Leaving the Freedesktop.org community
106 points by lina
106 points by lina
Context: I wrote the Apple Silicon (M1/M2) GPU kernel driver (the first real/production Rust Linux driver) for Asahi Linux. I left the project due to Luna's abuse and manipulation of the Linux GPU maintainer, who went out of her way to DM my fiancee to express support for Luna. It seems this now extends to all of Freedesktop.
Me leaving the project was previously discussed extensively on lobste.rs earlier this year, but at the time I couldn't share the context.
Update: FD.o CoC just emailed me, and their response is just... wow.
Wild that the code of conduct teams position on interpersonal conflict is that they have to avoid taking a position... I thought taking a position and doing something about it was the entire job.
Sorry that you're going through this.
Hijacking the top thread to share this comment by David Chisnall, which is too good not to share as widely as possible. This is why CoC teams are hard and often fail.
https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall/115433845704182344
(via @hoistbypetard in a thread below)
vt.social immediately redirects you to the source instead of viewing the post through vt.social (it's a pet peeve i've noticed with mastodon, it's probably authenticated vs unauthenticated direct link accesses), and that took a few seconds, so here's the link to save readers the time waiting for the redirect: https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall/115433845704182344
Why is it that so many large FOSS communities and organizations have completely rotten and anti-social leadership?
I get constantly told that what matters is code, not "drama" or "politics" or whatever, and yet when some rando non-contributor shows up to spread lies, both Linux kernel people and FDo people immediately side with them against a skilled contributor without even caring about their side of the story. What the fuck is up with that?
I think @david_chisnall's reply on the fedi thread does a good job explaining at least part of how this kind of dynamic develops:
https://vt.social/@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange/115433845806792628
Thank you so much for linking that. I saw the reply fly by while I was busy elsewhere and then totally forgot about it. This is awesome content. Please boost.
I have learned a lot about the vulnerability of the human psyche to manipulation from this entire story, and quite frankly I'm terrified. Trauma bonding is a frighteningly powerful thing.
Not FDo, but I've seen a former acquaintance spend a year having long talks with Luna, and come out with false memories involving themselves (things which I can confirm are false with logs, and they could too if they were so inclined).
I don’t envy the work of CoC volunteers. That said, I can’t think of a situation where it would be appropriate to discuss potentially banning one person with another (privately or otherwise), except if it was an intra-CoC team discussion.
Further, I don’t think someone’s technical standing should have any bearing on how a CoC issue is managed. Otherwise it enables people to “buy credit” for preferential treatment with respect to CoCs. We’ve seen enough examples of technically excellent people being enabled to do bad behaviour.
Further, I don’t think someone’s technical standing should have any bearing on how a CoC issue is managed. Otherwise it enables people to “buy credit” for preferential treatment with respect to CoCs.
Except the purpose of the organization is to enable technical people to build interoperable software.
If one member, with a good technical track record, says they are being stalked outside the organization by a newcomer with zero track record, the sane thing would be to hit pause on the newcomer membership and run conflict resolution process with the old timer afforded full protection from harassment during the process.
Otherwise you are implicitly selecting for thick-skinned members who can tolerate being attacked and losing sensitive people that simply take their skills elsewhere.
the sane thing would be to hit pause on the newcomer membership and run conflict resolution process with the old timer afforded full protection from harassment during the process.
This is how power structures are exploited by abusers and oppressors to keep the abused down.
I think there's an important balance to be had here. Any accuser needs to be offered an opportunity to be taken seriously. Simultaneously, existing well-established project members should be given the benefit of the doubt and protected from snap judgement, because not doing so is basically creating a DoS vulnerability that any random person can exploit against any project member.
This is a very delicate balance.
Further, I don’t think someone’s technical standing should have any bearing on how a CoC issue is managed.
