempting to fulfill their stated goals.
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I do not see corruption here. I see a diverse and inclusive community attempting to fulfill their stated goals.
I do not see enough information to be sure either way
In the business world and in sport, we set a goal and we decide how to measure results before the initiative begins.
I was both mentor and administrator in the various programs for internships and diversity and I never recall anybody making goals at the outset or measuring results at the conclusion.
In the financial crisis, the Fed chief Ben Bernanke spoke about dropping money from helicopters. The Fed has the power to print the money and if they don't have enough helicopters, they can print money to buy helicopters too. In Australia, people are joking the Securency scandal went even further, they speculate the company printed money to bribe foreign governments to have Australia make their anti-counterfeit banknotes (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-28/reserve-bank-note-printing-scadal-timeline/10561826). But as they are the ones with the trademark for anti-counterfeit polymer banknotes, we can't officially say the bribe money was counterfeit. Despite having those incredible powers, the Fed and the people who run bribery schemes have a lot of very qualified people ready to measure the quantitative impact of their programs.
The free software organizations appear to drop money from helicopters but without any measuring. There is a perception and some anecdotal evidence to suggest at least some beneficiaries are related to the helicopter pilots.
The first step is to ask people, before the application process opens, what is the goal of giving money to Outreachy or diversity travel tickets?
The second stop is to ask people, before the application process opens, how will we measure success at the end of the year/semester/season/conference or whatever period?
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First, I would like to thank Raptor CS for allowing these discussions. When I first started having conversations with Raptor about viewpoints and inclusiveness, they expressly stated that they "are not in the censorship business."
Second, I am probably one of the few people around that recognize the use of analogies as illustrative, even if they are rather divergent.
However, getting back to the concerns about how the money is being distributed, the "70 to 1" male to female ratio keeps jumping out. I have the sense that some of your concerns stem from a belief that funds should be distributed in a manner that maintains "fairness," i.e., 70 times more funds should be disbursed to males than females. I would suggest the reverse should be practiced, until there is something resembling a level playing field. I am, of course, reminded of the adage "Equality looks like oppression to those accustomed to privilege."
As for quantifying outcomes, given Debian's emphasis on avoiding binary gender identities and sexual orientations, this may be difficult to do. For example, Cuba eliminated race as a statistical category in their census. As a result, their health outcomes can not be tracked by race. It appears to lead to more equal outcomes (as in, everyone complains equally).
I would suggest approaching Debian's leadership with a method to quantify the outcomes without any (zero!) reference to gender and sexual preferences. They may be more receptive than what you have experienced to date. Certainly non-profits have a requirement for full transparency, and improper power dynamics are to be avoided. But it would certainly not be the first time humans have acted in their own self-interest, and in my experience, this transcends race, sexual orientation and gender identity. References to such are irrelevant and prejudicial.
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When I talk about setting goals or quantifying results, I have never actually made any personal recommendation about how to do so, whether to use binary gender identity, disability, race or whatever as a factor.
I want to emphasize that point: when I was part of that team in Debian, we never even started a discussion about goal setting, we never even began to talk about which metrics are relevant.
Personally, I have no bias and no agenda for or against the gender questions, race, religion, age or any other personal characteristic.
Fact check the DebConf19 photo:
- the outgoing leader is sitting at a table with four women from Albanian heritage, the two women sitting closest to him are from Albania, the other two are Kosovan
- a few weeks later, the woman sitting closest to the leader won the Outreachy internship
- the woman next to her was given a job at GNOME Foundation
- after Outreachy, the first woman subsequently got a job at Wikipedia and then another job at GNOME
I don't want to give my personal speculation about that. I just ask that you think about this: when you give all those facts to other women, do those women feel motivated to make technical contributions to Debian? Or do they feel suspicious about the way Debian advances women? Debian does not publish any data about the selection process, so I can't tell you how these situations evolved. All I ask you to think about is how other women feel when they see these facts in the correct order.
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Personally, I have no bias and no agenda for or against the gender questions, race, religion, age or any other personal characteristic.
I have read your web site extensively. I do not agree with your assessment of your personal views. Allow me to quote a specific example:
(quote)
Second, in 2018, Zini went to DebConf18 and gave a talk called "Multiple people" where he talks about having relationships with other men.
"During the last year, I have been thinking passionately about things such as diversity, gender identity, sexual orientation, neurodiversity, and preserving identity in a group."
The last phrase, "preserving identity in a group", reveals a lot. Zini and other members of the group are screening Debian collaborators based on a very distorted worldview that only seems to tolerate the people they would be willing to sleep with.
(end quote)
https://danielpocock.com/en/phil-wyett-evidence-debian-zizian-plagiarism-moderm-slavery/
I see nothing in the statement from the quote of Zini that leads to your conclusion about their sexual behavior. Rather, I see a screening process that looks for beliefs and values consistent with Debian's Code of Conduct. Characterizing this as "a very distorted worldview" is rather subjective and prejudicial, and directly contradicts your statement about your personal views.
There are quite a few similar posts on your web site. Another example: On your web site, you draw a lot of connections to Debian and the Zizian movement, including their violent crimes. I can not find any evidence Zizi speaks for Debian. I would compare it to the Reiser file system, written by Hans Reiser, who murdered his wife. No one seems to say Hans Reiser spoke for Linux, or that Linux is clearly violent towards women. (Note that "Zizi" is not to be confused with "Zini" above.)
Rather than cite additional statements that contradict your statement above, I return to my original encouragement that readers of this forum consider Daniel's statements in the context of his web site and the full breadth of his statements he makes there. I fully support Daniel's rights to have his views, and to bring forth concerns he might have about Debian to this forum, but reasonable discourse requires an examination of his statements, including looking into supporting evidence as well as other statements that give insight into his beliefs. I do not feel Daniel's statements hold up to scrutiny, and I disagree with them.
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I do not feel Daniel's statements hold up to scrutiny, and I disagree with them.
Coming back to business:
Add up all the money Debian allocated to "diversity" over the years.
Then tell us: what did they get for that money?
What did we get for that money?
Could they spend the same money in a different way and get a better outcome?
And how can we even answer that question if we don't know the outcome we are aiming for?
The word "diversity" is not a measurable outcome. Diversity is just a word.
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Add up all the money Debian allocated to "diversity" over the years.
Then tell us: what did they get for that money?
What did we get for that money?
I completely agree with you, Daniel, if that "70 to 1" men to women ratio is true. If it is true, then the diversity efforts at Debian are a complete failure.
