An open letter to Alan Pope

[Mike Basinger]

On Apr 19, 2011, at 7:43 PM, Samuel Thurston wrote:

> Dear Mr Pope and the rest of the Ubuntu Community Council,
> 
> Alan, you have displayed your true colors today.  After assuring me
> that this item would be brought up at the next community meeting
> rather than today's, I decided to disregard the inflammatory rhetoric
> about your character, and put my trust in you as a representative of
> the community.
> 

Once again, this was a decision of a quorum for Community Council members not an sole undertaking by Mr. Pope.

> That trust was obviously misplaced.
> 
> I say this because I feel that on top of you misleading me (and
> others) about the time of the meeting, you also chose to deliberately
> mischarachterize a number of my statements and selectively present the
> evidence I so exhaustively prepared, so as to bolster your own opinion
> that the list should be closed.

As I said in a previous email, the CC can not discuss a topic multiple times just to make it convenient for every time zone. I got up at 5am to discuss to attend the IRC meeting, surely someone from the 350+ member on the list could have attended to advocate for the Sounder community.

> I call foul.  I call foul on the entire CC.  Because if you voted to
> close the list you did so because it was your opinion that it should
> be shut regardless of community input and evidence to the contrary OR
> because you neglected to do your duty and investigate the information
> put forth by Mr. Pope (he was kind enough to link to original messages
> while quoting out of context, isn't that nice?)
> 
> Whether it be negligence or malfeasance, I stand disappointed in your service.

I disappointed in the list for never starting a thread to discuss between it members  this problem as perhaps giving the CC other options to consider.  As far I can tell no one start this discussion till after the CC decided to close the list.

> Due to this misconduct, and other recent flagrant missteps by the
> Ubuntu community, I will be looking elsewhere for my Linux needs.  I
> have no need for a community in which someone so dishonest and
> underhanded gains a respected and representative status.

That is your decision, and I wish you well in your further OSS/Linux endeavors.

Mike Basinger

--
Mike Basinger
mike.basinger at ubuntu.com