Wikipedia

Draft:Daniel Pocock

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Daniel Pocock
Daniel Pocock (2024)
Born
Melbourne, Australia
NationalityIreland, Australia
EducationB.CompSc (Melbourne), MicroMasters in Data, Economics and Development Policy (MIT)
Alma materUniversity of Melbourne
OccupationDirector
EmployerSoftware Freedom Institute
Known forSoftware Freedom Institute, Free Software advocacy
Websitedanielpocock.com

Daniel Pocock is an Irish Australian software engineer who is involved in the development and promotion of Free Software. He was a contributor to the book Monitoring with Ganglia..[1]. He has published numerous packages in the Debian[2] and Fedora[3] distributions of Linux. Pocock is a candidate[4] for the district of Midlands-North-West in the 2024 European Parliament election.

Education edit

Pocock began high school at Catholic College Bendigo. In 1993 he completed the amateur radio exam and acquired the callsign VK3TQR. His callsign is logged in the NASA SAREX mission STS-59[5]. Pocock was subsequently one of 20 high school students selected by the Royal Australian Air Force for the Spring Engineering School at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra[6]. Pocock completed his final year at Xavier College in Melbourne where he participated in the debating team, rowing, cross country and athletics[7]. Pocock earned a degree Bachelor of Computer Science from University of Melbourne in 2002. He completed the MicroMasters in Data, Economics and Development Policy from MITx in 2020.

Community service edit

In 1997, Pocock began applying his Linux skills as a volunteer system administrator for the Virtual Moreland Community Network in the region of Moreland in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Pocock's project successfully hosted web sites for many early social causes, including the campaign to defend the Wik decision of 1996. Pocock immediately attracted support from Australia's opposition leader, Kim Beazley and one of Australia's first doxing attacks from the far right media[8]. As a consequence of this work, Pocock was nominated for the web page competition in the Loud Festival, a prominent national event organized by the Australia Council[9] Pocock began developing a Content Management System in PHP and used it to assist hundreds of local groups[10] to go online in the early days of the Internet. He offered the same solution as open source for the community users and business clients. In 1998, Pocock, as an undergraduate and Peter Eckersley as a postgraduate were selected to represent the interests of the Melbourne University Student Union on the University of Melbourne oversight committees for information technology. During 1999, he was elected to the post of Environment Officer in the Victorian branch of the National Union of Students (Australia)[11]. When the Australian woman Schapelle Corby was arrested in Bali in 2005, Mr Pocock created the site Don't Shoot Schapelle (now defunct) opposing the death penalty [12]. In 2017, the Fellowship community associated with the Free Software Foundation Europe elected Pocock as the Fellowship representative. [13]. November 2018, Pocock attended the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights[14]. In the session on Safeguarding Human Rights Defenders, Pocock made a brief intervention about the risks of trusting companies like Facebook and Twitter with data about friends that may eventually fall into the wrong hands.[15]. Shortly after attending the forum, on 7 January 2019, Pocock published a blog about the membership status and membership rights of volunteers contributing to free software projects[16]. The same day, Pocock's blog was removed from the Planet Mozilla blog syndication service, no explanation was given at that time[17] In 2020, Pocock published[18] a number of emails from the debian-private mailing list revealing why he felt the claims against Jacob Appelbaum[19] were falsified.

Career edit

Pocock founded his first consultancy business, SkySoft Pty Ltd as a student in 1997. His clients included Work Solutions Group, a winner of the Telstra Business Awards and his content management system hosted the first web sites of several leading political figures including Lynne Kosky[20] and Lindsay Tanner[21]. He eventually dropped support for the content management system as Drupal and Wordpress became the dominant tools in that space.

After graduating, Pocock moved to Europe where he has worked for Barclays Capital in Canary Wharf, Thomson Reuters in Paris and UBS in Zurich[22].

Pocock founded the Software Freedom Institute in 2021[23].

Codes of Conduct phenomena edit

In 2020, Pocock argued that the Outreachy program, where he has several years of experience as a mentor, was effectively paying women not to be too outspoken in the open source world.[24].

In 2021, David Arroyo Menéndez, a researcher from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and author of the Damegender software posted statistics about diversity on the debian-women mailing list. Steve McIntyre, a former Debian Project Leader, sent a public reply threatening to censor Arroyo Menéndez if he published any more statistics[25]. In defiance, Pocock published a blog suggesting that the statistics could be analyzed using a Regression discontinuity design to see if the rate at which women joined Debian was increasing or decreasing after the Code of Conduct was introduced. Pocock's initial summary of the data showed that fewer women were actually joining Debian after the Code of Conduct and Outreachy mentoring programs were introduced[26].

In comments reported by The Register, Pocock explained that the Code of Conduct phenomena in open source organizations was a form of kangaroo court being used to deter and deflect questions about accountability[27].

On 21 March 2022 Pocock published an open letter asking the Association for Computing Machinery and other professional bodies to consider whether the Codes of Conduct in the open source software workplace are effectively impersonating the Code of Ethics of a professional body[28].

Toastmasters edit

Pocock participates in the Toastmasters International organization. Upon finding there were no active clubs in Kosovo, Pocock took the initiative to establish a club at the Innovation Center Kosovo[29]

Red Hat, Inc and Fedora edit

In March 2021, Pocock wrote about his concerns[30] at the risk of modern slavery in the open source supply chain. The blog post was syndicated on Fedora Planet. In January 2022, Red Hat, an IBM subsidiary since 2019, began proceedings against Pocock and the Software Freedom Institute to prevent them using the domain name WeMakeFedora.org. Red Hat's claim was denied by the panel and Red Hat was cited for harassment and abuse of the administrative procedure[31].