As I mentioned, in addition to my B.Sc. in physics and 30+ years of programming computers, I have a graduate degree in Resource and Environmental Management, with three peer-reviewed publications in the field. My education included in-depth training in corruption, power dynamics and equity, as well as six months in the field (or in my case, logging sites). Several items come to mind.
The choices of how to implement a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program seeking to recruit members of diverse communities should reflect the commitment to DEI. The people chosen to design and implement the DEI program should reflect the community diversity. There are many principles that can be followed to ensure equity is practiced and diversity is embraced. Basically, straight white males should be a part of the process as stakeholders, but have a disproportionately small voice in the process. The straight white males involved in the process should acknowledge the goals of the DEI initiative and facilitate the efforts of non-straight white males as supportive roles, not management ones.
Specifically, the head of such diversity programs should not be a straight white male. It sends the entirely wrong message. Rather, it should be a non-straight white male with professional training in DEI efforts. Being able to program C code is not qualification for this position. (In fact, an effort to understand the people side of things is why I pursued the above degree, and I encourage programmers to pursue an education in human-based fields as a matter of establishing bona fides when offering opinions on diversity, equity and inclusion.)
Mentors should be screened for their commitment to the DEI effort. It is easy to undermine such efforts with disparaging remarks which focus on gender identity and sexual orientation. While straight white males can make good mentors, it is only after sufficient training in DEI that this should be allowed. After such training, not before it, being able to program C code would make one a candidate for applying for mentoring positions. The training process should screen out candidates who might be great programmers but would be terrible mentors in a diversity program.
Among the mentors, the dialog and conversations about power dynamics should be closely monitored. An example that comes to mind is the support RMS received after his very harmful statements about consent, in the context of what Marvin Minsky was doing in association with Jeffrey Epstein. While RMS has apparently had a change of heart and expresses contrition, I have absolutely no doubt that his comments at the time drove off people who disagreed with him and supported the real victims, the very young girls that were recruited for Epstein. Congruently, mentors who express support for RMS based on his contributions to the GNU operating systems and ecosystem are also likely to drive off the people whose needs are being addressed by DEI initiatives.
I would advise screening out mentors with clear associations to religious organizations which have a long history of intolerance towards LGBTQ+ communities. These individuals may be well-intentioned, but it is simply too much to ask for trust, especially if the religious organization also has a long history of covering up sexual abuse by its leaders in positions of power over vulnerable members. Rather, those individuals can likely contribute greatly by providing programming exercises and training material to be used by the mentors who work directly with the individuals coming from diverse and potentially vulnerable communities. Those mentors with a clear commitment to DEI will understand the need to work in supportive roles and not directly with people being mentored.
From my training, we learned that the solution looks a lot like the people who get to choose the people to solve the problem. If a group of straight white males are in charge of choosing who gets to implement the DEI program, the DEI program is not going to have a lot of diversity. Perhaps that is where Debian failed, and has a 70 to 1 male to female ratio?
Perhaps, Daniel, you could help Debian by investigating the causes of the 70 to 1 male to female ratio, examine the demographic profile of the people who got to choose the people that developed the program, and to seek out pro bono help from DEI experts who might be able offer professional-level management of such a program.
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I have absolutely no doubt that his comments at the time drove off people who disagreed with him and supported the real victims, the very young girls that were recruited for Epstein.
His comment was actually cut in half and then replayed to people out of context.
When you look at the full email that RMS wrote about the situation, he had acknowledge earlier in the same paragraph that the women were under a coercive influence.
Sadly, the whole Internet works like that today, people are quoted out of context and then mailing lists are censored so that people can't correct things. It happens over and over again.
Congruently, mentors who express support for RMS based on his contributions to the GNU operating systems and ecosystem are also likely to drive off the people whose needs are being addressed by DEI initiatives.
People were not only expressing support based on his contributions. People express support based on the presumption of innocence. People have a misunderstanding in their job and they have a beer together with their colleagues and they clarify the situation and move on. In these online communities, there are certain people who want the power to have something akin to capital punishment, to completely destroy people.
Perhaps that is where Debian failed, and has a 70 to 1 male to female ratio?
We can't say they failed because we don't actually know what their goal was. It was something like "GNOME has this internship thing, we should do it too (https://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2013/03/msg00013.html)"
Perhaps, Daniel, you could help Debian by investigating the causes of the 70 to 1 male to female ratio, examine the demographic profile of the people who got to choose the people that developed the program, and to seek out pro bono help from DEI experts who might be able offer professional-level management of such a program.
There are some clues about the problem.
Look at the men working alone at their computers without pay.
Diana von Bidder wrote an email about it after her husband died on our wedding day (https://danielpocock.com/en/adrian-von-bidder-homeworking-debian-unexplained-deaths/). "I was glad that he was not only sitting alone in front of his computer"
There is some evidence that women are more inclined to be productive in social environments whereas men are comfortable working for extended periods alone. Things like this may be a factor in how men and women spend their free time.
Therefore, rather than spending money to mentor and manipulate women to behave more like men, the objective of diversity may be more achievable if the way we work is overhauled.
A lot of genuine female developers also have social and economic pressure, for example, women's salaries are lower so they can't pay for a trip to a conference. How many female developers can spend their vacation at DebConf if their boyfriend or husband is not interested in Debian too? These social expectations are never really discussed.
But maybe women have a sixth sense for the problems with the Debian culture (https://danielpocock.com/en/debian-history-harassment-abuse-culture-evolution/) and they simply stay away from groups like this.
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I have absolutely no doubt that his comments at the time drove off people who disagreed with him and supported the real victims, the very young girls that were recruited for Epstein.
His comment was actually cut in half and then replayed to people out of context.
No, I dug up his full comment and read it, and I have watched videos of his meltdowns. When I find statements that seem particularly extreme, I go and find the original as well as collaborating evidence. As is the case with many of the situations you discuss on your web site, I do not find support for your conclusions. I find an agenda that has a particular spin on the situation, one that is not inclusive of diverse populations. I have already given specific examples, and there are many more.
When you look at the full email that RMS wrote about the situation, he had acknowledge earlier in the same paragraph that the women were under a coercive influence.
And yet in spite of apparently having at least some knowledge of what was occurring, he remained silent. You see, among a lot of straight white males, someone who scores with very young women is someone who is a hero to them. I was in and around academia for many years, and I saw first-hand how female students were treated by untouchable faculty. I also saw those who could have said something remain silent.
People were not only expressing support based on his contributions. People express support based on the presumption of innocence. People have a misunderstanding in their job and they have a beer together with their colleagues and they clarify the situation and move on. In these online communities, there are certain people who want the power to have something akin to capital punishment, to completely destroy people.
