Comment by stouset | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stouset | Hacker News Reader

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I 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.

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.

> 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.

>Even after having served his time, there's still a certain stain there

In Western jurisprudence the basis for society enacting punishment on criminals is that the punishment is just. One characteristic of that is it that it is proportionate which means it has an end. Criminals who have done their time don't have "stains" or marks as if they're Cain, they have a right to reintegration, because if they didn't, what exactly was the punishment doing?

So no, it doesn't reflect badly on any software project for employing a person who has payed for their crime. It reflects well on any employer if they treat ex-convicts equally.

Without derailing this too far further, while we're on reflections it might be interesting to consider what can be read into the virtues or failings of the unbounded punishment camp here.

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.

  After she reported her brother’s abuse to police in 2010, naval investigators questioned Jeremy, who was stationed overseas. He admitted everything.

  In a statement to naval lawyers, Jeremy detailed the abuse of his sisters and admitted to inappropriately touching his third sister and two other non-family members when he was a teenager.

He started abusing children when he was 11, and continued into his teenage years.

https://wng.org/articles/the-high-cost-of-negligence-1617309...

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