LWN: Comments on "Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020"

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

davidgerard — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 10:06:11 +0000

And now I suddenly understand how the FSFE mailing lists descended a coupla years ago into weird nonsense that I unsubscribed from.

I shouldn't really be amazed just how effective a single dedicated participant can be in trashing a community venue.

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

donbarry — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 23:12:46 +0000

Thank you, Matthew. The broader information shared by you and others seems to indicate there are additional factors involved, as I suspected might be the case, including, perhaps, unfortunate issues of mental health.

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

mjg59 — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 22:39:48 +0000

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2020/03/msg00096.html is an example that hasn't yet been cleaned up from the list archive - a common hallmark is a faked identity (occasionally that of a real person) using an anonymous mail provider. Outside Debian, https://lists.fsfellowship.eu/pipermail/discussion/2020-M... is another example, in this case including an entirely fake mail allegedly from the DPL and alleging wrongdoing without providing any details that would allow the issue to be investigated. While many of these have been aimed at people in leadership roles within the project, he's also targeted others who have no meaningful power to defend themselves. In extreme cases, he's implied that the behaviour of the people he's harassing may have been linked to the death of another member of the Debian community.

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

seyman — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 22:25:46 +0000

> At this point, he has definitely moved on from trying to improve some things to trying to bring down the FSFE, Debian, and, at least partially, the FSF.

Said person has recently popped up on the Fedora mailing lists claiming that unpublishing his blog from the planet (due to it violating the Fedora CoC) and mail delays caused by technical issues are efforts to censor him by "a certain type of person who wants to humiliate me by forcing me to beg like this".

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

floriansnow — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 13:00:02 +0000

Here is a relevant public statement by the FSFE that I triggered at the General Assembly:
https://fsfe.org/about/legal/minutes/minutes-2019-10-12.e...

Part of the problem is that we didn't take strong steps soon enough. We wouldn't usually make public statements about an individual, especially if it's someone who volunteered in our community. Perhaps that was a mistake. However, we still can't really fight or air out a lot of the allegations because
a) proving that something isn't true gets tricky when it requires information from the accused party (the information itself is already public)
b) whenever we argued a point, he just moved on to the next accusation

Personally, I am quite frustrated by this situation because it started out with some decent and some not so great suggestions from Daniel. But discussing those quickly escalated to pure harassment and lying as described by Sam and in the FSFE statement. Quite frankly, I see this as a waste of time and resources of the Free Software community and unfortunately, that is exactly what Daniel threatened to do very early on. Perhaps we should have published that and kicked him out back then. At this point, he has definitely moved on from trying to improve some things to trying to bring down the FSFE, Debian, and, at least partially, the FSF.

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

flussence — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 03:11:20 +0000

This is the first I've heard of it too. I wish Debian the best of luck.

I'm disinclined to believe anything from a site that smugly quotes “We will not hide problems” in the middle of the page and goes on to use the royal “We” itself while having any identifying marks thoroughly filed off. Pure cowardice from an umarell out to tear others' work down.

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

mjg59 — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 19:35:41 +0000

You might want to check out https://debian.community to see examples that are more obviously not reasoned criticism. These are still less extreme than some of the posts that have been sent to multiple Debian mailing lists[1] asserting (without evidence) wrongdoing on the part of multiple people. I'm not sure how personally targeted attacks carried out over a lengthy period of time count as anything other than harassment.

[1] They've largely been deleted from the archives

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

donbarry — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 19:19:25 +0000

Interesting. I've heard none of this. And there is little online, which itself tends to argue against this being a "harassment" campaign. Naturally I hesitate to judge something about which I can learn so little through the available sources, but I generally find myself in agreement with Daniel Pocock's criticisms, of FSFE, at least, with less clarity about the involvement with Debian, at least as they are constituted in the limited information I've been able to review.

That's not to say I would necessarily agree with them in the context of greater awareness, but it does tend to indicate a more transparent and open discussion is in order to air these out. FSFE, at least, seems to be trying to silence Pocock's role as a community delegate by declaring speech contrary to its own interests (meaning the interests of the bureaucracy, as opposed to those whom he was elected to represent) improper. It's less clear where Debian fits in this.

If organizations trust their broader communities, it would seem that a more open airing of these issues is in order.

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

mjg59 — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 19:59:51 +0000

The campaign is the work of Daniel Pocock.

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

martin.langhoff — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 19:26:17 +0000

As a former debianista --
- Thank you DPL!
- who is running a harassment campaign?, or some hints to find relevant threads?

Hartman: Opposite of a Platform for DPL 2020

andrewsh — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 16:26:48 +0000

I’m glad Sam mentioned the on-going harassment campaign. It’s putting a huge toll on the project, individual members and the leader. The person to step in after Sam will need nerves or steel to sustain in that position.