In my experience, in online communities and in the real world, the people doing this have almost always been straight white males. If Debian has a 70 to 1 male to female ratio, I find it highly likely the people doing the destroying in Debian are straight white males.
Perhaps that is where Debian failed, and has a 70 to 1 male to female ratio?
We can't say they failed because we don't actually know what their goal was. It was something like "GNOME has this internship thing, we should do it too (https://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2013/03/msg00013.html)"
You appear to be leaving open that 70 to 1 male to female ratio in a group with explicit goals of including a highly diverse community is a success? Were straight white males in charge of the diversity efforts?
Therefore, rather than spending money to mentor and manipulate women to behave more like men, the objective of diversity may be more achievable if the way we work is overhauled.
I agree with this statement, but I think it does not go far enough. Throughout this conversation you have used binary gender pronouns, which is contrary to Debian's way of thinking. I think the money could be well spent teaching straight white males to be more inclusive of diverse populations. Maybe equality is having men not being allowed to drop bombs either, instead of letting women do it, too.
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And yet in spite of apparently having at least some knowledge of what was occurring, he remained silent. You see, among a lot of straight white males, someone who scores with very young women is someone who is a hero to them. I was in and around academia for many years, and I saw first-hand how female students were treated by untouchable faculty. I also saw those who could have said something remain silent.
Many corporations tell their employees quite explicitly that you can't comment on social issues and bosses often give people strong hints not to put anything in writing that could appear in a future court case. There are a whole range of rules and bad examples that keep people silent.
I also heard a lot of stories from women and they vary from very mild incidents to extremely serious cases of violence. But two wrongs don't make a right. Groups of women or groups of LGBTQ+ people assembling on social media to attack straight white males only contribute to more division. The proof is clear in the results of the US election: pronouns in email signatures (https://www.newsweek.com/millennials-gen-z-workplace-pronouns-emails-1797270) and many similar things were hard to defend in the long term. All the energy used up fighting for the pronouns could have been put into other campaigns with more long term irreversible benefits.
If anything, the pronouns in email signatures provided a convenient target for the anti-woke agenda to mobilize their counter-movement.
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Again, you suggest violence comes from diverse groups, when law enforcement agencies have been quite clear - 90% of the violence directed against individuals and groups comes from straight white males with far-right ideologies.
I am a straight white male who embraces diversity and thinks rainbows are beautiful. My gender identity is not threatened by someone wishing to identify themselves as non-binary. My racial identity is not threatened by someone wishing to identify themselves as not White. My sexual identity is not threatened by someone wishing to identify themselves as not heterosexual.
As for straight while males being offended by pronouns in email signatures, well, one would not have thought people accustomed to calling so many other people "snowflakes" would have such thin skins. You are correct that the email signatures draw attention by establishing their identity, but "hiding" is not exactly "freedom." I have only ever been to one place that did not have a stigma of race. It had only one. White.
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But two wrongs don't make a right. Groups of women or groups of LGBTQ+ people assembling on social media to attack straight white males only contribute to more division.
Again, you suggest violence comes from diverse groups, when ...
I wrote "attack" in the general sense.
Statistically and historically, you may be right about far right groups made up of straight white males. This actually happened in Melbourne just the other day.
Nonetheless, a group of transgender people who get together online and decide to make an example of a straight person is evil in its own way. Even if their activity is entirely online and entirely psychological, it is still bullying and bullying coincides with a whole range of problems from alcoholism, to illegal drugs right up to suicides.
The same goes for women. Groups of women working together to spread a lie seem to get away with it in the short term. They celebrate every time some victim loses his job because of a lie. Over the long term, however, people seem to be less willing to trust women because everybody knows these vendettas are purely political. Look at how the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann failed when one of the jurors went online and found a report about women who make false accusations, he printed the report and brought it into the jury room (https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/trial-aborted-how-juror-misconduct-in-the-bruce-lehrmann-court-case-was-uncovered/5xq9j2w0y). The trial was aborted and Lehrmann walked free.
In effect, #MeToo has become the boy who cried wolf, or perhaps the girl who cried wolf to be precise. When confronted with a compelling example of something that looked like a wolf, in the form of Mr Lehrmann, the jury was very hesitant to be 100% certain he was a wolf.
The various groups, including non-binary and women are making a lot of noise and when they get in a group they do attack people in a virtual sense.
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The various groups, including non-binary and women are making a lot of noise and when they get in a group they do attack people in a virtual sense.
In the cases of where non-straight white males act like straight white males, their behavior is cherry-picked by the far-right as representative of the non-straight white community as a whole. Humans are human.
Perhaps it would be more productive for you to be critical of the straight white males who actually behave as violent mobs. For example, you wrote:
"16:30 Tue, 08 Aug 2023
Last week's decision to prosecute Donald Trump for trying to overturn the result of the 2020 US election reminded me of the dirty tricks in the FSFE election process."
https://danielpocock.com/en/donald-trump-fsfe-matthew-kirschner-election-denial/
On January 6th, 2021, Donald Trump gave a speech to his assembled followers in which he said "And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." In response, as I and millions of others watched on live television, a violent mob tried to hunt down elected members of Congress and kill them. Four people died on the day, and at least six more died of injuries and suicide. We came close to having our democracy ended.
Donald Trump used the word "fight" 20 times in his speech on Jan 6.
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial
That is not trying to "overturn" an election. That is actual violence.
Again, Daniel, I believe that your statements about the leadership of Debian and the behavior of non-straight white males have to be considered in the context of statements you have made that suggest traight white males are oppressed when they are told No and it is the victims' fault if they are targeted for harassment because of pronouns in their email signatures.
I apologize if the above feels like a personal attack, because I do not intend such offense. I commend you for your efforts to help trafficked Albanian women and to hold the Catholic Church accountable for their truly evil actions in covering up the sexual abuse by their priests. I think that kind of integrity is in rare supply these days, and I believe that if you understood the basis, means and efforts to make space for all people and worked towards that, you could make significant contributions.
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your statements about the leadership of Debian and the behavior of non-straight white males
I'm talking about people from any group who form a group and pick out a solitary victim from the rival side.
I'm not saying that every non-straight-white-male engages in such behavior. All I'm pointing out is that the Internet allows them to get into subgroups that have the critical mass to conduct bullying. Some of those subgroups then take the next step and bully somebody, others don't.
The Zizians are an example of the phenomena although they are an extreme case. Nonetheless, it is fair to suggest the Zizians never would have met each other without the Internet. The same could be said for some far right groups. I suspect that without social media, some of those people in far right groups would need a lot more time to find each other and get organized.
