Bonum Certa Men Certa

Weakness of Debian Voting Systems

Reprinted with permission from Debian Community News

On 9 March, when only one member of the Debian community submitted a nomination and fully-fledged platform four minutes before the deadline, he did so on the full understanding that voters have the option to vote "None of the above".



In other words, knowing that nobody can win by default, voters could reject and humiliate him.



Or worse.



His platform had been considered carefully over many weeks, despite a couple of typos. If Debian can't accept that, maybe he should write typos for the White House press office?



One former leader of the project, Steve McIntyre, snubbed it:



I don't know what you think you're trying to achieve here


Hadn't this candidate explained what he was trying to achieve in his platform? Instead of pressing the "send put down" button, why didn't McIntyre try reading it?



Any reply in support of the sole nomination has been censored, so certain bullies create the impression that theirs is the last word.



He had put himself up for election before yet probably never been so disappointed or shocked. Just as Venezuela's crisis is now seen as a risk to all their neighbours, the credibility of elections and membership status is a risk to confidence throughout the world of free software. It has already happened in Linux Foundation and FSFE and now we see it happening in Debian.



When the same candidate volunteered to be FSFE Fellowship representative, he faced six other candidates. On the first day of voting, he was rear-ended by a small van, pushed several meters along the road and thrown off a motorbike, half way across a roundabout. He narrowly missed being run over by a bus.



It didn't stop him. An accident? Russians developing new tactics for election meddling? Premonition of all the backstabbings to come, right up to the fall of Richard Stallman? Miraculously, the 1500-member Fellowship still voted for him to represent them.



Bike accident

Nonetheless, Matthias Kirschner, FSFE President, appointed one of the rival candidates to a superior class of membership just a few months later. He also gave full membership rights to all of his staff, ensuring they could vote in the meeting to remove elections from the constitution. Voters: 0, Cabals: 1.



This Debian Developer's platform and photo for the FSFE election also emphasizes his role in Debian and some Debian people have always resented that, hence their pathological obsession with trying to control him or discredit him.



Yet in Debian's elections, he's hit a dead-end. The outgoing leader of the project derided him for being something less than a "serious" candidate, despite the fact he was the only one who submitted a nomination before the deadline. People notice things like that. It doesn't stick to the victim, it sticks to Debian.



We must all thank Chris Lamb for interjecting, because it reveals a lot about Debian's problems. A series of snipes like that, usually made in private, have precipitated increasing hostility in recent times.



A strong and stable

When some people saw Lamb's comment, they couldn't help erupting in fits of laughter. The Government of Lamb's own country, the UK, was elected under the slogan Strong and stable leadership. There used to be a time when the sun never set on the British empire, today the sun never sets on laughter about their lack of a serious plan for Brexit. Serious leadership appears somewhat hard to find. Investigations found that the Pro-Brexit movement cheated with help from Cambridge Analytica and violations of campaign spending limits but the vote won't be re-run (yet). Voters: 0, Cabals: 2.



It is disappointing when a leader seeks to vet his replacement in the way Chris Lamb did. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez assured everybody that Nicolas Maduro was the only serious candidate who could succeed him. Venezuelans can see the consequences of such interventions by outgoing leaders clearly, but only during daylight, because the power has been out continuously for more than a week now. Many of their best engineers emigrated and Debian risks similar phenomena with these childish antics.



chavez

The whole point of a free and fair election is that voters are the ultimate decision maker and we all put our trust in the voters alone to decide who is the most serious candidate. It is incredible that Lamb called himself a leader but was not willing to talk face-to-face with those people he had differences with.



In any other context, the re-opening of nominations and the repeated character attacks, facilitated by no less than another candidate who already holds office in the Debian Account Managers team would be considered as despicable as plagiarism and doping. So why is this acceptable in Debian? Voters: 0, Cabals: 3. If you ran a foot race this way, nobody would respect the outcome.



relays

Having finished multiple cross countries, steeplechases and the odd marathon, why can't an independent candidate even start in Debian's annual election?



In his interview with Mr Sam Varghese of IT Wire, rival candidate Joerg "Ganeff" Jaspert talks about "mutual trust". Well, he doesn't have to. Credible leaders put their trust in the voters. That's democracy. Who is afraid of it? That's what a serious vote is all about.



Jaspert's team have gone to further lengths to gain advantages, spreading rumours on the debian-private mailing list that they have "secret evidence" to justify their behaviour. It is amusing to see such ridiculous claims being made in Debian at the same time that Maduro in Venezuela is claiming to have secret evidence that his rival, Guaido, sabotaged the electricity grid. The golden rule of secret evidence: don't hold your breath waiting for it to materialize.



While Maduro's claims of sabotage seem far-fetched, it is widely believed that Republican-friendly Enron played a significant role in Californian power shortages, swinging public mood against the Democrat incumbent and catapulting the world's first Governator into power (excuse the pun). Voters: 0, Cabals: 4.



terminator

If the DAMs do have secret evidence against any Debian Developer, it is only fair to show the evidence to the Developer and give that person a right of reply. If such "evidence" is spread behind somebody's back, it is because it wouldn't stand up to any serious scrutiny.



Over the last six months, Jaspert, Lamb and Co can't even decide whether they've demoted or expelled a number of people. That's not leadership. It's a disgrace. If people are trusted to choose somebody from outside this bubble of immaturity as the Debian Project Leader, intimidation and shaming would probably come to a stop.



After an independent candidate wrote a blog about human rights in January, it is Jaspert who censored it from Planet Debian just hours later:



censor pocock

Many people were mystified. Why would a blog post about human rights be censored by Debian? People have been scratching their heads trying to work out how it could even remotely violate the code of conduct. Is it because the opening quote came from Jaspert himself and he didn't want his cavalier attitude put under public scrutiny?



This is not involving anything from the universal declaration of human rights. We are simply a project of volunteers which is free to chose its members as it wishes.


which is a convenient way of eliminating competitors. After trampling on that blog and nomination for the DPL election, it is simply a coincidence that Jaspert was the next to put his hand up and nominate.



In Jonathan Carter's blog about his candidacy, he quotes Ian Murdock:



You don’t want design by committee, but you want to tap in to the wisdom of the crowd.... the crowd is the most intelligent of all.


If that is true, why is a committee of just three people, one of whom is a candidate, telling the crowd who they can and can't vote for?



If that isn't a gerrymander, what is?



Following through on the threat



If you are going to use veiled threats to keep your volunteers in line, every now and then, you have to follow through, as Jaspert has done recently using his DAM position to make defamatory statements in the press.



If Jaspert's organization really is willing to threaten and shame volunteers and denounce human rights, as he did in this quote, then who would want to be a part of it anyway? Voters: 0, Cabals: 5.



Pocock has stated he remains ready and willing to face "None of the above" and any other candidate, serious or otherwise, on a level playing field, to serve those who would vote for him over and above those who seek to blackmail volunteers and push them around with secret evidence and veiled threats.

Recent Techrights' Posts

XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
 
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025
Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
Links for the day
If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
Links for the day
Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025