Bonum Certa Men Certa

Jens Schmalzing & Debian: rooftop fall, inaccurately described as accident

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 22, 2024

[Article 1 year old]

Reprinted with permission from disguised.work.

Debian refers to the 2005 death of Jens Schmalzing as an accident. It is mentioned here in the Debian history and again in obituary.

The Debian Social Contract, point 3, tells us that Debian will not hide problems. There is an expectation of accuracy and integrity in the statements made by Debian.

Jumping from rooftops is a common way of committing suicide. One report suggests that eight percent of male suicides in Europe involve jumping/falling from a high place.

The death occurred on 30 July 2005 and it was reported on the debian-private (leaked) gossip network on 5 August 2005:

I'm sorry to inform you all that Jens Schmalzig (jensen) died last Saturday in a tragic accident here in Munich, after falling down from the roof of his work place. His family has been grieving his death privately. I'll see if someone in the local Debian community has more contact with them.

An official investigation, a coroner's inquest, must decide if the fall was an accident or a possible suicide. Sometimes it is not clear. Only one in four suicide victims leave a note. If there is no note and no other evidence then it is not correct to say it was an accident: it may be more honest for Debian to state that the reason for the fall, the cause of death, is officially unknown. It could be an accident, it could be a suicide or it could even be a murder. Why were people so quick to claim it was an accident?

As every coroner's report is kept secret in Germany, the family, friends and employer of the deceased person will almost always tell people that the death was an accident, regardless of whether it was a real accident or a suicide. Some people feel that lying is both justified and unavoidable in order to observe the German obligation of secrecy.

The veil of secrecy helps to obfuscate factors such as workplace stress and economic problems. Secrecy is convenient for employers, voluntary groups, debt collectors and similar organizations who sometimes make unreasonable or impossible demands on people.

Richard Rothwell, a well known open source suicide, chose to die by jumping from a cliff. The coroner's report has been published, Rothwell left multiple notes about his intentions.

This is the Arnold Sommerfeld Center, the building where Schmalzing worked and maybe where he fell/jumped:

Arnold Sommerfeld Center, University Munich, Debian, Jens Schmazling

Volunteers have started looking over the circumstances and found that he was exposed to over 2,000 Debian emails in the month he died.

A German report states that men choose a suicide method that is more likely to succeed while women choose methods that leave some possibility of survival/intervention. Furthermore, awareness of suicide methods correlates with a higher risk. As a physicist, Schmalzing would clearly be aware of the laws which describe the fall from a rooftop in terms of acceleration, gravity and wind resistence.

The same German report tells us that twice as many Germans die from suicide as those killed in road accidents and that is despite having no speed limits on the Autobahnen.

Theoretical physics involves work that can be very independent, isolated and impersonal. Isolation has a high correlation with suicide. As Scientific American describes it:

Physicists pride themselves on their rationality, yet they are as prone to existential dread as the rest of us, if not more so. Their investigations force them to confront infinity and eternity in their day jobs, not just in the dead of night. Moreover, physicists’ equations describe particles pushed and pulled by impersonal forces. There is no place for love, friendship, beauty, justice—the things that make life worth living. From this chilly perspective, the entirety of human existence, let alone an individual life, can seem terrifyingly ephemeral and pointless.

In 2018, a Chinese-American professor of physics at Stanford, Shoucheng Zhang has allegedly committed suicide but without any police report. Any number of bad actors could have been involved.

Then there is Ludwig Boltzmann and Paul Ehrenfest and the case of Edwin Armstrong who jumped from a great height after legal disputes involving intellectual property. The list goes on, with the founders of thermodynamics and suicide.

The work of Alan Turing, the founder of computer science and suicide victim, shares the same mathematical foundation as theoretical physics.

One of the greatest physicists, Stephen Hawking, speculated about suicide. He was told that he would die two years after his original diagnosis but lived a further five decades. The death certificate says that the disease was a factor in his death at 76 years of age.

If there was some work-related reason for Schmalzing's presence on the rooftop then we would expect his employer to tell us that and neutralize any speculation about suicide. However, in this particular case, the employer has given us the briefest possible notice that Schmalzing died without any details.

Tragically, Dr. Jens Schmalzing died on Saturday, july 30, 2005. Sysadmin ACS

That statement doesn't even assert that it was an accident. Therefore, unless Schmalzing's family decide to release the coroner's report, is it time for Debian to remove the unverified claim that this death was an accident?

Jens Schmalzing, Debian, jensen

See the List of Debian suicides and suspicious accidents.

Subject: We are hiding problems
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 08:16:09 +0100 (CET)
From: Andreas Tille <tillea@rki.de>
To: Debian Private List <debian-private@lists.debian.org>

Hi,
I do not want to spread other flame wars to debian-private. So please do not missunderstand this as an intent to discuss the "dropping some archs from etch" thread here. I just want to point out that we either have to reword our social contract item 3:
We Won't Hide Problems to We Won't Hide Bugs
or we should provide more relevant information. I will not argue that we really have to open all problems. I want to present a neutral point of view here. But the current wording of the social contract does not reflect the current situation - at least to my knowledge of English language.
Some facts we hide:
1. There are Debian developers who claim to know the release date of Sarge but they tell other developers they will not speak about it. [I personally do not want to know it really - I even would not believe it - it is just against item 3 of the social contract, because I regard the release date as a real problem.]
2. I was asking on debian-devel for a protocol of the Vancouver meeting to enlight the situation. One participiant of the meeting told me there is such a protocol but it contains things we do not want to open. [Also here: This is fine for me - I guess I would personally probably not understand every detail. But I think there are people outside who might understand. So we obviousely hide problems.]
3. There are people in the Debian project who do a silent and probably very good work. But important roles tend to be observed by many people and thus gain a lot of critics (which might be right or wrong - this is not the question). In my opinion we should not simply ignore this kind of critics but answer apropriately (and not arrogantly as we have seen several times). If we as the Debian project are not able to answer to critics apropriately we just hide problems.
4. There might be more hidden problems. It is a feature of hiden things that people do not know it - thus forgive me if I missed somthing.
Please do not missunderstand me: I do not discuss whether it is good or bad to hide problems. We are just doing it and it might be that this is necessary for the evolution of the project. But we are currently in contradiction to our social contract and we should fix this in one or the other way.
Kind regards
Andreas.
PS: I'm personally keen on opinions of DPL candidates. In principle this mail could also go to debian-vote but I respect the wish of the people who want to hide some things. So this is no offense but an honest discussion.
-- http://fam-tille.de