The Sovereign Citizens and the Zizians are examples of extremes and the Internet makes it easier for these extreme people to validate each other.
POTUS: We fight like hell.
I also pointed out in another blog the Australian far right had used exactly the same slogan one month before the Trump event.
My comments about FSFE were not intended to diminish other aspects of January 6. I was simply demonstrating that certain FSFE overlords saw demoracy and voting as optional. They offered annual elections as a gimmick to try and boost donations. After one person donated a €150,000 bequest they took the voting away again.
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I'm not saying that every non-straight-white-male engages in such behavior. All I'm pointing out is that the Internet allows them to get into subgroups that have the critical mass to conduct bullying. Some of those subgroups then take the next step and bully somebody, others don't.
I see that your web site documents several suicides and deaths associated with Debian developers. Suicide rates among trans teens are the highest in the world, everywhere. They are the constant target of bullying, overwhelmingly by straight white males who have found each other on the internet and unified to spread their hate to whatever target they can find.
I find the cherrypicking of non-straight white males behaving horribly to further your arguments against non-straight white communities to be counter-productive to your message. As a straight white male, I do not tell non-straight white males how to behave. They have leaders in their communities who know how to massage the message and lead by example.
Rather, I spend my energy encouraging straight white males to make space for humans of all backgrounds, identities and beliefs (and to consider all people to be human, as no one is "sub-human"). I highlight when straight white males are utilizing phrases that are associated with far-right ideologies, which have always been violently opposed to communities who do not look like them. I discourage straight white males from inflaming anger against and within non-straight white male communities, so that the leaders of those communities have an easier time with the youth from those communities. I absolutely condemn the use of violence by straight white males (or anyone) against non-straight white communities - or anyone!
Daniel, I think if you would let go of focusing on the behavior of non-straight white males and focus on encouraging straight white males to be more accepting of diversity, a lot of people would hear your message and be receptive to it. I understand you have committed a lot of time to Debian, and do not like the way it is headed, but that is the nature of group dynamics. If you want to change Debian from within, you are going to have to radically change your messaging. If this is not within your abilities, you may have to face the need to leave a group that no longer reflects your values. If you have to, I encourage you to do so respectfully and to not tear down what this group of diverse and inclusive people are trying to accomplish. I would also like to say that if you do change your messaging, you are very likely to find a group of people who are vastly more tolerant of diversity, including your own version of it, than many other operating system groups.
I would like to respectfully end this discussion, as I believe we have reached its conclusion.
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My apologies, but one last post. I wasn't even looking for information on Daniel, just reviewing the Debian web site for older versions, but apparently Daniel registered the Debian trademark in his name in another country and registered 14 different domains that violated the true Debian trademark.
https://www.debian.org/legal/pocock2
I retract my statement that Daniel might find the Debian community receptive to him. He appears to be engaging in a hostile takeover of the project, rather than forking and going on his own.
Dude, WTF?
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You are a victim of social engineering ...
and registered 14 different domains that violated the true Debian trademark.
Under copyright law, every co-author has a right to use the trademark. The UDRP calls it legitimate interest. People also refer to this as fair use. For example, you can use the names of your previous employers on your CV and you don't need permission to use those names.
Fact check: over 2,743 domain names contain the Debian trademark (DNSlytics) (https://search.dnslytics.com/search?q=name:+*debian*&d=domains)
Therefore, the fact they only attack the 14 web sites where I publish my Debian work suggests they are censoring. If this was about trademarks then they would dispute all 2,743 domain names.
hostile takeover of the project
A hostile takeover would require taking control of debian.org and taking control fo the private keys for the Debian archive keyring. If any developer tried to obtain either of those things then I hope somebody would provide a very public and factual explanation of how it happened. If neither the debian.org domain name or the private keys have ever been compromised then there has never been any "hostile takeover".
What we see are people who can't tolerate differences of opinion. In other words, they behave like a cult.
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No. Copyright and trademark laws require Debian to defend their registered trademarks against dilution by similar works. If they had failed to do so for your registrations you could have then attempted to gain control of the larger trademark on the grounds they did not defend it. That is the hallmark of a truly hostile takeover. You did not appeal the decision in the country in which you filed the trademark and instead declared your business bankrupt.
You have regularly mischaracterized events in Debian in this forum and regularly used far-rightwing phrases and dog whistle strawman arguments on your web site. On your web site you have made statements that border on support for anti-democratic strongman authoritarian figures. You are attempting to recruit others for your efforts, but you have not posted in good faith and have an ulterior agenda.
You have found the exact line between free speech and libel. You make defamatory statements about Debian which have enough factual basis and wording you can claim you truly believe these statements, while avoiding the legal definition of libel, which is where you knowingly make false statements for the intent to defame another party. When faced with the fallacy of your arguments and facts that directly dispute your interpretation, you resort to claiming I and others are under the spell of a cult.
Dude, just, no.
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dilution by similar works
None of the web sites contain any rival products. I don't distribute any modified Debian ISO and I don't even make up my own Debian t-shirts. Some people are doing things like that, not me.
The Debian Social Contract, point 3 tells us we will not hide problems. Registering a Debian domain name and publishing copies of messages from debian-private is not "dilution".
You did not appeal the decision
I cancelled the trademark. Therefore, there was no valid decision about the trademark because it is cancelled. A judge can not transfer a trademark once it is in the cancelled state.
Moreover, if the Debian trademark was canceled, there is no "appeal" because that would imply I wanted to un-cancel the trademark. It is not possible to un-cancel a trademark.
declared your business bankrupt
I never declared my business bankrupt. The Swiss entity is in liqudiation. That is a normal procedure for closing a company.
If a business pays all the legitimate debts during the liquidiation then it does not go through a bankruptcy procedure.
Bankruptcy procedures only occur for businesses that don't pay their debts. Anybody claiming I don't pay legitimate debts is committing libel.
Business owners are free to open and close company registrations when they want and for any reason.
In my case, the liquidation of the Swiss legal protection insurance undermined my confidence in Switzerland as a corporate jurisdiction (https://juristgate.com).
You have found the exact line between free speech and libel
Look at the stories they created about Dr Jacob Appelbaum in 2016 (https://danielpocock.com/en/debian-falsified-harassment-claims-appelbaum-expulsion/). They started this pattern of creating libel. It does not originate with me.
If you read through all the hundreds of messages about Dr Appelbaum on debian-private then you might become even more concerned than I am. What they did to Dr Appelbaum was truly evil.
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I just want to repeat a comment I made much earlier in this discussion:
I do not see enough information to be sure either way
In many of these discussions about Debian, people only see 1% of the information. 99% of the information is hidden in debian-private and private IRC chats.