It shouldn't change the standards, but a complete lack of prior involvement with the project can itself be circumstantial evidence of bad faith and I don't think there's any obligation to ignore that. It's not dispositive, legitimate newcomers deserve protection, but it is suggestive that perhaps the reason they are a newcomer is actually because they're following around someone harassing them. Which could be a legitimate piece of evidence that when corroborated by other evidence results in a judgment.
As it turns out, Luna did indeed attempt to insert herself into the FDo community just a few hours before all this: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/freedesktop/freedesktop/-/issues/2681
Why some niche libraries written in a niche programming language that aren't even in a functional state and have zero users make sense to be hosted at Freedesktop is anyone's guess...
I don’t think someone’s technical standing should have any bearing on how a CoC issue is managed.
Where was this discussed? If you are talking about the first sentence from lina I felt that it was purely for people who don't know her and want to know what this new controversy is about. If it's about Luna I didn't see anything in the conversation that would merit the comment
I did mention Luna has zero contributions to FDo in my thread, but that was to dismiss the usual way this kind of conflict resolution goes wrong, which would be to have a bias for me instead. So indeed FDo did a great job not falling for that particular trap.
As important and life changing this event is for the author, which is a stranger to me with which I empathize, I think lobste.rs is not the right place to make it a main topic of discussion.
Again, not downplaying the importance or significance of the OP, but maybe for lobste.rs we can differentiate between emotions about technology (which I would say are welcome here) versus emotions about other humans, which I would propose to keep secluded from lobsters and leave that to other platforms like Mastodon, Bluesky, X, or wherever that is welcome or can be appropriately dealt with.
I think even if you find the interpersonal conflict at the heart of the matter distasteful or inappropriate to air here, there's value in highlighting and discussing the ways that processes intended to protect communities and their members can fail or be weaponized by a dedicated abuser, because that definitely seems to be what happened here.
there's value in highlighting and discussing the ways that processes intended to protect communities and their members can fail or be weaponized by a dedicated abuser
It's super important, I can't stress that enough. But it's hard to have a meaningful discussion on Lobsters if the story itself is still developing with responses from concerned parties still coming in. It's a bit too live I would say. If it would be a case study on how a CoC for an open source project could fail it would be a different type of discussion here I think.
I'll make an extremely brave (ignorant?) attempt to give advice to someone that didn't ask for it, that has been already battling with the issue for a long time and that I actually know nothing about apart from the provided link. Suffice to say you can ignore everything I say.
I've dealt in the past with these kinds of crazy people: Telling lies to people I know through Twitter DMs or in person with the sole goal of undermining my reputation and hurting me. From personal experience, the thing they crave for is public reactions to their acts. It's their oxygen, because they need to know that their goals are progressing.
Instead of talking publicly about the topic, I would rather rely on close loyal friends to stay sane and safe, and just let the topic vanish publicly, the kind of friend that will stay with you and would, obviously, ignore anything some rando from the internet said.
The undeniably hard part is to stay inside a big community. No moderators will help you, because this people, although important and useful in other aspects, are completely useless against highly motivated psychos like the one you're dealing with. If someone doesn't trust you because of what the psycho told them, just give your version of the story and let the person choose who to listen or trust. You'll lose contacts, but you can't do anything else, and if this people trusted the psycho, they'll eventually realize they made a bad choice. It's a matter of time.
The psycho could get its oxygen through people that trusted them, but this is their only source of oxygen, so choose your battles (don't bother to regain people that is far from your side or irrelevant) and choose your words carefully, because those will be screenshotted and sent to the enemy.
People that is actually worth will learn to ignore psychos.
Psychos that get ignored and see that their acts have no obvious effect will just fly away and find a new victim.
It's extremely stressful. Glad to read you're in therapy. Much luck out there.
Instead of talking publicly about the topic, I would rather rely on close loyal friends to stay sane and safe, and just let the topic vanish publicly, the kind of friend that will stay with you and would, obviously, ignore anything some rando from the internet said.
