Bonum Certa Men Certa

Crisis Minimisation Tactics: Debian Leadership Wants People to Think That One Single Person (Longtime Debian Developer) is the Real and Sole Problem Although the Issues Are Far Broader and Systemic

Reprinted with permission from Debian Community News

IN Sam Hartman's latest attack on a volunteer, he makes a series of arguments intended to lead us to the conclusion that a single Debian Developer woke up one day and decided to pursue a new career as an Internet troll.



Hartman's claim is bizarre for various reasons.



When you look at Hartman's arguments, they are wafer-thin. Consider this claim:



Without claiming authorship of these anonymous messages, (the scapegoat) quickly expands on the messages in his blogs and goes forward assuming these anonymous claims are true


The volunteer in question is not the only one with a blog. It is not hard to find additional blogs if you only look. A Debian Developer, who is also a former community representative, widely connected in the community, probably knows which anonymous claims have substance or has ways to validate them. Looking at how people use the Internet today, for every one person who writes a blog about a topic, there are hundreds of people referencing the same topic on social media, Reddit and other sites. Being quick to blog about a topic is important for any blogger, especially for those people who are censored from replying on certain mailing lists. None of these tendencies stand out as evidence of wrongdoing, quite the opposite, they are normal behaviour for the majority of bloggers.



By suggesting only one person cares about a particular issue, Hartman is attempting to minimise and invalidate those issues that he doesn't want to answer questions about. The narrative of a single troll and a single scapegoat is very convenient when you want to make some very inconvenient questions about money look irrelevant.



In many cases, apparently trolled or forged messages appeared after the relevant blogs, contradicting Hartman's exaggerated claims. A blog about Debian's diversity problems appeared on Friday, 6 March 2020 but the email about women impersonating Mark Shuttleworth only appeared more than 48 hours later. On what grounds does he claim the latter is from the same person as the former? Hartman appears to be quite wrong indeed.



If you look at all five points in Hartman's blog post, you don't find any evidence to link the points together. How can Hartman expect readers to follow all the way from the first point to the last point and agree with his conclusion, when he did not even try to prove a link from the first point to the second point?



When an email was circulated claiming to prove the identity of Cryptie in FSFE, the Free Software Fellowship blog didn't simply cut and paste the story. It was documented step by step, with links that people can check to verify Cryptie's real name, Amandine Jambert @ CNIL. The Fellowship bloggers also demonstrated it was in the public interest, documenting the privacy vulnerability and cover-up at FSFE.



The Cryptie case is proof that there is more than one person in the free software community who doesn't use their real name. Cryptie's very existance debunks Hartman's one-troll-to-rule-them-all theory.



Hartman knows he has no evidence and he doesn't care. In the twilight of his term as Debian Project Leader (DPL), he is deliberately borrowing from the project's reputation and using his DPL title as the sole foundation for his accusations. He knows some people will be fooled, "if Debian said this, it must be true". If the same baseless accusations were repeated on an anonymous blog account, without evidence, nobody would take them seriously. When a leader uses his title in this fraudulent manner, the name of the organization inevitably loses some of its shine.



If Hartman is actually right and a respected Debian Developer has undergone this metamorphosis into a troll, a competent Debian Project Leader may want to find out why. What has the Debian community done to the person to bring about such a change? For example, could this be the side effect of some unethical social experiment gone wrong, like blackmailing somebody at the wrong time? Former leader Chris Lamb brilliantly decided to introduce demotions to Debian, has it become a self-fulfilling prophecy, demoting DDs to trolls? Or is it something that was inevitably going to emerge from the culture of Debian?



An alternative narrative is that all the trolling in the free software world reflects the lack of leadership, both the personal leadership failures of people like Hartman, the failure to empower people who remain trapped in groupthink, the bullying culture of large organizations and the assassination of principled leaders like Richard Stallman. Under Hartman's term as DPL, Debian has stumbled on through long email threads and another divisive systemd vote, in other words, people put in a whole lot of time and energy but achieved nothing. The narrative of a single omni-troll is a convenient scapegoat indeed, as it is much easier than admitting Hartman's term didn't achieve very much.



When you think about it, there is simply no way a single person, an experienced developer, spontaneously turns into a troll overnight. Not only does Hartman need to prove why we should believe the far-fetched claims he is making, he would then need to explain the extent of Debian's responsibility in creating such a disturbing outcome.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Lies Need to be Corrected
the Court never invited us
 
