Bonum Certa Men Certa

Who is a real Debian Developer?

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 16, 2024

Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.

Personally, I resigned from some of my activities mentoring in Google Summer of Code at a time when I lost two family members.

Most people only showed sympathy and respect for my family at that time. Colleagues in the Debian world started sending me insults, telling me that I am not a real Debian Developer. It is no surprise that there is a suicide cluster in this group ( Debian suicide cluster meets criteria from Public Health England).

Instead of apologizing to my family, they have paid vast sums of money to lawyers to repeat these insults over and over again. ( Evidence: over $120,000 of Debian money wasted on using lawyers to harass my family and I after loss of two family members).

Therefore, it is important to look at who really is a Debian Developer.

Origins of the term Debian Developer

Looking at the very first archived copy of an email from the debian-project mailing list in 1994, we find that Debian co-authors are using the term Debian Developer four years before there was a trademark. That is four years before the Debian Project constitution. The term Debian Developer is completely valid for somebody who has done significant creative work over many decades. In plain English, the term Debian Developer can mean three things: somebody who possesses the skill of creating Debian software, somebody who has an authorship interest in the Debian software and thirdly, but lastly, somebody who is a member of the clique. Copyright law does not require somebody to be a member of the clique. I never joined the Debian Project Unincorporated Association, I have always used the term Debian Developer first and foremost to describe myself as an author with moral rights in the creative work.

Legitimate interest: a very long history of voluntary contribution

Some of us started doing Debian as a hobby alongside other hobbies such as amateur radio. One of the early Debian Project Leaders, Bruce Perens, also notably came to Debian for amateur radio purposes.

I passed the amateur radio exam in 1993, when I was 14 years of age. My first years of voluntary activities in amateur radio and free software were during a time when I was legally a child. I didn't receive any payment for some of those activities. I offered my time on the basis that I was gaining skills and helping real communities.

Around the same time, while I was still legally a child, I came to appreciate the fact that there are some adults who exploit talented and precocious youngsters by trying to direct the work that is being undertaken and failing to disclose or share financial benefits.

I believe my first engagement with Debian was in 1997 and the first proof I can find of my engagement with Debian is an email from 23 February 1998 about package creation.

The Debian Project constitution was originally published on 10 September 1998, some time later.

The trademark was only registered later on 21 December 1999

Looking at the Scientologie.org UDRP verdict, ( WIPO UDRP case D2000-0410) the panelists gave some weight to those possessing a copyright interest that predates the registration of a trademark or a copyright interest arising from a situation that intersects with the history of the trademark.

The spirit of the Scientologie.org UDRP verdict can be extracted in good faith to questions like who can use the term Debian Developer.

Legitimate interests: the promise of recognition

The misfits behind the WIPO insults do not pay the rest of us anything for our collaboration in creating the Debian software.

They told us that the only thing we get in return for our creations is the recognition.

Using the term Debian Developer is interchangeable with recognition for our skills and recognition of our status as voluntary, un-paid joint authors who are not compensated in any manner other than recognition.

They are now using the debian.org web site and the trademark to give people negative recognition. This is like bouncing a cheque.

In the circumstances, it seems entirely appropriate for me to follow through on the promise of recognizing people. The misfits have provided a list of the domains along with the dates that each domain name was registered. On the list, the name debian.plus is the first name registered. debian.plus was registered for the purpose of delivering on the promise of positive recognition to the authors and our work.

Evidence: my blog Modern Slavery & Debian Open Source lists many of the promises of recognition in lieu of payment for our work.

Debian promises recognition, I take the following quote from the latest Debian law suit where they admit using the promise of recognition to lure people into working for free:

64. ... un des avantages importants de travailler pour la communauté Debian est la valeur de sa réputation dans le domaine, à la fois professionellement et dans la communauté. ...

The promise of recognition is repeated again here in the Debian wiki.

The motivations of the authors also are varied, but the coin that they get paid in is often recognition, acclaim in the peer group, or experience that can be traded in in the work place

The same thing appears in the page about Debian Membership:

Debian has several types of association and membership for those who do wish to be recognised, or have rights within the project.

For people promoting Debian, there is a template for giving a talk. It includes the comments:

you are recognized for your contributions ... Did you ever have a boss who takes credit for your work? Not in Debian.

