Techrights
William Lee Irwin III, Michael Schultheiss & Debian, Oracle, Russian kernel scandal
Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 23, 2024
[Article 1 year old]
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work.
William Lee Irwin III, wli, Debian, Oracle, Linux kernel
Early 2011, six months after the Debian Day volunteer suicide (Frans Pop), a mysterious livejournal blog appeared in Russian about a US-based kernel developer in trouble.
William Lee Irwin III was a kernel developer and Debian Developer who worked at Oracle. He pioneered support for page clustering on x86. After a medical problem or a seizure, it is suggested that Oracle simply dumped him in the street and he ended up in a homeless shelter.
Is America's health system really so bad that they need to rely on Russian support to keep kernel developers above the poverty line? (Yes, American healthcare really is that bad)
The Russian blog post is followed by a comment in English hinting that a debian-private (leaked gossip network) thread found a job for Irwin. We examined all messages in the thread and found the claim is over-optimistic. Various people made suggestions about jobs but none of them wrote that he was accepted for a job. At best, they helped pay his mobile phone so he can look for a job.
Exagerating: BTW very interesting situation: There was a large discussion in debian-private after your post (it was translated and forwadred by someone). As I understand, debian guys met William. Hi is in difficult situation, but they help him with employment and organized some sort of fund for the first time.
Despite the rosy claims that Debian helped this developer, the real reason we stumbled upon this thread is because Schultheiss has signed a nasty document attacking another volunteer. Debian and Oracle are no better in the way they chew people up and spit them out. The volunteer attacked by Schultheiss resigned at a time when he lost two family members. Debian fascists treated him like shit, just as Oracle treated Irwin like shit.
We find no evidence of William Lee Irwin III participating anywhere after 2011. █
Subject: Re: News (unverified) about wli@debian.org
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2011 20:13:10 -0500
From: Jimmy Kaplowitz <jimmy@debian.org>
To: Jurij Smakov <jurij@wooyd.org>
CC: debian-private@lists.debian.org, Michael Schultheiss <schultmc@debian.org>
My mail is basically quoting all of Jurij's mail en bloc, so I think that
justifies a top-post even to debian-private....
I'm CCing Michael Schultheiss, who is a DD (and SPI treasurer) who currently
works in Indianapolis and lives not far from there. I don't have anything
specific to suggest to him other than that he might at least want to do some
initial reaching out, but I did want to ensure he saw this message. Any other
DD in the area might also want to help, but he's the only one currently in my
forebrain. (It's cramped in there!)
- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy@debian.org
P. S. - This mail should also stay private forever, including my bits.
On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 12:37:47AM +0000, Jurij Smakov wrote:
Hello,
>
Today, pretty much by accident, I've noticed the following Livejournal
post (in Russian): http://duke-igthorn.livejournal.com/339530.html.
Author of the post was privately contacted by Samium Gromoff
<_deepfire@feelingofgreen.ru>, who claims to be a Linux kernel
developer and a close friend of William Lee Irwin III, formerly
wli@debian.org.
>
Samium's message is basically a plea for help for wli. It states that
wli has recently lost his job at Oracle and currently does not have
any source of income, residing in an Indianapolis homeless shelter,
with his health deteriorating. He's trying to arrange employment for
wli which would allow him to get back on his feet, however has been
unsuccessful so far, and would welcome any help people could offer.
He claims to know wli's phone number, which by now has become
pretty much the only available communication channel with him.
>
Note that I have never heard of Samium Gromoff before (this appears to
be a pseudonym of one Serge Kosyrev, according to a quick Google
search), and I don't have any way of verifying this information, so it
might very well be some sort of elaborate hoax (even though its goal
is unclear at this point). I hope that given that wli used to be a
Debian developer, there are people on this list who have known him
personally and would be able to verify this information, as well as
people who could offer help and support for wli, should this
information turn out to be true.
>
Due to sensitive personal details mentioned in this message, I request
it to be left private forever.
>
Best regards,
--
Jurij Smakov jurij@wooyd.org
Key: http://www.wooyd.org/pgpkey/ KeyID: C99E03CC
>
>
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