Innocent Until Proven Guilty

written on Thursday, May 28, 2015

In case you missed the latest news, Jonathan Riddell has been accused by the Ubuntu Community Council (CC) of breaking Ubuntu Code of Conduct (CoC) and has been asked to resign from his position of leader of the Kubuntu project (a title which actually does not exist and which he never claimed to hold)

I had the chance of meeting Jonathan when I joined Canonical in 2009. I was a bit intimidated during my first Canonical real-life meeting, but Jonathan carried me around and went out of his way to introduce me to many of my then new colleagues.

Since then he has always been one of the friendliest person I know. We often shared rooms during Canonical, Ubuntu or KDE events and went on to be colleagues again at Blue Systems. I believe Jonathan kindness is one of the reasons why the Kubuntu community has grown into such a welcoming and closely-knit group of people.

Sometimes passion carries us over too far and we say or do things we should not, but until now all I have found is just accusations and no proof of any such behavior from Jonathan. I am certainly biased, but since breaking Ubuntu CoC is so unlike the Jonathan I know, I stand by his side. The CC should post real pointers to the repeated CoC breakage Jonathan is accused of. "Innocent until proven guilty", that is how real justice works. Publish proofs of what you claim. Until such pointers are published it all sounds like the CC is having a hard time getting precise answers to Jonathan questions and opted to get rid of him instead of pushing for more answers.

PS: Before you ask: yes, I read all the long email threads and IRC logs I could find. While I have found some rough exchanges I don't think they qualify as breaking Ubuntu CoC.