The problem is I tried this for months, for the period between August 2024 and February 2025. And I ended up with Luna (I'm pretty sure) trauma-bonding with and manipulating Sima to the point she was fully convinced I'm a terrible person, turned against me, and I ended up having to resign from the passion project I'd been working on for years, because she was my direct superior in the Linux kernel.
"Don't feed the trolls" works with Kiwi Farms type people. It works great, in fact, and that strategy has kept those kinds of trolls at bay for me for a long time. But it sadly doesn't work with someone like Luna, who paints herself as a victim.
It's easy to say just "let them choose"... but letting them choose here cost me my passion project and main source of income.
Most people in projects like these just don't have the experience to deal with these types of abusers/crazies, and then some of them fall for it...
and I ended up having to resign from the passion project I'd been working on for years, because she was my direct superior in the Linux kernel.
Unfortunately I don't have experience in that situation because in my case the abuser didn't reach that far. That's fucked up honestly, sorry to hear that.
It's easy to say just "let them choose"... but letting them choose here cost me my passion project and main source of income.
I just meant that there's not much else to do in that situation. That overthinking it (and overacting) could be counterproductive. I know all of this is very hard, please don't think that I'm downplaying it.
I don't have much else to offer here. Good luck. Hope you find peace one day.
Unfortunately, "don't feed the trolls" rarely if ever actually works out in practice, because the trolls will just switch tactics, double down on their behavior, or find another way to get whatever it is that they want.
Or to be more blunt, looking the other way has never solved anything.
In contrast, calling them out on their behavior many several benefits:
Well, as I'm speaking from experience, at least once it worked :)
Just to reiterate, this is a spicy issue and this is just my opinion, I'm no one, just someone.
just let the topic vanish publicly
The reason this doesn't work is it's personal for the assailant. It's predatory violence. Right or wrong, the fact is they're coming for this person. It doesn't matter what they do about it, they'll keep coming.
Normal violence comes with threats and instructions on how to avoid it. Robbers threaten to shoot people unless they give up the cash. If they comply, there's no violence at all. It's not about the victim, they just want the cash. The Kiwi Farms people want lulz, if they don't get it they lose interest, plenty of lulz to be had elsewhere. You identify the assailant's objectives and either neutralize or comply, and when you do violence is avoided.
Predatorial violence is exceptionally dangerous because it's personal. Their objective is the ruination of someone's life, or their actual death. Compliance and avoidance are both impossible. It's very much a case of vigorous self-defense using all possible means.
Lina do you have a page for donations or other support for what you've done for the community? I'm very sad to see you go but I appreciate the amazing contributions you've made to Linux :)
Thank you!! I do have a Kofi at https://lina.yt/kofi ^^
I know most people don't like advertising donation pages but I couldnt find this one when I looked >_<
Do you think we can get some kind of tag that covers reactions to the ruby gems fiasco, DHH being a racist, and this whole bullying thing? Maybe something like “conflicts”?
Will this improve the reader's next program? Will it deepen their understanding of their last program? Will it be more interesting in five or ten years?
I think the DHH thing was juuuust topical enough because RoR is such a huge project and Omarchy such a popular one that it might improve the reader's next program. It'll at least affect their technical choices to use or not use DHH software.
If we have space to discuss DHH's dirty laundry at length, then we should definitely have space for a summary article about how one of the most influential Asahi contributors, as well as a contributor to the recent Linux GPU and Rust projects, is treated. Everything else looks like double standards to me, if not an attempt to sweep this case under the rug. This submission might not be the objective summary after the fact, but at least that I hope to read here eventually.
Will this improve the reader's next program?
In my opinion, a program is not just the code. This take might be informed by where I'm at in my career (actively focusing on improving people/business skills), but a program includes the organization that maintains it and keeps the knowledge of how to maintain it alive.
