LWN: Comments on "GNOME ponders its code of conduct"

Some Survey Says "Advertising a proprietary software" should not be allowed

Lefty — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:43:51 +0000

Yes, outright advertising is something no one wants to see. There's no
disagreement on that. "Advertising" is quite a clear term: it's the presentation
of a product as part of an attempt to sell it to someone.

When pressed on the point of whether there was "promotion" of proprietary
software, no one, including Mr. Stallman, could point to a single instance of
any such thing.

Mr. Stallman then altered his position to suggesting that simple "favorable
mention" of proprietary software should merit a response from the Board.
There's no demonstrable support for that idea.

Since the "problem" that the suggested rule was intended to solve doesn't
actually exist, what's the need for a rule in the first place? Why go out of your
way to keep something that isn't happening from happening?

Some Survey Says "Advertising a proprietary software" should not be allowed

kragil — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:00:22 +0000

OK, let's spin a biased survey a little more:

What was the one thing with the highest support in said survey?

It was that

"Advertising a proprietary software product"

should not be done on PGO.

So how do you keep that from happening? Advertising is a vague subjective term and Silverlight, VMware and Access etc. are all proprietary.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

BrucePerens — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:53:06 +0000

David, I am really really sorry, but most of what you are relating is from the online conversation at LWN, not our personal conversation at the summit. I fear that you are confabulating. I am sorry and horrified.

And you are writing for a site called boycott-boycott-novell???

IMO very sincerely it isn't healthy. Take a break.

I am on a PDA-only connection for now and will not engage in this further, but anyway I have said all I should ever say about this. I hope you find a way out of it.

Bruce

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

Lefty — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:44:16 +0000

While that's a nice polemical effort to turn the discussion away from the
issue and onto a free-form attack on me personally, it makes little sense,
at least unless Philip van Hoof, who was the first (but far from the last) to
raise objections to RMS' "suggestions", is also part of this conspiracy you
feel you see.

In any case, your use of the term "jihad" is both accurate and inappropriate
here. I'm sure any Muslim readers will be kind enough to attribute your
(mis)use of it in this context to ignorance rather than bigotry, as do I.

This is not about Richard Stallman, except insofar as he's the one who's
attempted to impose his version of "approved group think" on Planet
GNOME; I'd have been equally averse to such a suggestion no matter from
whom it came. I'm in favor of freedom of expression, and dislike attempts
to exercise prior restraint on me or on the other contributors to the Planet.

Again, I'm far from unique in this reaction.

(Aren't we overdue for a revision of Godwin's Law...?)

truth

SandalFoan — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:24:36 +0000

the truth, evidenced by hard facts, is absolute defense against any accusation of libel.

read the man's own words, on his own websites and blogs and emails.

I rest my case, and this is not a 'catfight', it is a demand for some justice for the people he has harmed.

Stop.

corbet — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:09:14 +0000

Your catfight does not belong here. I left your original comment despite the fact that it's the kind of thing that leads to encounters with the courts because censorship is very much not our thing. But you have been asked to stop, and I will enforce that. LWN is not the place for that kind of thing.

Stop.

SandalFoan — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:07:09 +0000

and now censorship? that is not healthy at all.

Stop.

corbet — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:14:11 +0000

There will be no more of this here. I am getting tired of people using LWN to throw darts at each other. Can we please put an end to it now?

Studio Audience Says, "Planet GNOME is just fine."

Lefty — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:32:32 +0000

Some data points on the governance of Planet GNOME.

I conducted a survey on the issue, which has received 1,449 responses so
farthe full results can be viewed at http://bit.ly/8ebcav and while folks
may not like the framing of some of the questions, I find the results quite
interesting.

Particularly worth noting are the 90 responses from Planet GNOME
contributors, with the following results:

To the question, "Richard Stallman has recently called for rules to be
applied to Planet GNOME to bar favorable mention of proprietary software.
Do you think this is reasonable?", 71, or 78.9%, answered "No". None
skipped this question.

To the question, "The current charter of Planet GNOME is to provide "a
window into the world, work and lives of GNOME hackers and
contributors". Should that charter be altered to ensure that the Planet
doesn't present views other than those held by the free software
movement?", again 71, 80.7% of those responding, said "No". 2 skipped
this question.

To the question, "Do you agree that viewing proprietary software as
'illegitimate', 'immoral', 'antisocial' and/or 'unethical' should be a pre-
condition for syndication on Planet GNOME?", 77, 86.5% of those
responding, said "No". A single respondent skipped this question.

There doesn't seem to be wide-spread support amongst the people
contributing to Planet GNOME for the kind of changes which Richard
Stallman has suggested. In addition, based on their messages to the
foundation-list, neither the Executive Director of the Foundation nor the
editors who have expressed a view support it.

you need to understand Schlesinger aka 'stonemirror' and his long history...

SandalFoan — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:29:36 +0000

David "Lefty" Schlesinger aka 'stonemirror the great and terrible' (his own chosen appellation) has been behaving in a vicious and literally demented manner online and in person since at least 1996, when he began his long career of legal threats, threats of violence, defamatory websites and general stalking and abuse - began with the stalking of Kathy Sutphen, which is well documented. Lefty has also written hideously sexist articles for the notorious troll site 'encyclopedia dramatica', and this is documented as his work beyond any doubt.

