Miguel provided a resignation letter a few weeks ago, in according to a plan I described on the GNOME Foundation mailing list a couple of months ago, and we reported this and our appointment of the new President and VP in our minutes of the first board meeting held after his resignation.

You’ll note that nothing was hidden. The plan to do this was published to the GNOME community, the outcome of the completed plan was published to the GNOME community.

I think any reasonable person who was not looking to create controversy and suspicion would see there is nothing particularly interesting about our actions in this regard at all. Just open, transparent process.

—Jeff

However, it was a not-smallish stupidity to not make that context clear when he initially said that “Miguel has officially resigned”, and also stating this little known fact only after being pressed about Miguel’s lasting (or not) influence over Gnome’s direction.

That stupidity probably stems from the fact that Jeff himself is one of those who regard Miguel as an “embarrassment to Gnome”. He doesn’t dare say *that* in public, but it’s obvious from the whole exchange now. And I can’t blame him for that attitude either. Given Miguel’s past, and his role as a founder of Gnome, his current actions and direction can’t be else but regarded as an embarrassment and a liability to all his former co-developers (with exception those who are his personal fan-boys).

It’s somehow ironic how the Miguel-champion of Free Software who founded Gnome to counter the evil of KDE’s association with evil dual-licensed Qt software evolved to end up now in the camp that is helping the biggest Unfree Software monopoly to stay as a monopoly, — and how KDE and Trolltech/Qt have been moving towards GPL licenses more and more during the same timespan… And they’ll probably go GPL3 too in the near future.

Why recently?

I answered that in the previous comment, but you are so desperate to find fault, that you refuse to listen: “I was charged up to do it after reading the bylaws a lot during the recent changes we made.”

My cause is not served by wasting my time here, butting my head against your problems. You have shown such disrespect by your insinuations, and for my open participation on this site, that very little you raise will be “better to answer than to ignore”.

Save it for the interview, Roy. Throw everything you’ve got at me, and I’ll answer with knowledge, integrity and absolute comfort in the actions of my peers and project.

Goodbye.

…it wasn’t until recently that we decided to adopt a plan and pursue it properly.

Why recently?

You’re still just trying to dredge up anything you possibly can, and looking everywhere possible for controversy.

I have my reasons and it’s not as though I wish to find more internal issues, of which they are already quite a few (mainly involving Novell and other Microsoft ‘partners’). Au contraire — I would love to know that nothing is amiss. Linux was blooming like a flower before the deal with Novell, which was accompanied by FUD.

The rest of your comment is hostile, which I interpret as feelings of lack of comfort. I do not believe that it serves your cause. There remains a question at the top of my comment and it’s better to answer it than to ignore it.

You’re still just trying to dredge up anything you possibly can, and looking everywhere possible for controversy.

I’m not going to participate on this site anymore. There’s no point. You’ll continue to attack us, you’re not interested in actual research or knowledge of the things you report about, you disrespect my input, and nothing will change your mind.

Save up all your nastiness and insinuations and throw it all at me for the interview. Then hopefully you’ll actually show some respect and humanity.

Could you please produce evidence to make me 100% confident?

Well, sorry Roy, but I’m going to wait and see if you’re capable of doing the absolute rock-bottom basics of research. It’s in an utterly obvious place and locatable via Google.

I find it absolutely hilarious that you don’t know where to find this, you don’t know what CIA is, on and on, and you purport to do research and demonstrate a responsibility to the community you purport to serve.

I’m sorry, Roy, but you are clueless and incompetent in your mission, and you are nasty, reckless and irresponsible in your approach.

As outlined in the plan I published on the GNOME Foundation list, we asked for his resignation letter (as we have many times over the years, by the way)

I am relieved to hear this. Just one minor thing (sorry, it’s a pet peeve of mine because I like to clearly distinguish between claims and factual evidence): Could you please produce evidence to make me 100% confident? A URL? Maybe you can forward me an E-mail (you have my address)?

