On 31/12/15 04:22, Steve Langasek wrote: > On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 02:03:40PM -0800, benjamin barber wrote: >> It's unfortunate that Debian is named after Debra and Ian, >> because having the project named after a white supremacist, who >> used his ex-wifes name as an trophy. > > I agree in whole with the responses of my fellow developers Dimitri > and Russ. I also believe, because the Internet never forgets, that > this libelous accusation needs to be addressed directly. > > In the time leading up to Ian's death, he posted on his now-deleted > twitter account about an altercation with police. He described > being the victim of police brutality, and expressed the desire that > his story be widely known - in the hopes that, where stories of > police brutality (up to and including murder) of racial minorities > in the United States have failed to lead to the systemic reforms > that are needed, perhaps a story of a white, affluent, educated, > middle-aged man being a victim of the same systems might tip the > scale. > > In the course of expressing these views on twitter, Ian used a > racial epithet. >
In fact, it has not been verified that those Tweets were from Ian himself. It can only be said that there were Tweets and they appear to originate from Ian's Twitter ID. Had somebody hacked his account? Had somebody stolen his mobile phone and hacked the screen unlock? Has the phone been found yet? Has somebody found an arbitrary way to send Tweets with forged identities? Did Ian rename or close his Twitter account at some point and then somebody else created a new Twitter account using the same name?
