DebConf6, Hot and Spicy

What do a space tourist, a skinny dipper, politics, and code have in common? This year's DebConf, of course! Robin 'Roblimo' Miller has the writeup over on NewsForge (Also owned by VA). From the article: "Shuttleworth was back in Oaxtepec Wednesday, hanging out and chatting with individuals and small groups, checking his email, and otherwise behaving like most other DebConf attendees. It was obvious that even if not all of them loved him -- or Ubuntu, or his for-profit company, Canonical Ltd. -- he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne."

Ubuntu Logo separate from Debian?

Using the Debian logo for this story makes sense, but it has also been used on Slashdot for stories about Ubuntu exclusively. I think it's about time that Ubuntu have it's own logo for Slashdot stories in a similar manner to other distros. I know Ubuntu comes from Debian, but it has reached a unique prominence on it's own. Some of the content of the article would seem to support the idea of having an Ubuntu logo to differentiate Ubuntu stories from those about Debian.

Seems they forgot

To report tat 2-time DPL candidate Jonathan/Ted Walthers was thrown out of the conference for being an asshat.

heh..

What do a space tourist, a skinny dipper, politics, and code have in common?

  They mostly don't do well upon close inspection 8)

Aww, he loves me. Not.

he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne

This is childish. What is the point of such a comment? How a fully-developed adult can think this - let alone put it in print - just boggles my mind. Very unprofessional.

Shocking

..."he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne"...

Im shocked,

Its not like ubuntu is based on debian.

As far as who Shuttleworth spends his time with and what conferences he attends, well its not that surprising he went to this one is it, if Gates and Ballmer had attended however that would be news.

Seriously though, I dont like Ubuntu and I wouldnt use it, frankly I prefer debian proper, but if someone who had never touched a *nix asked what to install I'd give them one of the nice Ubuntu CD-roms I had shipped to me and tell them to knock themselves out, and chances are they'd get on well with it. NIDNRTFA - Sorry

What about the fight?

This article bizarrely fails to mention the fight involving one of the Debian Project Leader candidates (and self proclaimed "Debian Pope") Jonathan Walther [reactor-core.org] which disrupted the inaugural dinner. The Debian high-ups seem to be doing their best to keep it quiet: a few Debian bloggers wrote about it, others hinted [eu.org] but said nothing concrete, some entries on planet debian were later redacted, and all the DebConf organisers had to say was this [debconf.org].

It makes you wonder (a) what kind of lunatics are running Debian these days, and (b) whether Debian can hold together as an organisation.

Re:What about the fight?

Well, it makes you wonder whether you have been to any conference that included even a small social-like part where no one causes some stir. Usually, with alcohol involved.

Considering the amount of people involved in DebConf, it is pretty strange that there was only one scuffle.

I wish I was there and got a chance to cause some mayhem (not a fight, but surely something reportable :p)

reading comprehension skills

No, that entry says that his dinner companion, who he called a "local businesswoman", was a prostitute. I'm not remarking on the truth of the situation, I have no idea. But you are completely misrepresenting what that link actually says.

Re:What about the fight?

Ted decided to invite a lady, a friend of the local ISP's owner, named Hilda. a local entrepreneur in a very small town where everyone knows everyone. She runs a dental administration company in the town we were in.

  Several people were spreading many rumors about Walther that were totally false, one of which that his date, was a prostitute, and this was because Ted couldn't possible get a woman on his own.

Being that I was there when Ted met her at the local Internet cafe, this vicious rumor is definitely not true.

Re:What about the fight?

As someone who actually prevented the Fight. There were no punches actually thrown.

First I want to say that this was my first experience with the Debian community and I knew almost nobody at all.
I have known Ted a long time and we shared a room there.

Throughout the conference there was a small group (about 10) that seemed to be out to get Ted Walther any way possible. Probably because he is outspoken and not afraid to say what many others were thinking but afraid to say. Or that he had sent some E-mail's that challenge the Debian management. I don't know or even really care, because it shouldn't matter really.

So last Thursday night, way the hell out in the middle of no where at a resort 1.5 hours south of Mexico City they had "formal dinner" with rumors of a dance afterwards. Ted decided to invite a lady, a friend of the local ISP's owner, named Hilda.

