Explaining What Deb Nicholson Does to the Python Software Foundation
KINDLY DISREGARD the paid-for (sponsored and googlebombed/search-optimised) puff pieces, then pay closer attention to what has happened to the Python Software Foundation since Nicholson came. She had been parachuted onto it despite a lack of experience or relevance to Python [1, 2]. It was a 'Trump-style' appointment, based on perceived loyalty to the "masters" (sponsors) rather than to the unfamiliar (to her) decades-old community. Call of duty? Duty to whom? Holly Million comes to mind. Raising corporate money from the likes of Microsoft isn't a skill; it is a warning label. How many more veterans will be needlessly ousted or expelled before the remaining community finds the guts to revolt?
Cancel culture has been imported onto python and it'll kill some of the key people, leaving a vacuum for GAFAM operatives to fill. This does not look too promising for the Python language and various important Python projects, but this is a familiar pattern. Consider, for instance, how the OSI turned from a Microsoft-hostile (rightly so!) organisation where ESR, a co-founder, hosted a copy of the Halloween Documents, into a grotesque Microsoft front group. Nicholson oversaw this transition after she had gained some "cookie points" by cancelling old men she had worked with (she was also accused of "antisemitism" by the late Thomas Lord).
Some readers wrote to us regarding the recent articles about this matter. They're not happy about what's happening inside Python, with the worst potentially yet to come. Some of these readers actually write code. Yes, code. Even in Python.
"Very cool!" one reader said about the material we had published. "I read the article about Python Software Foundation. Wow. The intro was some really great writing right there! Impressive! Including what happened on the page was great! Didn’t have to go to another page… It was all right there. The truth."
This reader had some things to say about Nicholson: "She has a history of canceling OGs. The author, Dr. Mertz [expelled by Nicholson in secret] made a comment in the letter about spite. That word is, in my opinion, the best description of what is going on."
"The manipulations are right there at the forefront. Editing comments of others who oppose things, asking for resignations when you don’t have the right of someone who has been a tireless volunteer and advocate for python for 15 years."
"So I know Ms Nicholson was the interim director of OSI, no doubt using social engineering and connections to get in - at least that’s my opinion. Now I get it… OSI was her training grounds."
"I think as time moves forward, more truth will come out about involvement in canceling developers and well respected hard-working people devoted to community. With many of the same players who sought to cancel ESR at OSI."
"Maybe the endgame was just to get a six figure director job at a prominent software foundation… These people Found their way into Debian, OSI, FSF, and now, Python!"
"The truth will come out. Keep running awesome articles because you know… Roaches run from the light."
Nicholson's gender tends to get too much attention, but that's a distraction if not bait. Some women complain about how she stigmatises them and they're not blind to the damage she does. At SFC one of her hailed accomplishments is that she brought in several bribes from Microsoft and sold Microsoft a keynote talk at a conference about copyleft (which Microsoft now attacks). Of course the OSI, which Nicholson also occupied, still helps Microsoft attack copyleft. It also attacks the people behind copyleft.
Not only our readers but we too feel disgusted.
This odious track record speaks for itself. █