Sven Luther & Debian forged expulsion after resignation, now with Wind River Software, DebConf24 platinum sponsor

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 10, 2024

Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.

At some point in 2006, Sven Luther wrote an email resigning from Debian. This was shared on the debian-private gossip network, which has gradually been leaked over IPFS.

Subject: PLEASE HELP ...
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 23:46:29 +0100
From: Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>
To: debian-private@lists.debian.org


Hi all,


This is, probably the last, of my desesperate calls for help.


I will probably be leaving debian fully, because frankly, it is not possible
for me to continue working on debian. This is the last chance for me to
continue, in some future, but i know many of you will be happy to see me go,
and have repeteadly told me so all over.


I asked not much of you, and the repeated mails i sent all over, where a cry
for help, to which some replied, but without being able to help all that much
in the end, and now, even after all those months, the situation is still the
same, or even worse, i have seen not a single sign of good faith from frans
and the other engaged in this, and each week that passes, i am further
destroyed by them. ....

We see a lot of social engineering attacks in the world of open source software today. The rumors that Sven Luther was expelled are an example of a social engineering attack.

He wanted to resign. That is what he wrote.

In reality, people later admitted that Sven Luther's mother had died. Some of the same people attacked my family and I after my father died.

Looking at the list of DebConf24 sponsors this year, we can see that Wind River has joined as one of three platinum sponsors. That puts Wind River above Google, Microsft, ARM, Ubuntu and many other well known sponsors in the Debian world.

Coincidentally, Wind River appears to be Sven Luther's employer according to LinkedIn. Is it time for the rogue elements of Debian to apologize to the family of Sven Luther, my family and other families impacted by Debian gossip?

Will the platinum sponsorship influence Debian's behavior towards Sven Luther and his family?

Various resignations and deaths, including the Debian Day Volunteer Suicide, occurred immediately after the attacks on Sven Luther and his family. See the chronological history of Debian's harassment and abuse culture.

Will the platinum sponsorship influence Debian's poor behavior towards all those other families dragged into these social engineering games?

Subject: Re: empathy indeed.
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:43:20 +0200
From: Julien BLACHE <jblache@debian.org>
To: debian-private@lists.debian.org


Bill Allombert <Bill.Allombert@math.u-bordeaux1.fr> wrote:


[This mail is private and should remain so]


Hi,


> Lack of empathy ? Ahah. Nothing compared to the lack of empathy I have
> seen from some others DD, which knowing that Sven has lost his mother in
> really painful condition which made him more grumpy than usual, instead
> of cheering him up, or at least cutting him some slack, used the
> opportunuity to push him to the limit, using whatever small authority
> the project give them over him, and then acted to get him removed from
> the project (removing developers seems to be the prefered pastime of
> some).


I can only second what Bill wrote here.


I'll add that while Sven got expelled for some alleged anti-social
behaviour (or whatever you feel like calling it), Frans Pop is still a
member of the Project, and is still actively pissing people off with
the Project's blessing.


At some point you'll have to realise that Sven only wanted to fix the
situation he was in, and was ready to do a lot for that, but then it
looks like all Frans wanted was to get rid of him at all costs. Well
done.


That makes me sick, to be honest.


Also seeing random unqualified DDs diagnosing one or another pathology
to Sven is just unacceptable. Think about what you've written for some
time. If you don't see what's wrong, question your social skills.


So, yes, Sven needs help. He also needs time and needs to be let in
peace. He doesn't need to see his name used to qualify some "pattern"
or other shit like that on our mailing lists.


And we certainly don't need more threads about that.


JB.


-- 
 Julien BLACHE - Debian & GNU/Linux Developer - <jblache@debian.org>   Public key available on <http://www.jblache.org> - KeyID: F5D6 5169  GPG Fingerprint : 935A 79F1 C8B3 3521 FD62 7CC7 CD61 4FD7 F5D6 5169 

Please see the chronological history of how the Debian harassment and abuse culture evolved.

Please see the chronological history of how the Debian harassment and abuse culture evolved. █