  This group, after spreading many rumors about Walther that were totally false, one of which that his date, Hilda (a local entrepreneur in a very small town where everyone knows everyone and runs a dental administration company) was accused of being a prostitute, and this was because Ted couldn't possible get a woman on his own. Being that I was there when Ted met her at the local Internet cafe, this vicious rumor is definitely not true.

After rumors failed, 7 guys tried to rush him and became quite agitated and violent. I am a fairly big guy and happen to be standing in the doorway at the time of the attack against Ted.
Several people where behind him and they would have pushed Walther and several innocent bystanders over the 2 foot ledge that lead to the street, probably injuring some of them.

I actually stepped in between and told them, "Do you want to get physical?" not really knowing what the hell was taking place, but that it wasn't good. The group backed off very quickly.

The management assured me they would listen to all sides and make a decision.

That night at 4 am a group was in the hallway talking and I approached them and introduced myself,"hello, we haven't been introduced, my name is .." when I was screamed at by man with oddly colored hair (who I am told is)Holger Levsen, to shut the F**K up. and he motioned a threat to hit me.

But the next morning at 7am the Andreas Schuldei entered our room and demanded Walther leave the premises immediately for his own safety. That his presence would provoke violence, and promptly dumped him out on the street, broke and stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

They then removed him totally from the Debian project, his accounts, E-mail and even blog posts and photo from the groups mugshot collections.

I am incredibly offended by the management decisions to punish the victim and not the perpetrators and the way they went about this in secret!

Re:Ted was not a saint

Again, no one has been willing to state a real reason why he was attacked or kicked out of the project. Even when I tried to personally inquire in a polite and honorable fashion, then wouldn't tell me or just make some mention of emails accusing them of being unfair, which at this point is starting to seem very much true.

Even a wacky conspiracy theorist starts to look credible when some one trys to assasinate him.

  Does kicking someone out of the project involve not telling them at all. Or for what reason even after the fact.

  They invited him there! He went there at great expense with the sole intention of trying to make peace and mend relationships. It seems as though the intention was to lure him there and beat him senseless in the middle of some forign country!

He didn't do anything while at Debconf to provoke anyone as far as I can see. Please someone tell me a specific case if he did do anything, but wearing a plastic crown and carrying a foam rubber bat, that was just a prop to be the jester of the crowd. Isn't cause or provocation. He didn't hit anyone with the bat, nor did he act agressive or even speak to any of his attackers.

Had this been in the US, I'm sure police and lawyers would be involved.

Re:Ted was not a saint

I have seen the debian private list posts, Ted isn't the only friend I have on the inside there.

I still fail to see a real reason. How can holding a foam rubber bat be so offensive to people that they should try to beat him up or remove him from debian?!

If you read Anthony's letter it never states specifics just "disruptions", "disturbances", "provoke"

As example requesting Kosher Food. Oh my god! If requesting Kosher food is disruptive then ... Well draw your own conclusions.

For me personally I don't eat Pork and it was impossible to tell what the meals were made of some really look like pork. Being Pork free in Mexico and at the Debconf when you don't speak the language was a serious problem.

Then later claims such as "Nazi propaganda and Holocaust denial information" this is based on them never having read what he had, or the context that it was in, which was in a very pro-jewish, we must never let it happen again light. I also believe that people need to see these documents! That hiding them will only doom us to repeat the past.

Well which is it Anthony? Is he a NAZI or a JEW!

"Why Didn't King Solomon Kill The Two Prostitutes".
Did anyone bother to read this one!!!
It's all bible quotes. But for many I'm sure the bible is too offensive!

From that very blog post:
You cannot hit one party with the full penalty then let another get off free for the same crime. It is better to err on the side of mercy, so if you do not convict one, you should not convict another. This is violated daily by un-Godly governments who selectively enforce their laws to "make examples" of people. Such selective enforcement is neither fair or just.

How appropriate since they did just what he spoke against the very next day.

from the Debian private list that I am not bound to silence on

Anthony Towns
to debian-private
Hi,

It's my regret to report that the Debian Account Managers, James Troup
and Joerg Jaspert, have decided to expel Ted Walther (aka Jonathan
Walther, with IRC nicks SirDibos, SirDinosaur, Dinosaur, and account
name [e-mail]) from the project.

Ted has been a continuing source of disturbance within the project, and
whether deliberately or accidently has repeatedly acted in ways to provoke
other members of the project and make their participation in both the
project at large and DebConf 6 in particular difficult and uncomfortable.

The triggering event for this expulsion was a disturbance at the DebConf
Formal Dinner, which I'll detail as best I can in a separate mail.

