as anyone know, I hate what systemd has done to the GNU/Linux ecosystem
however one project that is put together in order to work out a system
without systemd, http://debianfork.org/, Devuan, really needs to be
avoided, at least unless some responsibly leadership emergers.

Not long ago they started with this anounymous campaign to for Debian
without systemd, in itself a good idea and worthwhile project. But it
was all done under serious cloak and dagger, and I couldn't come up with
the project leadership and complained about this on their mailing list
in this thread.

https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/message/20141201.170833.e3b54777.en.html

Over the course of some time, some light was created as to who is
actually leading this project. Why is this import...well, it is always
important to know who you are devoting yout money and time to, but in
this case, right from the get go, there was this relentless pleading for
donations.

What was finally discovered is that a man named Denis Roji is behind
this project. He is in Amsterdam, one of my favorite places, but
originally from Italy. He is associated with some strongly anti-semetic
radicals who popped their head up in the thread, but were ignored by me.

And finally, the good part was this email, which satisfied me that
although these guys are crackmonkeys, they at least seem to be legally
reachable if need be, and seem to have real interest in a non-systemd
fork, although their motivations for such can use more than a little
scrutiny.

This was Mr Roji's final and responsible reply to my concerns:
i

---------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Jaromil
Date: 2014-12-01 16:06 -500
To: dng
Subject: Re: [Dng] fraud warning

dear Roger,

> > Now, who is Dyne.org?

it is a Dutch stichting, translated as non-profit foundation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_foundation

> > How is it governed?

by a board composed of a secretary, a treasurer and a president.

the foundation executes a statute, which has been deposited by a notaris
in 2005 and that states as a mission for Dyne.org to produce and promote
the development and use of free and open source software, not just for
scientific goals, but also for cultural and artistic purposes. Our
concerns are mostly related to education and creativity and how
proprietary that is made by corporations owning tools that are mediating
artistic and cultural expression. Clearly, we do that already since the
year 2000. There are no traces in our history that we haven't done so
with all resources collected. In fact, our GNU/Linux distribution is
also recommended by the GNU and FSF, organizations with which we have
direct contact.

If dyne:bolic seems less maintained nowadays, we can discuss that as
I've done in other contexts, but that is not a topic to debate here I
believe. There are good reasons for dyne:bolic to not be updated, for it
to be in the top 10 open source projects in 2005 together with wikipedia
and sourceforge, for its startup scripts written in ZSh to be admired by
people like John Maddog Hall and for it having been distributed all over
the world also by gaming magazines.

> > Who are you and are you in charge of dyne.org?

I'm a legal representative of the Dyne.org foundation, with executive
rights. My legal name corresponds to the one reported by the whois
record of Dyne.org, a domain registered in 2000.

> > How are you going to account for monies collected for a fork of
> > debian?

By declaring the amount collected and the way it is spent, cent by cent.
Possibly automatizing the process, if anyone likes to give a hand with
that.

> > How is Devuan going to be organization? Who is its project leader?
> > What is its structure?

the project leaders are the members of the VUA collective (of which I'm
just one). The VUAs have written the documentation insofar present on
the web and such documentation and proposition is what motivates people
to donate money. Dyne.org is there so that this money doesn't go into a
private account, but a public one administered by a foundation with a
clear mandate to serve the public interest with free and open source
software development.

If someone would have preferred and trusted more kickstarter for this:
we simply don't. If the VUAs will like to give a percentage of the
donated amount to Dyne.org, to compensate for the administration costs,
then we'll take it, but we will not impose a service fee. Dyne.org help
is completely voluntary and promoted by me above all other members of
the organization.

The VUAs will respond about their promises to donors. For Devuan we will
see what structure to take, but since the objective of this project is
clear to most of us and to our audience (to the point they evidently
willing to donate for it in full possession of their will, also noting
the documentation is rather technical and implies knowledge of technical
aspects) we will not negotiate what we have declared we are doing, we
will just execute it. We are software artisans, not politicians.

> These are all important questions which do need addressing.

thanks for your concern.

I'm a bit surprised as other foundations and fundraisings do not get
really this treatment, especially considering we do have a record going
back for a decade. But then this must be really an episode provoked by
this hostile person, who knows why. I respond here since you asked and
since I hold you in high esteem, I'll repeat also in the hope that you
will step up and lead your project with your good experience of the
Debian system.

BTW if you want to touch something, please be welcome to visit our
"Working Computer Museum" in Sicily http://museum.dyne.org which is also
listed among the musea on ithistory.org and that has some working pieces
of computer history as PDP-11, Data General Eclipse, several VAX/VMS, a
retrodecnet connecting various amateurs in Italy and an Apple-I rebuilt
with original pieces. Everyone here is welcome to visit and get to know
the director of the Museum Gabriele Zaverio a very knowledgeable and
sympathetic person that has also inspired this project. The museum
perceives a fixed amount of funding from Dyne.org since several years,
it is one of the main reasons why Dyne.org members do self-taxation.
Another museum that we struggle to support is in Cosenza,
http://verdebinario.org full of very knowledgeable people. Unfortunately
as of today we could give very little financial support to Cosenza. Both
these musea have receive zero help from the (often corrupted) south
italian administration an in fact they have to pay rent into flats to
keep the collection somehow accessible to the schools that are visiting
regularly. Recently the museum in Cosenza has been also robbed by some
pieces unfortunately, some rather valuable Olivetti models. To not even
mention it rains into it, a structural problem of the flat that takes
itself a lot of effort by people that are better put to repair circuits
and preserve software manuals and code.

I hope this inquisition is not over prejudices about where people come
from and the fact we are not part of a sort of "oligopoly of
philanthropy" of those few foundations getting regular funding by Google
and other coprporations. I believe that, given the variety of the free
and open source software world, we should all welcome a growth in
diversity and not shrink this panorama. Please accept also the existance
of Dyne.org into the panorama of organizations working hard to leverage
open source for educational and cultural purposes. As of today there are
Debian Developers that can well confirm having learned many things
starting from our frequentation. Some of us have used stuff like
Slackware, Yggdrasyl and Sunsite FTP mirrors even before Debian existed.
We are here to serve a common interest (with missions similar to SPI
indeed) and there is no reason to think we won't do it. I can tell you
that mistrust at this point would be perceived as prejudice by most
members of Dyne.org.

Many thanks to all those believing in us, as different and crazy and
strange as we are.

best wishes.


--
Jaromil, Dyne.org Free Software Foundry (est. 2000)
We are free to share code and we code to share freedom
Web: https://j.dyne.org Contact: https://j.dyne.org/c.vcf
GPG: 6113 D89C A825 C5CE DD02 C872 73B3 5DA5 4ACB 7D10
Confidential communications: https://keybase.io/jaromil
------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK -- so I signed off the mailing list and I was done, until this week
this pops up on the internet

http://hackingthesystem4fun.blogspot.com/2014/12/ruben-safir-busca-que-devuan-sea.html

Which I have a copy of on the NYLXS servers:
http://www.nylxs.com/docs/hackingthreats.pdf

This is a threat. I would address the misinformation within the threat,
but that would detract from the fact that the threat itself is immoral,
and possibly criminal.

If anything happens to either myself or my children, Dyn and you Denis,
will be held responsible.

I'm Ccing this email to both the NYLXS hangout list, and I expect you to
do the right thing here, and reign in the dogs who supposedly represent
your interests on the internet.

Ruben Safir