Debian Project Leader (DPL) to Step Down
Jonathan Carter to leave as DPL
THIS week, in a very long post full of lots of typos (Carter admits this was done quickly, so he expected typos, even "it's" instead of "its"), we discovered that the DPL will step aside and won't be running again.
Why does this matter?
Carter wasted a lot of Debian's already-limited funds on lawyers, with the sole goal of censoring dissent.
Did that work?
No, it will backfire some more. Over the coming days we'll reproduce some more articles about this assault on free speech and misuse of Debian funds.
This was perhaps Carter's most notable - albeit not laudable - legacy.
His predecessor opened the door (via G.R.) to alternatives to systemd, but has anything happened since? No. systemd got even closer to Microsoft, but the boiling frog remained inside the heated pot.
After Carter spent a fortune (not of his own money) hijacking the domain debian.community many other "debian"-themed domains have emerged. Will he start legal actions to try to take over all of these, too? For maybe 2 articles that each such domain contains?
Playing whack-a-mole with domains is an endeavour that even the deep-pocketed copyright cartel found futile at the end.
Similar plots were publicly murmured by Debian's Matthew J Garrett, who thought of ways to somehow hijack the Techrights domains.
These people have absolutely no grasp of free speech. If you don't agree, then you can respond. Making threats to people's family or trying to take sites down isn't a legitimate course of action.
Carter's departure will represent not the end of the censorship. This will eternally stain Debian's reputation and track record.
By the way, that site Carter spent so much trying to take down (or take over) is still very much alive, just with a different domain name.
Money down the drain. █