This has followed a number of other incidents at DebConf 6. The first
of these that has been communicated to me were a number of disruptive
communications with the travel sponsorship team in April, where Ted
attempted to override the deadline for travel sponsorship in various ways
[0].

This was followed in the next few days by complaints regarding the lack
of food conforming to his dietary requirements, which he described as
the "Karaite Jewish version of kashrut" in contrast to Jewish kosher
food. When informed that the vegan/vegetarian menu would conform with
his requirements, and that the hotel would not be able to conform with
his requirements otherwise, he responded by accusing the organisers of
"kosher discrimination", and booking a "second rate hotel in a third
world country" where the cooks are "not worth their salt".

In order to ensure that the debconf lists remained useful, his posts
were moderated, with only the mails containing a question others might
be interested in, or some information others might find useful being
allowed through.

Ted's conference registration was accepted, and he obtained room and
food sponsorship for the period of his stay.

After arriving at DebConf, Ted brought along a foam rubber bat
labelled with "clue", and hit a number of organisers and delegates
with i

ISO 9001

Shouldn't Debian make an effort to conform to the ISO 9001 standard for quality management? I read TFA and thought that many of the problems mentioned is that they don't have a well-managed (from a QA manager's pov) quality assurance system. Perhaps if people in the Debian high-level hierarchy did a detailed study on the ISO 9001 they could get some useful tips.

:O

Holy hell, a for-profit company?!

5/12 of laptops running Ubuntu

"...five out of 12 laptop screens in my line of sight were running Ubuntu."

That is because Debian won't install on modern laptops! Well, not without grand efforts.

Seriously though, it seems that many Debianites begrudge Ubuntu for being what they don't want Debian to be: up to date.

Hot and spicy?

It's Linux. There is nothing hot an spicy about that. Just take a look at this guy [linux.org.au]. I going to have to immerse myself in porn for a day to get that image out my head. Disturbing

Gee, thanks

he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne.

Gee, thanks for that little dig. I was at Java One this year and was delighted to see Mark Shuttleworth there and hear that Sun are going to support Ubuntu on their servers. Many others liked it too considering the applause he got (much more than Marc Fleury for instance...). On Netbeans day (day before the official start of Java One), when Jonathan Schwartz asked Rich Green on stage "So, are you going to Open Source Java?" as his first question, there was a lot of applause and laughter.

Also Sun announced loads of stuff that was open sourced at the conference. The Java Studio Creator, Mobility pack, Matisse, JMS, etc. Licensing for Java has been changed to make it easier to distribute it with Linux. I have considered doing a writeup of Java One for Slashdot, but then I realise, what is the use. Positive stuff about Sun or Java doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of being accepted by the editors. Lets just say it was educational and lots of fun. Jamie and Adam from Mythbusters were at the after dark bash. PDFs of all the session are available for free here [cplan.com].

Debian and Ubuntu

It will be tough for Debians to accept Ubuntu but there's no alternative. While Ubuntu has made the deb package format state of the art, it will also squash Debian out of the market. It's just a matter of time until Ubuntu will become the single most important distribution. So instead of cursing about this fact Debian developers should just go over to Ubuntu and accept it. It might not make everybody happy but that's normal in real live.

O. Wyss

Real concerns, poorly expressed

The article passes on rather a lot of sour comments about Ubuntu. But carping is no substitute for analysis. Ubuntu is here to stay and most would regard it as a huge success. There are important things that need to be worked out, though, around conflicts of interest when you have a lot of folks who are both Debian and Ubuntu devs and who in some cases might received money from Ubuntu. For example, whose packages and bug fixes do they process first, Debian's or Ubuntu's? The side that comes second is bound to complain.

The worry expressed by Joey Hess is a real one: that Debian could become like a supermarket or trade warehouse where distro-assemblers acquire their wares, leaving Debian without direct contact with an audience of its own and so fading as a user-based distro. But that is up to Debian to sort out, not Ubuntu. I don't think Debian has really risen to this challenge yet, but sooner or later they must. Personally I am not a fan of international businessmen come jet-setters mingling with Debian and rather wish they'd take a lower profile. Exactly what, after all, are they trying to do by turning up at a DebConf in the first place? The "social contract" is the heart and bedrock of Debian, and if this starts to become polluted by money and fame then Debian really will be in trouble. Perhaps it already is.