Richard Stallman (RMS) is a Target of Defamation Campaigns Because of His Views on Software (But Politics Are the Excuse for Defaming Him)
Here in this site we try to refrain from politics, except in Daily Links
End of Vista 10 and Rise of GNU/Linux as Client Side Operating System
It seems certain GNU/Linux will grow in popularity over time
Taking Stock of a Week's Worth of EPO Leaks
We remain committed to exposing EPO corruption as long as it keeps happening
Mathieu Parreaux claims FINMA knew since day one
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Calumny, Libel, Joerg Jaspert & debian-private untouchable cyberbullies
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 16, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 16, 2025
Techrights Turns 19 in 3 Weeks
coverage of suppressed topics and protecting all sources/whistleblowers
International E-Waste Day Same Day as End of Vista 10
message from Akira Urushibata
The EPO's Central Staff Committee Presents Evidence That Staff Compensation Lowered While the Office Increases Income by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents
These people become millionaires by doing illegal things
Second or Third Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in October 2025, This Time Portugal
Those are just the ones we know about, there may be several more
'Help Net Security' (helpnetsecurity.com) May Have Become a Slopfarm as Well
Zeljka Zorz, Editor-in-Chief at Help Net Security, was reported to us
Gemini Links 17/10/2025: Rant About Network Solutions, Strange Anomaly on Lagrange
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representation Lacks Social Dialogue With Relevant Management, Controversial and Sometimes Illegal Policies Implemented Without Necessary Input
"In this open letter, the CSC requests that the President submits an agenda item in the next available General Consultative Committee (GCC) meeting on setting up regular meetings between the CSC and the higher management of DG1."
Links 16/10/2025: Political Leftovers and Gemini Protocol Links
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Guardian Digital (linuxsecurity.com), Slashdot, Google News, and More
Maybe one day, once the bubble pops completely, Google News will just outright delist all slopfarms
Lufthansa Modern Slavery, Joerg Jaspert (ganneff) & Debian NSB Softwareentwicklung charade
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/10/2025: US Starting More Trade Wars With China, CIA War on Venezuela
Links for the day
SUSE Blog is Still LLM Slop, Marketing Manager at SUSE Cannot Write
Would you buy from a company or seek support from a company that cannot even write (or fakes writing)?
Pretend You're Not Dead: Microsoft Spent Almost Two Decades Rebranding Things as "Cloud, Then "AI", Now "XBox" and "Quantum"
"AI" bubble pops, Microsoft harping about "quantum" already
IBM Allegedly Found New Tricks for Silent Layoffs: LPI, Then MIS (Not PIP)
Remember that "Red Hat layoffs" won't be reported after the bluewashing
Links 16/10/2025: Red Lines and Feeding of Microsoft Trolls
Links for the day
MIT as a Propaganda Mill of GAFAM, Paid by GAFAM
"the news" today
Links 16/10/2025: Lies Euphemised as ‘Dueling Versions of Reality’ and Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Resorts to Porn as No Business Model Was Found
Links for the day
The Local Staff Committee Munich (Representation of the EPO's Staff) Explains When Cluster of Pregnancies May Result in Reduced Pay
"...even one week of part-time working is sufficient to reduce the salary you perceive during the entirety of your maternity leave."
Another Black Eye for 'Secure Boot', Microsoft Media Tries to Blame "Linux"
It enables Microsoft to remotely control computers, even computers that don't run Windows and never had any Microsoft software installed
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, linuxsecurity.com, and Various Slopfarms in Google News Attacking "Linux"
A new survey of the Web said that the majority of the Web is now slop (that's being said in the news this week)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Links 16/10/2025: Increased Use of Social Control Media Surveillance in US, French Rage Over Pensions
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Qantas Airways Loses Control of Sensitive Data and Software Patents Are Being Thrown Out
Links for the day
Vista 10 is 'Dead', Here's Why People Should Move to GNU/Linux (or the BSDs)
Today we try to make an outline of reasons move away from Windows to GNU/Linux
Our Sites Continue to Improve
LLM slop has had no noticeable impact on us
Gemini Links 15/10/2025: Neovim, Helix Compared and Gemlog.blue Now Closed
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon, OneDrive Spyware Revved Up, More 'Gen Z Protests'
Links for the day
The EPO's Staff Engagement Survey 2025 is Already Tainted by Intimidation by EPO Management (Trying to Influence Outcomes by Scaring Genuine, Honest Critics)
"[W]e have received reports that, following the previous survey, teams with negative responses were reproached or questioned about their answers..."
The DDoS Attacks by Microsoft's Scam Altman and Other Slop Charlatans and Frauds is Hurting the FSF, Delinking It From Copyleft Projects
This impacts a lot more than access to the licences
Microsoft Scanning Faces in Photos People Upload to Microsoft (Even Unconsciously), Slashdot Turns Report About It Into "Microsoft Sez" (Says)
Or "let's repeat the lies from a PR person/Microsoft's publicist"
[Teaser] Angel Aledo Lopez the Manipulator (Nepotism, Poll Rigging, and Other EPO Corruption)
We'll discuss this later today or tomorrow, based on internal EPO material
Attacks on Techrights Are Only Making Techrights Bigger and Even More Popular
A week ago they offered to settle with us
Epic Metaphor for End of IBM: "The IBM Demolition is Down to the Last Shards!"
Nothing lasts forever
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Proprietary and DRM Prisons Spiralling Down the Sinkhole? Not Just Yet.
Let's hope that more people will flee to GNU/Linux
The European Patent Office (EPO), the Second-Largest Institution in Europe, is Cracking Down on Recreational Activities
Without AMICALE activities, and as staff already says it's pressured to work more for less, how can the EPO recruit bright people?
Transparency: FSFE financial reports exclude speaker fees and expenses
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock