Phil Wyett & Debian harassment

[TimKelly]

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."

[pocock]

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:

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 mailing list and ask them to explain whether they respect human rights or not?

[pocock]

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) 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.

[TimKelly]

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.

[pocock]

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 to show it was not a valid judgment.

The rogue Debianists spent over $120,000 in legal fees in 2022 / 2023.  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?

[TimKelly]

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 mailing list and ask them to explain whether they respect human rights or not?

Because I am talking to you.

[TimKelly]

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?

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.

[pocock]

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

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?

[TimKelly]

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

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?

[pocock]

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.

[TimKelly]

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.

[pocock]

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

People have tried to speculate about Jens but as I don't have any proof I didn't publish anything more.

[TimKelly]

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?

[pocock]

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 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.

All I do is document the facts.  I am not asking anybody to do anything.

[TimKelly]

They gave $120,000 to the lawyers 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.

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.