The debian-private mailing list leak, part 1. Volunteers have complained about Blackmail. Lynchings. Character assassination. Defamation. Cyberbullying. Volunteers who gave many years of their lives are picked out at random for cruel social experiments. The former DPL's girlfriend Molly de Blanc is given volunteers to experiment on for her crazy talks. These volunteers never consented to be used like lab rats. We don't either. debian-private can no longer be a safe space for the cabal. Let these monsters have nowhere to hide. Volunteers are not disposable. We stand with the victims.

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Re: Sources of Donation



On Thu, 20 Nov 1997, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:

> 
> On Thu, 20 Nov 1997, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> 
> > KDE didn't donate the money, the product retailer did/will/might.
> 
> Well, what I was thinking is that we are saying that because KDE donated
> the money it is somehow 'dirty' and must be 'cleaned' by giving it
> immediately to some other group.

While that is certainly the way some have chosen to view this, that is not
what I see as Debian's position, but then I don't see that we are
"slapping" KDE by using money that was donated to Debian for our own
goals.

Here is the sequence I saw:

	1. CD announcement. Debian and KDE on a CD.
	2. Bruce expresses concern, but fairly quickly admits it can't be
	   a problem for us in general so should _not_ be in the specific.
	3. and 4.
	   I'm not sure of the order here, but {a furor arises over
	   Bruce's expression of concern (lack of warm fuzzy)} and
	   {JF Lehmann offers a donation, split evenly between Debian and
	   KDE (This tells me that JFL has an equal interest in promoting
	   both KDE and Debian!)
	5. Bruce declares that we will use our new-found-wealth to promote
	   a piece of Free Software that the community desperately needs.
	6. All hell breaks loose!

Given the amount of misunderstanding, fear, and anguish that have been
poured out on this thread because of a donation made from profits on a CD
that associated the Debian distribution with KDE and Debian's position to
use that money to promote a free alternative (somthing that JFL would
clearly benefit from), I think that Bruce's concerns were well founded.

Some might say, "But that's just because Bruce engineered it that way." I
tell you straight, that if I were in Bruce's shoes, I would have been
unable to act in any way different. Bruce is opperating under the
guidelines of this group. Those guidelines, while not exclusively
defining our ideals and goals, direct the officers of this organization to
support Free Software whenever possible. At the same time those same
guidelines protect folks like KDE and JFL from any interference with their
use of our distribution. These are the same protections you and I get from
legal action from a (potentially "hidden") author who objects to our use
of his software.

Had Bruce kept his concerns to himself and been patiently quiet (as many
seem to have desired) then the decision to use donations from the CD would
have been viewed as vindictive and spitful ... a retaliatory attack on our
sworn enemies...

Leaders just can't win. The last time any leader won was the time they
won a hand of poker, just before being elected.

Volunteer organization tend to eat their leaders. It doesn't have to be
that way. (Or maybe it does, who am I to say ;-)

Dwarf
-- 
_-_-_-_-_-_-                                          _-_-_-_-_-_-_-

aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (904) 656-9769
      Flexible Software              11000 McCrackin Road
      e-mail:  dwarf@polaris.net     Tallahassee, FL  32308

_-_-_-_-_-_- If you don't see what you want, just ask _-_-_-_-_-_-_-


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