alt Hacker NewsI too had no idea what he’s talking about, so I did some digging.
So, an open-source contributor who works for Canonical on Ubuntu gave a talk at Debconf. He is a convicted and admitted sexual predator who served time in prison for his crimes. This all is pretty well-documented.
But… then what? He did the time for his crimes. He’s on the national sex offender registry. What now? Should he be unemployable? Should his contributions to open-source projects be rejected? Should he not be able to give a talk on some technical topic he’s presumably an expert on?
Either we agree that serving your prison sentence is sufficient atonement for your crimes or we have to work to change the prison system such that it is. I don’t know that excluding someone from contributing to society for the rest of their life is the right answer.
Please note that this is a very shallow summary for those who (like me) were unaware of the drama here. I have no idea of the extent of his crimes past what I wrote above, nor if the time he served “seems” appropriate (not that a single value there could ever be considered appropriate by everyone simultaneously). My assumptions are that he was convicted, served a reasonably appropriate amount of time, was released, and has committed no further crimes of that nature in the intervening period since (any or all of which I could be wrong about).
I also have seen accusations of rude/antagonistic behavior outside of this specific topic, but am leaving those aside since they weren’t part of GP’s complaint.
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> Should his contributions to open-source projects be rejected?
As someone whose attitude towards open-source is that it's the code who should do the talking, and not who contributed it (nor the colour of their skin, or their sexual orientation, etc) ... I'd say he should be able to contribute code, as long as the code is good enough. Same rule as every other code-contribution.
But the Debian-project has made the decision to elevate him and have him represent Debian at conferences like DebConf, and that strikes me as something some people might find more objectionable.
Even after having served his time, there's still a certain stain there, and it's up to the Debian project to what degree they want that stain to reflect on them as well.
That's the guy. Fair enough to say he served his time and should not be unemployable. I can agree with that in principle. I would not advocate rejecting his open source contributions. If Canonical wants to employ him after doing their due diligence, that's their business. Inviting him to be a speaker and representative of the project is a bridge too far. Is there no one more qualified?
If you just want to quietly make software then nobody cares what you are, but when you decide to function as a political activist group and demand compliance with your personal morals, then the personal morals of your organization members becomes fair game.
He was also a minor when the convicted offences took place. Important point because Lunduke acolytes always go everywhere & make it sound as if he was a grown man who molested children "thousands of times". Apparently what is closer to the facts is that he was himself a minor when he started SA his siblings, which was ignored by their parents. He was convicted later in life as an adult & as noted, served his time.