Hard Evidence Reinforces Suspicion That Mark Shuttleworth May Have Worked Volunteers to Death
VERY belatedly we finally get around to covering this. It is quite a scandal. From "humanity to others" to human fodder for some super-rich (and white) South African? Is that how it works?
Not too long ago Mark Shuttleworth resigned from Debian (decades late), but can he undo the damage and dodge potential liability? Last year we learned there was a police case dealing with this matter.
Today we start re-publishing articles that contain unaltered E-mails. A decade and a half ago Marc Haber wrote: "I don't think that we shouldn't time our releases according to what Mark Shuttleworth says. We are not Ubuntu's slave even if they try hard to make it look like that."
Mr. Shuttleworth basically put pressure on unpaid volunteers to meet Ubuntu's schedule and release deadlines (for profit). One of them, who agreed with the message above, ended up killing himself on Debian Day. His parents then said that in his "last years his main concern was his work for Debian."
He wasn't happy.
Where does British law stand on workplace liability when the employer (Shuttleworth) does not pay those who work for him? Maybe we'll find out this year. Or maybe we'll never find out, but in the court of public opinion everyone can examine the evidence and form an opinion. █
Photo credit
Author: Mark Shuttleworth, Khairil Yusof "kaeru".
Attribution: Copyright 2005 UNDP-APDIP http://www.iosn.net/events/wsis-2005
Licence: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.