The PGP keys for Dr Norbert Preining and I were removed in 2018. That was a period when I lost two family members.
The trademark was only registered in 2022. The 14 disputed domain names were only registered in 2022. Therefore, none of these things have anything to do with them violating the privacy of my family in 2018 when they removed the PGP keys and started spreading rumors by email and social media.
The fact that they keep making so much noise about the trademark, which was only registered four years after the fact, only confirms they didn't have any serious reason to hurt my family and I in 2018.
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None of the web sites contain any rival products. I don't distribute any modified Debian ISO and I don't even make up my own Debian t-shirts. Some people are doing things like that, not me.
Allow me to quote from the Tribunal Cantonal of the Canton of Vaud (Switzerland) judgement (https://www.debian.org/legal/pocock2-judgement.pdf, found on the page dedicated to Debian's statement https://www.debian.org/legal/pocock2):
"3. Entre 2020 et 2022, Daniel Pocock, notamment au travers de la défenderesse, a procédé à l’enregistrement de plusieurs noms de domaines internet comportant le terme « Debian » : debian.chat, debian.news, debian.finance, debian.team, debian.guide, debiangnulinux.org, debianist.community, debian.plus, debian.video, debianproject.org, debianproject.community et debiancommunity.org."
I don't understand French, but I sure understand the intent of those domains.
The Debian Social Contract, point 3 tells us we will not hide problems. Registering a Debian domain name and publishing copies of messages from debian-private is not "dilution".
Allow me to quote from the World Intellectual Property Organization judgement, found at https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2024-0770 as linked by the above statement from Debian:
"Actually, the Complainant’s linked trademark policy on the DEBIAN Project website includes the following provision:
'When You Can NEVER Use the Debian Trademarks Without Asking Permission
1. You cannot use Debian trademarks in any way that suggests an affiliation with or endorsement by the Debian project or community, if the same is not true.
2. You cannot use Debian trademarks in a company or organization name or as the name of a product or service.
3. You cannot use a name that is confusingly similar to Debian trademarks.
4. You cannot use Debian trademarks in a domain name, with or without commercial intent.'"
And one more quote from the WIPO decision:
"On April 30, 2024, while this Decision was in process, the Respondent sent an email notifying the Center that the Respondent had filed to stand for election for the European Parliament as a member from Ireland. The Respondent states that the Complaint 'appears to be a cyber attack', possibly designed to interfere with the European election, and asks the Center to suspend the UDRP proceeding to avoid 'election interference'."
Daniel, I am not going to mock you, and I ask that no one else do, either. I don't see anything there to mock. I see something that says you need help. One of my best friends when I was a teenager had a brother with some serious mental health issues that resemble the obsessive paranoia you exhibit. I've seen it do a lot of damage, and his brother was probably the least happy person in it all. He didn't choose to be that way, but he also didn't choose to get help, either.
Daniel, please choose to get help. I want you to be successful in your efforts to help exploited Albanian women and to hold the Catholic church accountable for covering up their evil.
That's the irony, isn't it? Debian is possibly the most inclusive of OSes and actively concerns itself with the mental health of its community, and Daniel turned on it.
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The Swiss Intellectual Property Institute said that the so-called "judgment" is not relevant or valid because I canceled the trademark (https://softwarefreedom.institute/en/2024/11/18/recognizing-invalid-legal-judgments/). Therefore, things you are quoting are irrelevant. The judge retracted it and annulled his previous correspondence.
When you try to work out why they started the attacks against my family in 2018, looking at an invalidated judgment from 2023 will not help you because it was only created five years after they attacked my family. Therefore, things you are quoting are irrelevant.
linked by the above statement from Debian
Debian Developers are joint authors under copyright law. We are not employees and the Debian leader is not an employer. So we can't give each other orders. We can ALWAYS use the Debian trademark in cases of fair use and legitimate interest. The WIPO web site says that in the UDRP.
They told us that in the UDRP: Here it is (https://www.icann.org/en/contracted-parties/consensus-policies/uniform-domain-name-dispute-resolution-policy/uniform-domain-name-dispute-resolution-policy-25-02-2012-en#4aii). The term "legitimate interests" is repeated many times. Joint authors always have a legitimate interest in using the name of Debian because we all helped create it together.
If you are an employee of a company then you sign an employment contract and the contract usually has a paragraph in it where they tell you that you give the employer full copyright in all the code that you create. That is why employees don't have legitimate interest but open source developers do have a legitimate interest in using the trademark.
resemble the obsessive paranoia you exhibit
If you are a landlord, as long as you own the property, you want to collect rent from the property. Is that obsessive?
If you are an author, or in the case of a joint author of an open source product, you always have a right to recognition.
Some of the misfits started undermining my right to recognition in 2018. I will never consent to somebody taking my name off the list of authors just as a landlord will never consent to somebody just moving in to a house without paying rent.
Debian is possibly the most inclusive of OSes and actively concerns itself with the mental health of its community
Why did one of the other developers die on our wedding day (https://danielpocock.com/en/adrian-von-bidder-homeworking-debian-unexplained-deaths/)? Why do we find his name on a petition about suicide in Kanton Basel?
Read the resignation letters from other people who quit (https://danielpocock.com/en/debian-history-harassment-abuse-culture-evolution/). You are contradicting many people who worked on Debian for years. If you were not there working on Debian with us, if you did not read debian-private, and if you are not a doctor, why do you now consider yourself an expert on both Debian and mental health?
Your insinuation that other people can retrospectively extinguish our copyright after we did the work is an absurdity.
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I know I should not engage, but from my perspective, Daniel is in a great deal of pain, and this should not be ignored. I don't want to see him banned, but I don't see him willing to let go and move on. He feels a great deal of pain over perceived injustices, and wants to right them, but the Debian community has moved on a long time ago (and probably would like it to stay that way). I think Daniel has concerns about corruption, suicides, and mistreatment of community members, and these are important topics to explore, but I also think that Daniel would be healthier if he let go of what is in the past and work on smaller things closer to him, to perhaps prevent the past from repeating itself. He doesn't let go because it still hurts freshly, like a broken bone that doesn't heal. This is why I do say we have to talk about these things in forums where other people think it is not appropriate. None of Daniel's pain would have come to light without it. In some of the communities where Daniel expresses concern, there have been suicides, and possibly because those people's pain was ignored or dismissed.
But here I go, engaging...
If you are an employee of a company then you sign an employment contract and the contract usually has a paragraph in it where they tell you that you give the employer full copyright in all the code that you create. That is why employees don't have legitimate interest but open source developers do have a legitimate interest in using the trademark.