In short, there is a big emphasis on working for recognition instead of a salary. They gave us the promise of recognition and that gives rise to a legitimate interest in using the trademark in domain names for web sites about our work.

Moreover, it means once we gain the status of Debian Developer in the sense of being a joint author, as the term has been used since at least 1994, they can't bounce the cheque and extinguish our copyright / recognition / status as these things are interchangeable.

Bad faith: not every co-author wants to be a member of something too

In a number of jurisdictions, we have seen people establishing associations, some of them legally incorporated, some of them unincorporated, where they now use the term Debian Developer interchangeably with the status of a member rather than the status of an author.

The insistence that authorship rights can be dumbed down to a relation of membership is an example of gaslighting, as explained elsewhere.

Over the years, people have regularly protested against this practice of conflating authorship and membership.

In 2005, some Debian Developers in the UK created the Debian UK Society. They published a proposed constitution / articles of incorporation suggesting that every Debian Developer in the UK would become a member of the Society unless they opt-out.

Some authors felt this was a forced membership, similar to forced membership of a trade union.

Here is a blog post by MJ Ray objecting to the change in status conflating joint authorship with rights of membership.

The Debian UK Society (DUS) asserted automatic membership of debian developers (much like that sometimes suggested for SPI and rejected every time) and some of its members insulted and lied about me instead of fixing that bug. Credit to them for fixing it eventually.

The matter was discussed at length on the debian-project mailing list.

That's not interesting, though. I don't care about DUS except:

  1. I want no connection with it right now; including
  2. I want it not to hold my personal details (especially not the inaccurate personal details it currently uses).

[ ... SNIP ... ]

Opt-out membership associations seem a very shady practice - can anyone clearly opt-out without DUS recording personal data?

and again on the debian-uk mailing list.

Steve McIntyre: Membership of the society consists of the set of registered Debian developers resident in the UK, bar those who have deliberately opted out.

Why would you force authors to downgrade their rights from their status under copyright law to a lower status as described in the Debian UK Society constitution?

Under copyright law, joint authors can't expel each other

Under the constitutions of these associations, they purport that authorship and membership can be simultaneously extinguished on the whims of the leader of the day.

Some of us never joined any of these associations yet they claim, in bad faith, that they have the power to "expel" us.

The status of Debian Developer is independent of membership status

Nonetheless, when we examine the words from Steve McIntyre above, we can see that the status of being a Debian Developer (co-author or joint author) is something distinct from being a member.

The distinction is therefore clear to those who created those periphery associations around the copyrighted work.

Who has a copyright interest in the Debian GNU/Linux?

The question of copyright in the Debian GNU/Linux software is examined in much more detail in the DebianGNULinux.org blog about the subject.

Those having a copyright interest are therefore joint authors entitled to recognition as Debian Developers.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

[Meme] Wayland at Every Cost
Fedora DEI and Wayland
Audio: Julian Assange Tells US Judge That Espionage Act and First Amendment Contradict One Another, But Pleads Guilty (to Save His Life)
Have a listen to Julian Assange and the judge in Saipan
How to Help Pay Assange Debt (£520,000 Plane Bill and Beyond)
Budget travel was not permitted
Wikipedia Co-Founder (Not Wales) Expresses Support for Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange, Says Assange Will Probably Continue
probably exactly the sort of thing that the US prosecutors did not want
Windows in Åland Islands: From 100% to Less Than Half
Åland Islands lost the sense of urgency to move to GNU/Linux
Not Just Slow News But Also Late News (Julian Assange Landing in Thailand)
Why did AP take so long (nearly a week) to release these?
 
