Bonum Certa Men Certa

Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 01, 2025,
updated Apr 01, 2025

Another happy customer at the Open Source Initiative (OSI)

Stefano Maffulli

This was posted.

And "paste-bin[ned] by another source who wishes to remain anonymous," we got told. "In this post," we've learned, "another member of the OSI complains about the culture among other things."

We reproduce it below with a content warning (CW):

CW: mental health, open source AI, harassment

Mar 31st, 2025

I'm tired, friends. This is a personal, emotional post for me. It is not intended to be scientific or objective.

The whole effort to "define open source AI" has been heartbreaking for many of us who care so very deeply about open source. It is not just the lack of transparency, biased narratives, and fallacious arguments that we have seen from the OSI — it's how participants who present differing viewpoints have been treated.

I have been called a liar, accused of being an enemy of open source, had my contributions misrepresented and shut down, and had my job not-so-subtly threatened for authentically contributing my expertise — expertise that lies precisely at the intersection of open source and artificial intelligence. I have seen others experience the same.

Despite this, I have made genuine efforts to provide opportunities for repair and remediation that were rejected out of hand.

This is not the open source community that welcomed me over 20 years ago. Maybe that community doesn't exist anymore in the same form, but we deserve one that treats people with kindness and respect. We all deserve the one that pushes for inclusion and empowerment. The one that opens windows instead of closing doors.

This isn't about AI. It may have started with AI, but that's not what is at stake.

It's about the very meaning of open source, and the OSI's insistence on undermining it on a technical AND cultural level. I worry about the opportunities that future generations will not have as technology trends closed. I worry about future contributors who will decide to steer clear because of renewed toxicity. I worry about voices silenced, progress reversed, potential lost.

Again, this is very personal. I stepped back from actively participating in the official channels for the OSI's process because of how damaging it was to my mental health. The behavior of a handful of individuals in positions of authority left me questioning my place in open source writ large. Worse than that — these abuses of power sent me into a severe PTSD flare-up that put my safety at risk.

I love open source. The past year has been personally, professionally, and emotionally devastating. I don't know how to recover from this. Those of you who have been kind to me during all of this, I appreciate you more than I can possibly say. It keeps me here. It tells me that maybe there is still room for me in open source.

What's at stake here is more than open source AI, AI, OR open source. People are at stake.

#OpenSource #OpenSourceAI #OSI #OSAID #Inclusion #MentalHealth

We are just passing on this emotional message.

Expect us to cover OSI scandals throughout this month and also next month (we nowadays deal with privacy; see introduction and previous part). This is far from over. All that the current OSI ever did to me was libel and censor me.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
 
Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
do what I say or you're a nazi...
Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
More People Moving to Geminispace?
at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore
Links 22/06/2025: Giving Up on Smartphones and 'Jaws' at 50
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Furniture Construction and Bubble for Comments
Links for the day
Links 22/06/2025: Windows TCO Tales and YouTube Getting More Hostile to Users
Links for the day
The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day
The Calling
Persist and persevere, justice will come your way
So Far Every BetaNews 'Article' is LLM Slop, So BetaNews is Officially Just a Slopfarm
They just don't seem to value what they have
IBM Rumour: Mass Layoffs (RAs) Lists Being Made for Consulting, With Effect in July 2025
Bogus companies with no viable products and no world-leading (in their field) staff are doomed to perish
Links 21/06/2025: Data Breach With 16 Billion Passwords, Dutch Government Recommends Children Under 15 Stay off TikTok and Instagram
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Notes about Typst (and LaTeX) and Opos
Links for the day
Microsoft's Competition Tactics: Sabotage GNU/Linux Installs, Block Chrome
Edge is dying
1989: Free Software as "Open" Software (OSI Didn't Coin "Open Source", It Also Predates Linux)
"One man's fight for Free software"
The Microsoft OOXML Modus Operandi: Throw 1,000 Pages of Other People's Work for a Judge to Read Ahead of a One-Hour Meeting
No time to discuss this - that's the point
Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO Are in Trouble, Reveals Internal Report
We already know, based on an HR pattern we saw at IBM and elsewhere, that reallocating roles can be prerequisite for dismissal and those who do so expect many to resign anyway
The Web is Slop and FUD, Let's Go to Gemini Protocol
Lupa sees self-signed capsules at 92.4%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 20, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 20, 2025
Links 21/06/2025: Phone Bans for Concerts, Tensions in Taiwan Strait
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Spoilers, Public Yggdrasil Node, Changes to AuraGem Search
Links for the day