Pierre, Apologies that I took so long to reply to this; it ended up in my spam folder for some reason.
On Mon, Feb 4, 2019 at 3:52 PM Pierre-Elliott Bécue <p...@debian.org> wrote: > > Dear Gavin, > > Le lundi 04 février 2019 à 09:28:41-0700, Gavin Howard a écrit : > > I am not a contributor, so take what I say with a grain of salt. > > > > I was planning on becoming a contributor to Debian recently and joined > > the mailing list in preparation for doing so. And then I saw > > everything that was happening. > > > > It made me nervous that people could be accused and removed without > > any public process, opportunity to collect evidence, opportunity to > > face their accuser, presumption of innocence, and other basic human > > rights guaranteed, at least, by the US Constitution. (I don't know > > about the Debian constitution.) > > Using references to legal arguments to determine how a private group > should work and behave is not really a relevant thing. Debian has > normative texts it chose as a project and none of these is entitled to > the notion of "fair trial" or whatever like this. I understand that, but I have more to say on it later. > Regarding the lack of public process, I can understand how you see it as > a good thing to hold "public trials", but others could say that such a > "public trial" could undermine their professionnal career and their > public image. > > Debian chose one way regarding publicity, you're free to think about > alternatives. That choice should be made by the accused, if their rights were to actually be upheld. See below. > That being said, don't try to involve Human Rights or any State of Law > justice notion in this as this is mostly irrelevant to the subject. > > I'm pretty sure you know plenty groups where the same kind of thing > holds. Especially in the US. Sure I do. And I don't participate in them. If Debian wants to be one of those groups that is Debian's choice. But in my opinion, any organization that does not hold basic, God-given natural rights as sacred is an organization that I will never participate in because the culture of such organizations can easily be turned to target some of its own members. > > Also, when I saw someone who appeared to be in a position of > > leadership asking for evidence of wrongdoing *after* making a decision > > to ban someone, that was...chilling, as though there was a vendetta > > that was fulfilled and that the leader was looking for justification > > of such a vendetta. > > The fact that some people can do mistakes sometimes isn't either a hard > piece of news or something sufficient to form any judgement, especially > when they retracted themselves with apologies (after being called out by > members of the project, including at least two DAM). Ironically, there > are two persons on this list who asked for evidences of "misbehaviours" > of other people, one who retracted, and whom you pointed a finger at, > and one other, who is actually the original poster of the current > thread, who offered a 500£ bounty for such "evidences" and who didn't > retract a thing. > > No one having banned anyone asked for any more evidence on this list or > another. You probably made a mistake while reading these far too long > threads. Or maybe I didn't read the whole thing because looking back, it seems that this "thread" is spread across several. My point stands because it is about the immediate perception of Debian as a project to a person who had just joined the mailing list looking to participate. However, after reading the cash bounty email, there is a difference: the bounty was offered for evidence after an accusation was made but *before* a decision. The other was asking for evidence *after* a decision. > > For myself, I do not have great social skills and cannot read subtle, > > between-the-lines, subtle messages, especially through the medium of > > email. I could see a future where, if I joined Debian, I might make an > > innocent mistake and not realize it until I was removed from the > > project. That does not sound fun. > > Do you really think that among more than a thousand people, nobody > except the two recently expelled developers made an innocent mistake? Do > you actually think that regarding the one whom I replied to, he's on any > "innocent mistake" path? > > I really suggest that you take some time to think about it again. Um...yes, I do. Because I have seen this thing before. I spoke at a conference once, laying out the current problems with the culture of programming and how to fix it, as well as how to elevate the work software "engineers" do to a place where they might deserve that title. One of the ideas I laid out was the possibility of creating a certification process for software developers to become true, certified engineers and to require certain critical (infrastructure-level) projects to be led by such certified engineers. What happened after my talk was that I had several managers accuse me of "white privilege" since I did not have to work my way through college and thus did not know what doing so was like for minorities. The kicker? I *did* work my way through college. (My parents provided no help, though it wasn't because they didn't love me; they didn't because they knew it would be good for me, and they were right.) The managers just assumed that I hadn't. Now, may I be entirely misguided about the dynamics of this situation? Yes; after all, I am not so great at this social thing. But the experience I laid out above was a time when I literally did nothing wrong and was targeted. To me, it seems like this is what happened here, especially since evidence was asked for *after* a decision was made. > > So, no thank you. And best of luck to everyone. > > I'm sorry if the current situation discouraged you to contribute to the > project. I'm especially sorry if by the previous email I sent, I > contributed to this feeling. Yet I'll respect your choice, that you are > free to overturn anytime if you feel the wish to give help and input to > the project. As I said above, I never will. Not until things change in Debian. > I hope you find happiness and fun in your future projects/work. Thank you. > Best regards, > > -- > Pierre-Elliott Bécue > GPG: 9AE0 4D98 6400 E3B6 7528 F493 0D44 2664 1949 74E2 > It's far easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. Gavin Howard