What was the language regarding copyright holder rights in the Debian developer agreement you signed in order to be an official Debian developer?
Some of the misfits started undermining my right to recognition in 2018. I will never consent to somebody taking my name off the list of authors just as a landlord will never consent to somebody just moving in to a house without paying rent.
But Daniel, you are not the landlord; Debian is a collective. You were evicted as a tenant because you trashed the place. From the WIPO findings, the Complainant (Debian) says
'The Respondent (Name Redacted), is not associated with Debian. He is neither a Debian Developer, nor a member of the Debian community. He was formerly a Debian Developer, but was expelled from the project some years ago for engaging in behaviour which was destructive to Debian’s reputation and to the community itself. He has not been a member of the Debian Project since 2018. He is also banned from participating in the Debian community in any form, including through technical contributions, participating in online spaces, or attending conferences and/or events. He has no right or standing to represent Debian in any capacity, or to represent himself as a Debian Developer or member of the Debian community."
The findings state:
"Moreover, the Panel considers that even the Respondent websites that contain overt criticism of the Complainant could not justify the use of those disputed domain names as nominative fair use for criticism sites."
...
"In the present case, the Panel finds that the Respondent had actual knowledge of the Complainant’s distinctive and long-established DEBIAN mark as a former DEBIAN Developer who prominently displays the Complainant’s trademarks on the Respondent’s websites and links to the Complainant’s DEBIAN trademark policy. Despite those explicit references to the Complainant’s trademark policy, the Respondent ignored the provision requiring permission to use the DEBIAN mark in domain names, as every one of the disputed domain names violates that provision."
Daniel, if you had registered the domains to protect the Debian name from the dilution of added TLDs, and turned over those domains in advance, that would have been a wonderful gesture on your part. Unfortunately, it appears that in some cases you were using the domains to post content critical of Debian. I appreciate that you were wanting to bring these issues to light, but no, this was the not the way to do it.
And Daniel, according to the Debian complaint, even the signature you use in this forum, "Debian Developer," is contrary to Debian's rights to restrict representation of Debian by others.
If you were not there working on Debian with us, if you did not read debian-private, and if you are not a doctor, why do you now consider yourself an expert on both Debian and mental health?
I do not consider myself an expert on either. I see something that says "maybe you should see a doctor about that."
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but I don't see him willing to let go and move on
Copyright lasts for 70 years after the last author dies. Why should any one of us have to "let go" of our copyright?
If you and two friends build a house together, you all become 33% shareholders. The other two friends can't just take your share and tell you to "let go". Your mentality is the mentality of theft.
Debian community has moved on
No, they are actively stalking me and broadcasting insults on the Debian web site.
At least once every week somebody sees the insults against my family and asks me a question about it. As long as they are provoking people to talk about the death of my father, they are fully responsible for sustaining the hostility.
You were evicted as a tenant
My father died. I resigned from some voluntary roles. Why do you try to write the death of my father in such horrible terms?
You say I can't "move on" but then you try to insist that I did something wrong, when I have the death certificate of my father right here in front of me. Do I have to send you a certified copy of that to wake you up to the extreme violation of my family's privacy?
What was the language regarding copyright holder rights in the Debian developer agreement you signed in order to be an official Debian developer?
Under copyright law, your right to recognition as an author or developer arises automatically upon creating something.
You only lose those rights if you sign a contract giving away your rights. By default, co-authors have rights.
These rights are derived from Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf):
Article 27
1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the
community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and
its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests
resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the
author.
When you talk about banning and evicting people, you are talking about violations of Article 27(1)
When you remove somebody's name from the list of Debian Developers, or if you refuse to give Phil Wyett equal recognition on the list of Debian Developers, you are violating Article 27(2)
Instead of asking me these questions, why don't you post Article 27 to the debian-project (https://lists.debian.org/debian-project) mailing list and ask them to explain whether they respect human rights or not?
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I am curious if Raptor would actually ban somebody from the forum for a post that promotes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Wouldn't that contradict a lot of their marketing?
When I attended the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights (video online (https://danielpocock.com/en/who-predicted-elon-musk-twitter-acquisition-2018/)) the slogan was "Stand up for human rights"
Once again, if rogue Debian collaborators want to reduce the state of hostility, they need to stop violating the privacy of my family.
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No the issue is that you are making statements that are demonstrably false and border on libel. Raptor is not in the business of providing content, so is not exempt from being responsible for that content. I am not harmed by this discussion, but Debian may feel otherwise. Until I saw that you had legal judgements against you, I did not even consider this to be a matter beyond a discussion about difficult topics. However, it does have legal implications. Your free speech rights would not be impinged, because you are not being prevented from saying these things, just not here. It's Raptor's house. We are guests.
It's such a grey area that I was really hoping that you could be persuaded to drop the statements tying actions to LGBTQ+ persons and the references to Debian, so that the whole issue doesn't need to be a concern. From my perspective, you are attempting to find the very line of protection under human rights that doesn't become reaching over and smacking someone but still allows for your actions. I think you spend a great deal of time examining the letter of the law instead of the spirit of it. It's a lot of negative energy and surely it drags you down as well.
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No the issue is that you are making statements that are demonstrably false and border on libel
Have you seen the things they wrote about my family and I when my father died?
you had legal judgements against you
No, I don't. The judge retracted that because it was not valid.
I also published the letter from the Swiss Intellectual Property Institute (https://softwarefreedom.institute/en/2024/11/18/recognizing-invalid-legal-judgments/) to show it was not a valid judgment.
The rogue Debianists spent over $120,000 in legal fees in 2022 / 2023 (https://danielpocock.com/en/how-much-does-google-pay-to-destroy-a-man-and-his-family/). In other words, they paid strangers in wigs to write insults after my father died.
It's a lot of negative energy and surely it drags you down as well.
As I said, they are violating the privacy of my family.
They also violated the privacy of other volunteers.
Did you see my new blog post about the censorship in Mozilla? (https://danielpocock.com/en/culture-of-silence-ubisoft-harassment-convictions-mozilla-sylvestre-ledru-debian-no-comment/)
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If you and two friends build a house together, you all become 33% shareholders. The other two friends can't just take your share and tell you to "let go". Your mentality is the mentality of theft.
What was the legal agreement binding the three persons together? Contract law is pretty clear. Handshakes are not.
No, they are actively stalking me and broadcasting insults on the Debian web site.
Ok, this is an identifiable statement of paranoia. However, that doesn't mean you are wrong. Could you provide a specific example and only one, so that this can be examined?