I only ask for this because later on you can have other companies or people or communities denying it, in which case you’re left with conflicting views, but no hard evidence. I’m thinking about the SCO-BayStar-Microsoft connection, for example.

…we pestered, and Miguel finally wrote the letter which had to be done as a matter of process. We simply formalised what has already been in practice for years now.

But why now? If you have tried this for years, why has it finally worked, especially amid unhealthy developments like this one?

I just come across this entry, i hit via the Planet Gnome feeds. As a Gnome user, and packager, i come ashamed of it.

I strongly agree with his view (and yours) that it was a repulsive attack that made me want to look away.

There is absolutely nothing of suspicion here.

But *I* am the suspicious party. You cannot try to convince me that I have dropped suspicion.

You should do your research and demonstrate a responsibility the the community you purport to serve.

That’s exactly what I do.

One issue that you have not yet addressed is the interesting timing of Miguel’s departure.

As outlined in the plan I published on the GNOME Foundation list, we asked for his resignation letter (as we have many times over the years, by the way), we pestered, and Miguel finally wrote the letter which had to be done as a matter of process. We simply formalised what has already been in practice for years now.

There is absolutely nothing of suspicion here. You should do your research and demonstrate a responsibility the the community you purport to serve.

If you asked for a simple explanation, you’d get one. The problem is, you’re not here to do anything constructive, you’re here to find anything you possibly can to create suspicion and division.

Despite the fact that you didn’t make any reasonable attempt to ask what happened here — and I do suggest that you show some reasonableness and do this in future, because you’re doing a disservice to the community by approaching all of these issues with such negativity — I’ll describe it:

Miguel provided a resignation letter a few weeks ago, in according to a plan I described on the GNOME Foundation mailing list a couple of months ago, and we reported this and our appointment of the new President and VP in our minutes of the first board meeting held after his resignation.

You’ll note that nothing was hidden. The plan to do this was published to the GNOME community, the outcome of the completed plan was published to the GNOME community.

I think any reasonable person who was not looking to create controversy and suspicion would see there is nothing particularly interesting about our actions in this regard at all. Just open, transparent process.

I look forward to seeing how you try to squeeze controversy and suspicion out of this issue next.

Anyway, what the update shows is a misalignment in terms of the stories being told:

Jeff: “…Miguel was actually the President of the GNOME Foundation until only a few weeks ago”

Repre:

According to the minutes of the Gnome Foundation Board meeting happeing on 15th of November 2007 (and published a week later, that was: last Thursday), for topic ‘4)’ it is noted:

GNOME President

Miguel has officially resigned as the GNOME President.

Uh huh. So up until a week ago, Miguel officially was the GNOME President?

Looks like Jeff himself thinks Miguel is an irrelevant embarrassment to GNOME, so that he even avoids mentioning this ‘hot news’ which reached the public eye only 4 days ago (even though it could have served to strengthen his point).

That’s just what’s so suspicious. It almost as though someone is trying to hide something.

Can you spell W-I-T-C-H-H-U-N-T?

Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a known, pseudonymous, nymshifting, abusive Internet troll

I found this:

“KDE was started in Oct 16 1996. Gnome was, if I remember correctly, around May 1997?”

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.x/browse_thread/thread/3353b345b58457ce/28b89183dc2ec19f?lnk=st

“In summer of 1997, he was interviewed by Microsoft for a job…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_icaza

I’m just making mental notes ‘out aloud’ here, but maybe they’ll prove handy in the future.

Is this all not enough?

Is there still people blind enough not to see that Miguel is just a Microsoft mercenary?

Miguel: Thanks for continue trying to split the community!
(First step was to create another free desktop just the next month after his interview as applicant in Microsoft…)

Microsoft: Continue trying to divide and conquer. You will just win some extra time… Resistance is futile…

Finally. A voice of sanity and reason.

Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a known, pseudonymous, nymshifting, abusive Internet troll

Finally. A voice of sanity and reason.

Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from an incarnation of a known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.