ChromeOS+GNU/Linux in Europe in First Half of 2024 (Windows Gradually Drowning)
We expect the latest measures to be even higher tomorrow, hopefully above 6%
Elon Musk Killed Not Only the Twitter Bird, He Also Killed the Platform
Today begins the second half of 2024 (2024 H2)
RMS: "I am very glad for Assange for being out of prison, but I am alarmed that the danger of being treated similarly will face other journalists and publishers in the future"
what RMS said about the release of Julian Assange
What Richard Stallman (RMS) Thinks of Paying With Cash or 'Cashless Society'
RMS: Don't be tracked
No Discrimination Allowed Against People Who Pay With Cash
City of Philadelphia on cash
Anthony Albanes: Assange's "arrival home ends a long running legal process. [...] We'll have meetings about AUKUS and other arrangements over coming days as well."
Official transcript
4.04 Linux Not Found, No Such Agency (NSA)
The CoCs never failed Microsoft
Julian Assange Turns 53 in a Couple of Days, Give Him the Gift of Freedom From Debt
Julian Assange turns 53 on Wednesday
IBM's Abandonment of Disabled People (Orca and Wayland Incompatibility) Has Basically Killed Their "DEI" Channel (Room)
The "DEI" channel (Matrix room) as been silent for 4 days
[Meme] Just Because You Throw Money at Lawyers Doesn't Mean You'll Win
Welcome to the second half of 2024
Paulo Henrique Santana (Collabora) on the Debian Brazil Community
There was similar material in DebConf22
Making the Wikileaks Site More Active Again (and Gradually Exiting "X" or Other Social Control Media)
As soon as Assange got kidnapped the Wikileaks Web site reached a near-standstill
Marco Calegaro on Hacking Art Into a Community
talk by Marco Calegaro
Links 01/07/2024: Chokecherry Leaf and Agile Manifesto
Links for the day
Johannes Åsgård on Making the Raspberry Pi More Free With librerpi
Johannes (also known as dolphinana)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 30, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, June 30, 2024
200 This Week
Monday started with 40 articles/pages and this is #200
Press Complicity and Public Apathy All Along Enabled 14 Years of Illegal, Arbitrary Detention and Coercion Into Plea Bargain of Julian Assange on Brink of Death
They basically blackmailed him into letting the US 'win' the argument
At the End Journalism a Crime (If It Involves Accessing or Gaining Access to Documents Marked "Confidential" or "Classified" by Those Looking to Hide Their Misconduct/Crimes)
At least in the US, especially where the imperialism is at stake
Links 30/06/2024: Tensions in Korea and Japan, Criminalisation of Sleeping Outdoors
Links for the day
100% Slop/Spam From linuxsecurity.com
This is the kind of stuff that's killing the Web faster
Gemini Links 30/06/2024: Murdoch and Ideal OS
Links for the day
In the First 6 Months of 2024 Thailand Moved to GNU/Linux, Not to Windows Vista 11
maybe users moved from Vista 10 and 11 to GNU/Linux, seeing where Microsoft was heading with forced hardware "upgrades"
Eko K. A. Owen, New Outreach and Communications Coordinator for the FSF
Nice to see many new additions to the FSF's team
[Meme] Smart Alec Poettering
How many Microsofters can the Debian Project withstand?
Microsoft Has Slaves and Enablers, Not Partners
Obligatory meme too
Tobias Platen Covered Freedom-To-Play Games in LibrePlanet 2024
Freedom-To-Play games using Taler
[Meme] Opening a 'Webapp' With 'Only' 4 GB of RAM
Until 2020 none of my PCs ever had more than 2 GB of RAM
Getting Rid of Microsoft Does Not Go Far Enough
Microsoft already has many problems. One day Microsoft won't exist anymore. But that does not guarantee users' freedom.
Destination 'Five Percent'
We reckon GNU/Linux can break the 5% barrier some time by the end of this year, even without counting Chromebooks
A Crisis of Online Journalism
Almost a week ago a journalist was forced to plead guilty for an act of journalism
Germany One of Many Countries Where Microsoft's Bing Lost Market Share After All That LLM Nonsense (Bing Chat and Further Rebrands/Renames)
openai.com traffic plunged 60% last month
Alyssa Rosenzweig's LibrePlanet Talk About Freeing the Apple GPU
Alyssa Rosenzweig is the graphics witch behind the reverse-engineered drivers for the Apple GPU. She previously led Panfrost, the free drivers for Arm Mali GPUs powering devices like the Pinebook Pro. She graduated in 2023 with a Computer Science degree from the University of Toronto and now writes free software full-time.