You were evicted as a tenant
My father died. I resigned from some voluntary roles. Why do you try to write the death of my father in such horrible terms?
Daniel, I am confused over your statement. I have no knowledge of your father's death or the role it played in your exit from Debian. I see many independent references to your behavior leading to you being removed and banned from Debian activities. Perhaps this is an example of you perceiving two issues as being merged by someone who has no intent to harm you?
You say I can't "move on" but then you try to insist that I did something wrong, when I have the death certificate of my father right here in front of me. Do I have to send you a certified copy of that to wake you up to the extreme violation of my family's privacy
No, of course not. My wife's mother died two and a half years ago. I had no idea how much I loved her until I couldn't stop crying. It has to hurt that you lost your father. Did you find yourself lashing out at people during that time? Grief and anger get very confusing.
What was the language regarding copyright holder rights in the Debian developer agreement you signed in order to be an official Debian developer?
Under copyright law, your right to recognition as an author or developer arises automatically upon creating something.
You only lose those rights if you sign a contract giving away your rights. By default, co-authors have rights.
You signed a contract when you became an official Debian developer. I know because I was going to have to sign one before I was accepted as an official developer for one of the BSD flavors. (I decided to decline.)
Instead of asking me these questions, why don't you post Article 27 to the debian-project (https://lists.debian.org/debian-project) mailing list and ask them to explain whether they respect human rights or not?
Because I am talking to you.
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Have you seen the things they wrote about my family and I when my father died?
No, I have not, but Debian is not making those statements in these (Raptor's) forums. If they were making demonstrably false statements I would be equally concerned as I am about yours.
Did you see my new blog post about the censorship in Mozilla? (https://danielpocock.com/en/culture-of-silence-ubisoft-harassment-convictions-mozilla-sylvestre-ledru-debian-no-comment/)
No, I have not, but I try to use Firefox as little as possible. I have concerns about Mozilla's relationship with Google.
However, I do wish to point out that this is again focusing on negative energy instead of working towards more constructive outcomes.
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again focusing on negative energy instead of working towards more constructive outcomes
The negative energy doesn't come from me. I opened the topic because of what happened to Phil Wyett and other people. You turned it into a discussion about attacks on my family.
But have a look at the new post in the GNOME Foundation blog (https://blogs.gnome.org/aday/2025/08/29/thanks-and-farewell-to-steven-deobald/)
Steven Deobald was an employee at GNOME.
Employees come and go in different companies all the time.
99.999% of companies do not make any public comment when an employee leaves.
GNOME Foundation writes:
The Foundation Board is extremely grateful to Steven and wish him the very best for his future endeavors.
and then they go on to snobby comments like
Despite these many positive achievements, Steven and the board have come to the conclusion that Steven is not the right fit for the Executive Director role at this time. We are therefore bidding Steven a fond farewell.
They are basically saying they want to have the last word. They are giving a hint that they sacked him while trying not to make it a libel. These are the snobby people who create and sustain negativity. They can't let sleeping dogs lie. They have to put a spin on everything. Every time somebody resigns, every time somebody takes a vacation, somebody else on social media is making up a story about it.
Now think about it for a minute: will those words undermine Steven's next job? Will other people want to work for GNOME and other organizations that will denounce them after they leave?
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The negative energy doesn't come from me. I opened the topic because of what happened to Phil Wyett and other people. You turned it into a discussion about attacks on my family.
Daniel, you introduced that Debian was attacking your family. I did not. I asked you to consider the impression of paranoia such statements give, and to provide a specific example of such an attack on your family so that it could be considered.
But have a look at the new post in the GNOME Foundation blog (https://blogs.gnome.org/aday/2025/08/29/thanks-and-farewell-to-steven-deobald/)
Daniel, please stay focused on providing a specific example of an attack on you and your family. Human relationships are tough enough in good times, and not all work out. What happened between GNOME and Steven Deobald is between them and not germane to this conversation.
You indicate your father's death was very painful. When did he die? Were your parents together? How did your mother take your father's death?
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What happened between GNOME and Steven Deobald is between them and not germane to this conversation
Every person is equal (article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and therefore defending all the victims is equally important.
It the matter is "between them", why did the GNOME board have to slight him publicly?
I don't care what the details are. Even if one side or the other side tried to publish details after the fact, we might not be able to trust them.
The important thing for all of us is that GNOME and Debian using their websites to slight people is putting off other volunteers and developers.
People see these mantras about "feeling safe" in every newsletter and every web site and they form the impression that these groups are paranoid about feeling safe. Feeling safe and being safe are not the same thing. Some people feel more safe keeping away from groups that publicly denounce their employees and volunteers.
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Every person is equal (article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and therefore defending all the victims is equally important.
This is true, and I am glad we can find some common ground. I hope that you can see how your focus on behaviors exhibited by a tiny portion of the LGBTQ+ population as representative of the group as a whole is not consistent with the above statement.
But I would prefer to encourage you to focus on proximity first, as in, which victims are the closest to you? It is truly not possible to simultaneously defend all victims, so we have to make decisions about which ones can we help the most, and how can we be role models for other people who also want to help victims. Not defending all victims simultaneously does not mean the ones we can't defend are less equal. It is simply a realistic assessment of one's resources. "The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many."
I have generally stopped carrying cash with me so that I don't have any to give to the homeless people I see. I'd go broke, and where does that leave me in terms of being able to help even my family? I don't not help homeless people, though, and on occasion I have spent a fair amount of money helping individuals. (I also certainly don't treat homeless people with contempt and imprison them or expel them from the community. I ask our society, "Why are there homeless people?")
I am saying this as an example of how you, Daniel, could do a lot of good trying to focus on first making sure your family has the best Daniel that you can be, and then working towards addressing individual needs of those closest to you. I have some concerns that by chasing after every injustice you are perhaps avoiding the difficulty of intimacy with people close to you, which in itself is an injustice.
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Once again, you try to guess about things you don't see and don't know anything about.
The things relevant here are the things that undermine the critical mass in the open source software projects and make the projects ineffective
Looking at the way GNOME publicly slighted their outgoing Executive Director, what do you think happens when you make a comment like that about an employee in Japan? It is totally against their culture. They go and jump off the roof. We had a German developer who did exactly that in Debian. Read about Jens Schmalzing (https://danielpocock.com/en/jens-schmalzing-debian-accidental-death/)
People have tried to speculate about Jens but as I don't have any proof I didn't publish anything more.
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Once again, you try to guess about things you don't see and don't know anything about.