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Skype Fell Off a Cliff (Microsoft Killed It), All Microsoft Has Left Now is Slop and Spaghetti Code
"This isn’t about AI. This is a puppet show to drive stock prices up and down."
Slopfarms (Machine-Generated Fake News Sites Authored by Bots With Slop Images) Spread GNU FUD
This isn't about Linux (GNU doesn't run just on Linux)
United States Federal Government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP): GNU/Linux Users Represent Close to 6% of Visitors This Year
How far has GNU/Linux gotten? Very far!
The "LLM Ouroboros of Shit" is Complemented by Even Worse Phenomena Caused by Microsoft's Contribution of SPAM and Pollution
Microsoft became a world leader in promotion of LLM slop
The LLM Ouroboros Phenomenon
Fact #1: over time slop gets worse (training set is like some blurry JPEG). Fact #2: People's "smell" for slop improves over time, as they 'train' on slop and can detect it based on prior encounters. Put 1 and 2 together.
How We Defeated DDoS Attacks
One of the best things one can do is migrate to an SSG
Microsofters Issuing Threats to Microsoft Critics Who Blog About Microsoft
So far we see that their "legal strategy" revolves around trying to discredit people like Theodore Ts'o
 
Microsoft a Top Sponsor at Red Hat Summit (IBM Selling Proprietary Spyware and Back Doors in a "Red" Trench Coat)
They both work for Microsoft
The Official SUSE Blog Uses LLM Slop to Compose Fake Articles Promoting Microsoft and Azure
even a little slop spoils the broth
Links 19/05/2025: Charges of Blackmailing Over Son Heung-min, Chad Opposition Leader Detained
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/05/2025: Ableism, Silicon Monkeys, and More
Links for the day
Links 19/05/2025: Political Catchup and CISA Advisories
Links for the day
TheLayoff.com Has Begun Deleting Trolls/AstroTurfers Infesting the IBM Section to Discourage On-Topic Discussion About Culls and Maladministration (Bad Strategy)
Moderators have realised there's a problem
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 18, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 18, 2025
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: Five Years on Gemini and Atom Feeds over Gopher
Links for the day
Links 18/05/2025: F.D.A. More Sceptical of COVID-19 Vaccines, UK Charges 3 Iranian Nationals In Alleged Attack Plot Against Journalists
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: "Finally Upgraded" and "Rebooting"
Links for the day
There Are Days or Occasions Where gemini:// Requests Almost Exceed http(s):// and Gemini Protocol Isn't Even 6 Yet
Gemini Protocol turns 6 one month from now
Abundance of Good Code, "Just Like Air."
Richard Stallman's seminal manifesto and foundational (practical) work on GNU gave us a very solid system that facilitates productive work without concerns over spyware
Messages in TheLayoff.com Drowned Out by LLM Slop (Comments Focused on Replying to Bot-Generated Provocation)
apparently shaking hands with nazis isn't as bad as calling your git repository's main branch "master"
The Importance of Full Disclosure and Transparency Online
there will be full transparency, as always
Slopwatch: Slopfarms and Serial Sloppers Still at It
Apparently Google is too understaffed to figure that out
Links 18/05/2025: Decreased Prospects of Science Careers, Disappearance of Journalists
Links for the day
Microsofters Have a Long History Trying to Take Down Techrights by Sending Threats to Webhosts
picking on women
Links 18/05/2025: Science, Censorship and European Commission Taking on Monopoly Abuse by Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: Šibenik and SFJAZZ Historical Archive
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 17, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 17, 2025
Links 17/05/2025: Microsoft Kills "Surface Laptop Studio" (More Canceled Products/Units), Groups Caution About Harms of Social Control Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/05/2025: Sympathy Algorithm and SSH on Alternative Ports
Links for the day
Inviting the Founder of GNU/Linux to Events (It Only Costs His Travel Expenses) and Recalling the True Origins
It's reassuring to see belated recognition
Slopwatch: Microsoft's Anti-Linux Propaganda and Cover-up, Slopfarms Clogging Up Google News
slop-tracking activities that observe googlebombing of "Linux"
AstroTurfing by IBM in thelayoff.com is Highly Risky (and Likely Outsourced)
Microsoft did this in Reddit (and got caught), so why won't IBM too?
Links 17/05/2025: Stabber of Salman Rushdie Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison
Links for the day
The Microsofters Have Just Shared Privileged Trial Data With Microsoft
There are serious ramifications for liability accountability as Microsoft salaries sponsor these SLAPPs
Trolls With LLM Slop Are Disrupting Communications About Mass Layoffs at IBM
LLM slop to drown out the signal
Gemini Links 17/05/2025: Happier on Gemini and Manipulating Reddit
Links for the day
ComEd and Microsoft: A Mess of Spaghetti Held Together By Circus Clowns
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 16, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 16, 2025