So yes, understanding that it's possible for someone who is incredibly technically gifted can be driven away from a community and the people responsible for making that community safe can just... let that happen, is something that will stay in my head. It will improve my next program when I exercise whatever limited custody I have over the culture surrounding the code that I work on.
(Lina, if you read this, please don't take this as downplaying the human cost of what's happening to you; this is just my take on one reason why the discussions that have been happening lately are on-topic.)
I think that the rule for on-topic stuff on lobste.rs isn't applied strictly enough
I would say that at least stuff like this is... it's important for open source project management at the very least IMO. I don't know most of the context here but in the presentation given (that I have little reason to doubt, granted) this is "contributor being pushed away by some 'rando'" and it feels important to think about these kinds of cases.
I do agree with the value of a tag though. Sometimes the "project management" side of things is just somethign I don't want to read at the moment (I alrady filter out meta for similar reasons)
(EDIT: to be clear I filter out stuff like this from time to time more just on a personal management level, but I don't think the conovs aren't worth having. I just don't have much to say)
I think that the rule for on-topic stuff on lobste.rs isn't applied strictly enough
With the caveat that all moderators have a hard life, and lobste.rs only exists because of the effectiveness of the moderators: I also don't think it's applied consistently enough to comments, either.
My experience has been that certain off-topic opinions get moderated into oblivion much more promptly than others, when expressed - even if they are expressed in response to a previous off-topic comment.
Hmmm... I have found that properly nasty stuff gets killed off eventually, and I don't ascribe to the "why are they handling these kinds of comments very quickly and not these other kinds of comments very quickly" thought process.
Some people see some stuff and not others, and ultimately this place is a fairly small community so there's going to be a certain tendancy and things that will be considered more important to moderate
To be clear, what I have gotten in DMs is a "please stop participating in this convo, it's become a mess" style thing. It's likely that visible moderation is what's happening after the less visible messages aren't really received well. I don't know!
Thanks for posting this. Quite awful to hear the FDo is messing up this hard, I hope you are well and will be well in the future.
I guess Luna is a decent casestudy for future CoC moderation teams to study and be aware of.
So why this is on lobster? Looks like this doesn’t belong here.
See this comment by pushcx describing why things like this matter and this recent one linking to it and declaring that discussion/stories on "how technical communities work, including their interpersonal events" still belong here.
That's a noble approach but it's applied very haphazardly IMHO. I'd like to think that the voting functions let us the users decide what we see as important or not, instead of what pushcx thinks we should see.
I think stories such as this are more likely to improve me as a programmer than most purely technical stuff that gets posted to Lobsters, tbh.
I have flagged this as off-topic, but I'm not sure how to explain my reasoning, except that it's more a personal than a technical topic. Also, in my experience, those kinds of threads tend to become very heated.
This is no criticism of OP nor a comment about the situation, but it's simply not about computing, therefore off-topic for Lobsters.
Nope, such places don't exist. Hell, in this case, one of the CoC team members gives money to the person who brought outside rumors.
Though I think dismissing things such as these as "teen drama" is silly. Vicious social bullshit has always existed among adults, unfortunately.
There is no other court to resolve these kinds of disputes in the OSS world than the court of public opinion. Sites like lobste.rs play a judicial role, gathering context and raising awareness when the system has failed or is being attacked. Totally fine if you're not interested in being involved in that though!
I'm under the impression that the purpose of code of conduct teams is to serve as that "court" instead of leaving it up to public opinion. Which is also why upthread I'm rather aghast that that teams response here is that it is not their role to make judgments and that they can't take a position on matters of interpersonal conflict.
I don't understand what their role is if not that.
Disclaimer: I'm not across the details of this particular interpersonal conflict, so please don't read this as any form of veiled commentary about this case in particular.
In management circles, if someone refuses to make a judgment, that means one of a few things:
(5 does sometimes happen, I swear! Just not as often as it should.)
Wow, people who support CoCs are getting surprised when CoCs are used against them.
Totally unexpected, nobody could have predicted.