Links 30/06/2024: LLMs Under Fire and Dictatorship of the Old
Links for the day
Microsoft’s Latest Antitrust Scrutiny
4 new stories
Microsoft Layoffs, Mass Plagiarism, and More
outrage included
[Meme] Walking Outside the Guardrails of the Walled Gardens Built by Monopolies
So-called "advertiser-unfriendly" material was never a problem for Wikileaks
GNU/Linux Climbed 0.25% This Month (in statCounter)
Around midday on Tuesday we'll start seeing preliminary data for July
Ilya Gulko Introduces Pollyanna
"Pollyanna is a web framework that makes it easy to create your own libre social space, such as a social network or blog."
'FSFE': Underage Labour, GAFAM Fronting, and Identity Theft to Undermine the FSF's Current Fundraiser
looking to raise funds at the same time as the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 29, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, June 29, 2024
Links 29/06/2024: Astronauts at Risk, Ukraine Updates
Links for the day
Fedora and Red Hat Leftovers
mostly redhat.com
Microsoft is Now Googlebombing or Spamming 'Open Source' and 'Linux' to Promote Proprietary Surveillance, Azure
Notice the title and the image, what's being promoted etc.
Seychelles: GNU/Linux Doing OK
Seychelles cannot be considered poor
This War Crime Footage, Nothing Political Per Se, Is What They Made Julian Assange Plead Guilty To (War Criminals Not Convicted, Only Those Who Expose Them)
Wikileaks' Julian Assange: Exposing the US Military Crimes
Gemini Protocol Isn't Even Remotely "Dead"
"Lupa knows of 505,000 (half a million!) working Gemini URLs at present, up from about 425,000 this time last year"
About 10 New Free Software Foundation (FSF) Members Per Day
The total changed from 46 to 47 while typing the article
20 Years Passed, Let's Go Even Faster Now
We are hoping to bring more original stories
Vista 11 Adoption Unusually Low in Germany and It's Going Down, Not Up
This is not happening only in Germany
Kevin Korte on Computers Being Allowed to Make Decisions Based on Cryptic Algorithms and Proprietary/Secret Data
It uses buzzwords where none are needed
[Meme] Garbage In, Garbage Out (linuxsecurity.com)
It is neither Linux nor security, just chatbot-generated slop
Microsoft-Invaded CISA Spreads Anti-Free Software FUD (as If Proprietary Software Has No Memory Safety Issues), Brittany Day Uses Chatbots to Amplify and Permutate the Microsoft FUD
linuxsecurity.com became an anti-Linux spam site
Microsoft Laying Off Staff in an Act of Retaliation and Union-Busting
retaliatory layoffs at Microsoft
Gemini Links 29/06/2024: Content Drowning in 'Goo' and LLM Slop
Links for the day
Windows Lost Almost 92% Market Share in Egypt
From over 99% to just over 7%
In Ecuador, GNU/Linux Adoption Surged From Under 1% to Over 4% in About 3 Years
Not even counting Chromebooks
LibrePlanet: Cultivating Backups (of Recordings)
an appeal to recover some of these talks
Microsoft/Windows Machines Are Turned Off (or Windows Deleted/Decommissioned) in Web Servers, as the "Market Share" Collapse Continues
Taking full history into account, this is a decrease of over 90% in some cases
Corwin Brust Hosting Freedom: A Behind-the-scenes Tour With the GNU Savannah Hackers
"the "smiling faces" behind it."
Android at 90% or More in Chad
Windows below 2%
David Wilson: Cultivating a Welcoming Free Software Community That Lasts
"a feeling of shared ownership for all users."
Julian Assange Might Continue Wikileaks, But Certainly Not Yet (Recovery Time Needed)
And probably at a symbolic capacity only
Bringing in 12 Santas and Taking 13 Out (Old Interview With Julian Assange)
Julian Assange's life inside the Ecuadorian embassy
Neil Plotnick on GNU/Linux in the High School Classroom
uploaded to the LibrePlanet instance of MediaGoblin
Asia Appears to be Fastest to Adopt GNU/Linux
the home of a considerable majority of the world's population
Alexandre Oliva's LibrePlanet 2024 Talk About "Software Enshittification"
in spite of technical difficulties encountered while recording
What They Used to Do With Mono They Now Do With Systemd (Lower and Deeper Down Than Userspace)
Now we have a project started primarily by Red Hat (and managed by Microsoft GitHub, which is proprietary) being managed by Microsoft and primarily serving Microsoft and IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 28, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, June 28, 2024