QUOTE

Stone Mirror aka David Lefty Schlesinger
to me
show details Oct 3 (10 days ago)

These messages were sent while you were offline.

2:01 PM
Stone: dont be a ninny, no ones trying to fuse Linux with Microsoft. thats paranoid rhetoric, but coming from a mental case such as yourself, its not surprising.

Groklaw is taking much abuse for their stance, as can be seen in the comments. Bad move on PJs part.
2:04 PM
Do you happen to know Celeste Lyn Paul.? Shes the head of the KDE Foundation Board
2:05 PM
She was in the audience at GCDS and tweeted her dismay at Stallmans bit of harmless fun while it was happening

May you know Stormy Peters?

Shes the Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation.
2:06 PM
she was there, too, and not happy, either.

itll be interesting if Dr. Stallman finds himself blacklisted from both KDE and GNOME events in the future, wont it?

UNQUOTE

documented evidence, mainly from his own emails and blogs, of David Lefty Schlesinger (he is an ACCESS employee) and his long career of illegal and menacing threats, stalking, harassment and blackmail.

here:

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4902686590059408...

and here:

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4902686590059408...

Lefty has written heinously sexist troll articles for the notorious troll site encyclopediadramatica.com.

I try to stop a bit short of full-blown monster-hood. David Lefty Schlesinger aka stonemirror

there is more evidence here, much much more. RMS has examined it personally, and he encouraged it as a complaint to the Gnome Foundation. He found it all credible and well evidenced, especially the abusive, defamatory websites that Lefty maintains for years on end over the slightest grudge, and in self admitted defiance of the DMCA. Lefty is also in his own emails and blogs (verified by whois and headers) actually blackmailing people over alleged sexual images he claims to have, which if they exist, were never public in any fashion.

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He's proof that you are never too old to use Linux

Re: David Lefty Schlesinger aka 'stonemirror'
« Sent to: sandala lafoan on: December 12, 2009, 02:44:27 pm »
« You have forwarded or responded to this message. »

Yup, I've read about it most of it. Are you the book seller that he had a quarrel with? Most of the pages from his old "stonemirror" website are still in the WayBack machine, where one can read his taunting of the mentally ill, etc..... But, I try to stay away from the more gross stuff because most people wouldn't believe it even if you sent them the WayBack URL's.

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Re: David Lefty Schlesinger aka 'stonemirror'
« Sent to: sandala lafoan on: December 12, 2009, 02:29:34 pm »
« You have forwarded or responded to this message. »

I've done an extensive investigation into "stonemirror" and the acolytes which populate his blog. You haven't seen the worse. "Lefty" exploited the "Linux isn't woman friendly" blowup a couple months ago in order to push MONO by trying to label those apposed to MONO (and thus Microsoft's API) on Linux as being "sexist". Those who were crying crocodile tears over RMS or Shuttlesworth's "sexist" comments have made identical jokes or statements themselves in times past. The "proof" often given is that 26-30% of corporate coders are women but "only 2%" of Linux coders are women, ergo Linux supporters are "sexist". However, they claim, since most .NET/MONO developers are corporate related, MONO is not sexist. It can be shown that 80% of graduates from Computer Science programs are women.. For just the 2.6.30 kernel alone there were 1,150 coders from 240 companies contributing code. IF the it is corporate policy to employ as many women as possible then roughly 250 of those coders should be women, but they are not. Whose fault is that? It's certainly not because Linux is "sexist". What it does prove is that the "sexist" charge is being used by pro MONO people to belittle the traditional Linux community to make it easier to subvert the Linux API from C, C++, GLib, GTK and Qt4 to C# and MONO.

Some of the MONO supporters bait those who do not support MONO with private messages, which they quote in public blogs, out of context, in attempts to discredit those who appose MONO.

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Re: David Lefty Schlesinger aka 'stonemirror'
« Sent to: sandala lafoan on: December 12, 2009, 04:12:55 pm »
« You have forwarded or responded to this message. »

It's a "Lefty" trademark to threaten to sue people he's had online fights with. I suspect he sends out pseudo legal letters from "lawyers" to further the intimidation.

One of his current web pages is http://stonemirror.wordpress.com/, which also contains links to a theme he apparently has brought back out of retirement: Marsupials. On his front page he is posting attacks against "LiveJournal", which used to host his website but expelled him.

On the Marsupials page he's continuing his ranting at a variety of people, like "Mikey", and on a variety of topics.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

Lefty — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:20:41 +0000

Sigh. It's the holiday season, and while I'm not sure what Bruce is
attempting to accomplish with an otherwise content-free personal
attack like this, let me try to be charitable.

When I went to the Community Leadership Summit, I fell into a
conversation with Kirrily Robert, Dave Neary and several others about the
events at GCDS. Bruce joined us, at which point it became impossible for
anyone else to manage to complete a sentence without being interrupted.

Bruce explained to usat us, actuallyat some significant length, that Mr.
Stallman has undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome, that he was "incapable of
apologizing", and that the order-of-magnitude lower level of participation
by women in community-based software development versus proprietary
wasn't indicative of any sort of a problem at all.

These are pretty much the same statements he made here on LWN when
the discussion here turned to Stallman's GCDS keynote. They earned him
some significant criticism here, and they served him no better at the
Leadership Summit.

Since the conversation had turned at that point into a lecture from Bruce,
and one which was becoming increasingly unrewarding, Ialong with
Kirrily, Dave and several of the others who had been in conversationgave
up and left the room to seek more worthwhile pursuits. No one "ran", no
one was "in tears".

If I'm passionate about attempting to point out and address the problems
that I see in our community, like sexism, like attempts at imposed "group
think", I don't apologize for that. It's unfortunate thatrather than
responding to the issues themselvesothers are as passionate in
"attacking the messenger" to shame and harass those who do see these
things as problems into silence and sweep such issues under the rug.

The planet concept

alex — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:08:14 +0000

The "Planet" concept is a nice one, it offers a way for the community to
interact on a different level than mailing lists. When curated well they
offer interesting insights into a shared interest, when done badly they are
just a collection of random blog posts connected purely by the fact the
contributors have a common interest. I must admit I've looked at Planet
Gnome before and thought it contained too much of the second to make it
worthwhile adding to my feeds. Looking at it today however was a lot more
interesting as 90%+ of the posts seem in some way Gnome related. Maybe this
is the after effect of the discussion?

I understand RMS's point about the potential for Planet posts to be
interpreted as the "voice of the Gnome project" but I'm not sure how many
people actually treat it as such. Perhaps all that is needed is a
clearer statement on it's make-up on the front page?

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

BrucePerens — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:07:45 +0000

I ran into Lefty at a community summit out here a while back, and his emotional state was really high. He explained his beef with RMS with a cry in his voice, I kid you not. When I was less than sympathetic, he practically ran out of the room in tears.

Now, I am no stranger to getting emotional about things. But I've learned that it doesn't generally help me win the argument.

He really needs to focus on ACCESS, which, IMO, is a sinking ship. RMS isn't the big problem in front of him.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

me@jasonclinton.com — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:48:58 +0000

If that were true, democracies would televise "closed-door" legislative and treaty negotiations.

At this point it seems clear that this proposal isn't going to happen so those of us that have major controversial proposals coming up will just have to continue to go about having private email conversations in what will undoubtedly be called a "cabal" by those who were inadvertently left out.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

ewan — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:24:34 +0000

This is about signal-to-noise ratio, not about keeping secrets. It doesn't matter if someone leaks the discussion; in fact, we should always behave on -private as though it could and should happen.

It seems that (if one were necessary at all) a list that restricted posting to an invitation-only set of people, but allowed read-only subscriptions by anyone and had public archives, would solve the problem.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

mjw — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:06:02 +0000

He was hurt in the past and then turned into this anti-anti boycott person. Since then Lefty's communications are precisely what the Gnome CoC says you shouldn't do. "Be respectful and considerate, Be patient and generous, Assume people mean well, Try to be concise." But say Respectful the rules, Free Software, FSF, GNU, etc. in front of him and he will explode.

But that is also the hard part. Clearly something went wrong with the communication in the past. Someone's feelings were hurt really badly. Now what? Just tell them "be the bigger person", follow these rules of respect for each other even though you feel others weren't following them in the past when talking to or about you? Could you do that?

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

liljencrantz — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:11:05 +0000

Moving parts of the discussion to a private mailing list to increas S/N ratio would be a case of the cure being worse than the disease. It would significantly hinder community growth, transparency and openness. It's the same basic phenomenon as discussed in this TED talk - if you let someting roam free on the Internet, you may create something wonderful, but you sure a shell can't control it.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

kragil — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:25:28 +0000

Yeah Lefty really does not get the FOSS community.

It is just a fact that we have two groups, open source people that think open source is superior in many ways and the best development model and then we have free software people that will not use proprietary software for reasons RMS points out.
Lefty hates free software people although they serve a very important purpose in our community.
Who else is going to use and improve unfinished buggy and inferior software just because it is their believe that everything else is no option?
When that software becomes featurefull and usable the OSS people will gladly use it, which is OK, but then don't attack the free software people for their believe in free software.

And besides I personally think he really is an unpleasant fella on a crusade and if PGO needs moderation it is his posts (which also include false anti Android propaganda and Access spam)

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

AlexHudson — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:57:02 +0000

More fodder for his blog to complain about it:

http://www.boycott-boycottnovell.com/index.php/the-news/9...

Notice he writes about it as if a bystander to the discussion.

Sad, really - rather than highlight the nonsense that well-known web sites peddle about GNOME etc., he's instead joined their ranks on the opposite side - just another #BoycottBoy.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

flewellyn — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:21:53 +0000

It did look as if Lefty was the primary mover of the anti-RMS sentiment. I can't say as I see the point.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

BrucePerens — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:26:06 +0000

Isn't this just about Lefty's anti-RMS jihad?