Russell Coker & Debian: September 11 Islamist sympathy
One of the more unusual discussions on the debian-private (leaked) gossip network are the numerous flame wars that errupted after the September 11 attacks in New York and the Pentagon.
Some developers wanted to express sympathy, others wanted to condemn and some even demanded revenge.
At a high level, this is the type of discussion that thought police have sought to banish by carpet-bombing free software organizations with codes of conduct/obedience. Today we will sneak into the time machine and listen to the forbidden music.
At the time Russell Coker sent the email about Palestine, news reports were telling us about Palestinians celebrating the attacks. Was Coker inspired by that or was his email a mere coincidence? The controversial video is available here.
Anybody writing a message like this today would be expelled/banned/censored immediately by the thought police.