Hello. I recently found out that Mr. Bowman had been making accusations
about me on this mailing list. After reading through the threads, I saw
the truth of the maxim, "the only way to fight hate speech is with more
speech". Having suffered Mr Bowmans remarks, I now present you with
"more speech", hopefully in a non-hateful tone. In this email I present
the email that Paul Bowman originally sent to Richard Stallman and Bruce
Perens, among others.
Please note for the record, I sent Mr. Bowman several private emails
asking him to communicate with me directly about his concerns. In
response, he publicly accused me of attacking his machine with viruses
and of sending him threatening emails. I had no other communication
with or knowledge of Mr. Bowman prior to being told of his public
statements.
I have been a Debian developer for six years out of an ideological
commitment to freedom and an ethic of public service. Compromising six
years of work for the sake of petty vengeance seems silly to me, and I
hope to everyone else reading this list.
I am a real person, with real feelings, a disabled wife, and two
beautiful children. You can see her as she was before the car accident
at her website: http://gina.ph. I hope that after reading Mr. Bowmans
email, you will be able to form your own judgements of how credible his
accusations are.
Even now, if Mr Bowman is willing to publicly come forward and speak to
me about his concerns, not only am I confident I can address them, but I
am willing to forgive and forget as well.
In Solidarity,
Jonathan Walther
PS: I stand behind my words. I normally sign my emails with PGP to
assure people the message comes from me. This list rejects mails with
PGP attachments though. If you doubt my identity, my phone number is
immediately below.