Controversy edit

Expulsion from Debian project edit

Pocock was expelled from the Debian project in 2018 after accusations of harassment[32].

Involvement in FSFE data breach edit

In 2019 Pocock was accused by the Free Software Foundation Europe of inappropriate use of user data and misrepresenting himself as an FSFE representative[33].

Banning from FOSDEM edit

Pocock was banned from FOSDEM in 2022 "due to abuse of privileges and other complaints"[34].

Bad faith registration of domain edit

In 2022, WIPO concluded that Pocock's registration of the debian.community domain was in bad faith and the domain should be transferred to the Debian project[35][36]

Further domain name disputes edit

In 2024, an additional WIPO case was filed regarding multiple additional domain names associated with the Debian project and registered by Pocock[37]. The decision was that the domains had been registered in bad faith and were ordered to be transferred to Debian[38]

References edit

  1. ^ Massie, Matt; Li, Bernard; Nicholes, Brad; Vuksan, Vladimir (November 19, 2012). Monitoring with Ganglia. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN 9781449329709.
  2. ^ "Debian Contributors - Daniel Pocock".
  3. ^ "Badges for pocock". Fedora badges. Red Hat.
  4. ^ "Nominations for European election". Galway Returning Officer. Marian Chambers Higgins. Retrieved April 30, 2024.
  5. ^ "STS-59 QSL list". SQL.net. April 14, 1994.
  6. ^ Hickling, F.J. "Certificate" (PDF). Australian Defence Force.
  7. ^ "Daniel Pocock". Xavnet. Old Xaverian Association. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  8. ^ "Wikmail". News of the Day. Global Web Builders. November 28, 1997. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  9. ^ "Runner-Up Certificate". January 30, 1998. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  10. ^ O'Donnell, Jonathan. "Virtual Moreland Internet Training Courses". Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  11. ^ "Election results". Farrago_(magazine) student newspaper. Melbourne University Student Union. October 1, 1998. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  12. ^ "Hackers attack pro-Corby web sites". The Age. May 6, 2005. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  13. ^ "FSFE Fellowship Elections 2017". Condorcet Internet Voting Service. Cornell University. April 24, 2017. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  14. ^ "UN Forum on Business and Human Rights". United Nations Human Rights Commission. United Nations. November 27, 2018. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  15. ^ "Safeguarding Human Rights Defenders". United Nations WebTV. United Nations. November 27, 2018. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  16. ^ Pocock, Daniel (January 7, 2019). "Debian's Human Rights Paradox". Daniel Pocock's Blog. Daniel Pocock. Retrieved March 22, 2022.
  17. ^ Hoye, Mike (January 7, 2019). "Remove 1 feed". Github. Mozilla. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  18. ^ "Debian Falsified Harassment Claims in Appelbaum Expulsion". Daniel Pocock's Blog. Daniel Pocock. August 26, 2020. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  19. ^ "Debian Falsified Harassment Claims in Appelbaum Expulsion". Soylent News. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  20. ^ Kosky, Lynne. "Lynne Kosky home page (archive.org)". Archived from the original on December 27, 2002.
  21. ^ Tanner, Lindsay. "Home page (archive.org snapshot)". Archived from the original on May 27, 2002. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  22. ^ "Speaker profile: Daniel Pocock". FOSDEM. Retrieved March 22, 2022.
  23. ^ "Nouvelles entrées Software Freedom Institute SA, Lausanne". SHAB. April 29, 2021. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  24. ^ "Sincere Thoughts about Outreachy". Techrights. November 29, 2022. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  25. ^ McIntyre, Steve (January 11, 2021). "Please stop (was Re: Counting males and females in Debian)". Debian. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
  26. ^ Larabel, Michael (February 13, 2021). "Data Suggests CoC + Outreachy Hasn't Helped Increase Female Participation In Debian". Phoronix. Michael Larabel. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
  27. ^ Claburn, Thomas (March 16, 2022). "Red Hat effort to shut down WeMakeFedora.org deemed harassment". The Register. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  28. ^ Pocock, Daniel (March 21, 2022). "Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics". Daniel Pocock's Blog. Daniel Pocock. Retrieved March 22, 2022.
  29. ^ "Toastmasters Prishtina". Youtube. KTV Kohavision. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  30. ^ Pocock, Daniel. "When I discovered people trafficking in open source software". Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  31. ^ "DECISION, Red Hat, Inc. v. Software Freedom Institute SA". March 14, 2022. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  32. ^ "Statement on Daniel Pocock". November 17, 2021. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  33. ^ "Further facts about data breach". May 13, 2019. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  34. ^ " "[FOSDEM] Ban of Daniel Pocock". February 5, 2022. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  35. ^ "Case Details for WIPO Case D2022-1524". July 19, 2022. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  36. ^ "debian.community domain". Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  37. ^ "Case Details for WIPO Case D2024-0770". Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  38. ^ "ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION" (PDF). May 3, 2024. Retrieved May 7, 2024.

Category:Copyright activists Category:Free software people Category:Free software programmers Category:GNU people Category:University of Melbourne alumni Category:Internet activists Category:Linux people Category:Living people Category:Privacy activists

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