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: The "free software community" does not include Linus

bdale@gag.com (Bdale Garbee)  wrote on 04.11.97 in <199711040808.BAA30711@chunks.gag.com>:

> In article <19971104175701.52868@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au> you wrote:
>
> : I'd be interested to know how the free software idea came about.
>
> Read Levy's "Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution."  It's a bit dated,
> but it's the closest thing I've seen in print to an explaination of the
> forces that led to the current situation.  My father enjoyed the copy I lent
> him...
>
> Or, if you have tons of time, you could ask RMS in person what got him
> started on the GNU idea... he gave a good talk at the first (only?) FSF Free
> Software Conference about this, and it brought together various tidbits that
> I'd heard at different times.  But he's sufficiently passionate on the
> subject that he's a lot like a solid rocket booster...  :-)  Once you get
> him lit up, you basically have to wait for him to burn out and the smoke to
> clear...  :-)

It's probably the same talk he gave at Aachen. I'd heard the story before,  
but not with that many details.

> : So why are we willing to give our software away?
>
> Dunno.  It's a fun topic for Usenix panel discussions and late-night chats
> over a beer or three.  There are almost as many answers as there are free
> software authors.

It's more fun that way.

> It's the one place I've found where some of the ideas behind socialism
> actually work.  I think it's mostly because the cost of distribution of
> software is essentially zero.  As a result, it doesn't have to cost you
> anything to share what you've done, and to borrow what others have done.
> "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

There is a field that, until recently, was a lot bigger and also had a  
strong tradition of sharing. (In fact, a lot of the people who "invented"  
free software were members of that other community, so one might say  
that's where we have our ideals from.)

That field is science.

Interestingly enough, it seems the "giving away" worked better in  
capitalist system than in communist systems. All sorts of interesting  
theories could be built on that :-)

Anyway, you expect to find all the details about the latest and greatest  
science readily published. You don't expect to pay anyone for the license  
to use it, either.

Well, those guys didn't think software should work any different.

And I think they are right - even though I, too, earn my income with  
proprietary, MS-compatible software (but sometimes - joy, joy - also with  
Linux). I don't have the answer to that question (how to pay all those  
free software people without involving non-free software). I wish I had.  
Working on free stuff is MUCH more fun than working on proprietary stuff.

MfG Kai


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