You are correct. You have not given specific examples of attacks on you and your family, your own actions completely contradict your positions about not harming others, and your statements about the actions of others do not hold up to scrutiny. In short, you are not talking about what is actually bothering you or the source of your pain, and we are left with trying to guess what the real problem is. That is why I have encouraged you to seek out professional mental health counseling. You might feel more comfortable discussing these issues in a private setting.
As far as your posts to the forums, I am very confused about your goals. I can see where you want to stir up outrage about some perceived or real injustice, but to what end? An angry mob that violently hunts down Debian leadership and harms them? How do we know the difference between the victims of social engineering and the truly evil ones? What is your plan?
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An angry mob that violently hunts down Debian leadership and harms them?
Anybody planning a mob is wasting their time and energy.
Notice how in the middle of DebConf23, another volunteer died all by himself. No mob was necessary.
They gave $120,000 to the lawyers (https://danielpocock.com/en/how-much-does-google-pay-to-destroy-a-man-and-his-family/) but the volunteers who worked on DebConf23 did not receive any payment. Not one dollar and not even one rupee. In fact, they asked the volunteers to cough up some of their own money to pay for the kayak trip. The volunteer who didn't contribute money did not receive a life jacket and he drowned (https://danielpocock.com/en/category/abraham-raji/).
All I do is document the facts. I am not asking anybody to do anything.
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They gave $120,000 to the lawyers (https://danielpocock.com/en/how-much-does-google-pay-to-destroy-a-man-and-his-family/) but the volunteers who worked on DebConf23 did not receive any payment. Not one dollar and not even one rupee. In fact, they asked the volunteers to cough up some of their own money to pay for the kayak trip. The volunteer who didn't contribute money did not receive a life jacket and he drowned (https://danielpocock.com/en/category/abraham-raji/).
It does seem to me that if you had not improperly and in bad faith registered 14 domain names which clearly infringed on the Debian trademark that $120,000 would have been available to help volunteers. I do see that as rather regretful and contrary to your message.
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14 domain names
They insulted my family when my father died. Their ongoing harassment is a violation of privacy because they imposed it on us at a time of grief.
Had they simply apologized and stopped the violation of privacy, I may have simply given them the Swiss trademark for the cost of the registration fee (it cost me $500).
They spent $120,000 on legal fees (https://danielpocock.com/en/how-much-does-google-pay-to-destroy-a-man-and-his-family/) to avoid all the solutions that involve apologizing.
Whenever somebody mentions the size of the Debian legal expenditures, they make a big panic to have the mailing lists censored. Is it a coincidence that the forum is not continuously accessible now, could it be some kind of DoS attack now that I mentioned Debian gives money to lawyers but not to the people who do all the other work?
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14 domain names
They insulted my family when my father died. Their ongoing harassment is a violation of privacy because they imposed it on us at a time of grief.
Registering 14 domain names which clearly violated Debian's trademark because they insulted your family when your father died is not bearing witness, it is taking revenge.
How does that reconcile with your faith?
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violated Debian's trademark
There are over 2700 domain names containing the Debian trademark (https://search.dnslytics.com/search?q=name:+*debian*&d=domains)
Every real co-author of Debian, everybody with a "legitimate interest", can use the trademark
With 2,700 domain names using the name Debian, why do you have this paranoid obsession with my 14 domain names?
Archive.org (Wayback machine) captured the contents of the Debian.day web site (https://web.archive.org/web/20240507104641/https://debian.day/en/). "bad faith" would imply that somebody forged the leaked messages. But the leaked messages are not forgeries: there really was a suicide cluster in Debian and it was hidden in debian-private
The writings of the lawyer are libellous and I have challenged them in a new legal procedure. Therefore, his allegation of "bad faith" is a libel and anybody repeating it risks being sued for libel.
Given the connection to institutional abuse in the Catholic church, the rumor of "bad faith" is a tactical insult and people who created this rumor will face criminal prosecution for harassment and privacy offences.
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Every real co-author of Debian, everybody with a "legitimate interest", can use the trademark
Contributing code to the project does not entitle you to using their trademark without an agreement from Debian community. I have asked you repeatedly what was the language in the contract with Debian that you signed, but you have declined to answer.
With 2,700 domain names using the name Debian, why do you have this paranoid obsession with my 14 domain names?
Because registering 14 domains that clearly violated Debian's trademark is what you did.
Given the connection to institutional abuse in the Catholic church, the rumor of "bad faith" is a tactical insult and people who created this rumor will face criminal prosecution for harassment and privacy offences.
I was not asking you about the institutional abuse in the Catholic church. I was asking, how do you reconcile taking revenge on Debian with your faith?
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Contributing code to the project does not entitle you to using their trademark without an agreement from Debian community
Actually, it does
Read the definition of legitimate interest
Read the definition of fair use
Fact check: somebody spent $120,000 on legal fees (https://danielpocock.com/en/how-much-does-google-pay-to-destroy-a-man-and-his-family/) to have a lawyer ignore decades of unpaid voluntary work and write that 14 out of 2,700 (https://search.dnslytics.com/search?q=name:+*debian*&d=domains) domain names are inconvenient.
Fact check: the Debian Social Contract, point 3, says "we won't hide problems". (Except for the Debian suicide cluster (https://danielpocock.com/en/ultimate-judgment-debian-suicide-cluster/).)
Remember: the death on our wedding day, Adrian von Bidder-Senn (https://danielpocock.com/en/category/adrian-von-bidder/), if it was a suicide, it could be a copy-cat suicide because another Debian Developer, Frans Pop, had sent his suicide note a few months before that (https://danielpocock.com/category/debian-day-volunteer-suicide/). In other words, the death of Adrian von Bidder-Senn could have been avoided.
A death that can be avoided is a manslaughter. It is the second most serious crime after murder. This death, which may be a crime in some jurisdictions, happened on our wedding day (https://danielpocock.com/en/diana-adrian-von-bidder-senn-evp-palm-sunday-debian-death-wedding-day/).
Manslaughter is such a serious crime. Is that why somebody spent $120,000 on legal fees (https://danielpocock.com/en/how-much-does-google-pay-to-destroy-a-man-and-his-family/) to fool you about what is really at stake here?
This is not about domain names. This is about censoring leaks. This is about people who spent $120,000 on legal fees (https://danielpocock.com/en/how-much-does-google-pay-to-destroy-a-man-and-his-family/) to violate the transparency commitment of the Debian social contract. This is about a death that could have been avoided.
Please go and check on the above facts and contact me privately when you are ready to discuss it in a more mature manner. Asking me to repeat myself, in such tragic circumstances, is incredibly unreasonable.