While this is good to see, and thank you for writing out those thoughts, I have one question that may feel rather pointed but it will help folks know some of the thought process here: When talking about KDE for People, you claim it was designed to, "brigade KDE into banning LLMs" and that only one signer was a contributor.

My question is simply: What do you suggest stakeholders who are not technical in a way where they would be a "contributor" (such as myself - a sysadmin, not a programmer) do in order to communicate regarding decisions KDE is making?

Decisions that projects make don't just impact developers. Users, administrators, and people who build off a project as a base are all impacted by these decisions, yet it feels like KDE doesn't want any of us to have a voice. I mean, I support users who use KDE (who are all anti-AI for ethical and technical reasons); isn't that reason enough to be able to speak up and say, "Hey, using AI will negatively impact me and my clients and here's why?" And if not, why not?

Please understand I'm not here to start a fight and if KDE's policy is that all stakeholders are welcome at the table, that's good. But right now it feels like that's not the case with comments like "brigading" when non-developer stakeholders do the only thing we see that we can do.

First things first. I do not know who's behind the account here. Maybe you are a decent person, or a group of persons. No idea. And I am a bit sorry for you, as you have some shit to clean up. I wouldn't like to be in your skin right now. So, please mind, whenever I am writing "you", it doesn't mean people directly taking care of this account, but the whole KDE organisation. And as the whole organisation you deserve some criticism.

As the KDE organisation you need to answer yourself a question: for whom you are making the software? If for yourself, then fine. Just close the repositories, gatekeep new contributors to the ones which will not cause troubles, and play in your own sandbox. No one will be bothering you. And we will lost a valuable piece of software.

However, if you, by any chance, want create something valuable for users, then there are another few questions. Do you respect your users? Do you value their feedback? How do you want to get their feedback?

Right now, from the whole kerfuffle, the image is, that you are treating the development of KDE as your own playground. Which, to some extent, is fine. We all need those sweet dopamine hits. I am not judging you for that.

But, so far, all your communication regarding your user base seems disrespectful. Particularly, the use of "brigading" word. How else you want to get the feedback from your users, if you block your own channels of communications? What you did is performing the act of censorship. And - at the very beginning - you have censored people pointing you your mistakes. That doesn't look good. And also, at your first impulse, you have defended a person with disgusting views.

Which moves us to another item. What are your values? What kind of community do you want to create? Former experiences in other communities has shown us, that either you aim for creating a diverse, progressive community - and that excludes right winger, or you want to create so called "big tent" which, in the long run, ends with pushing out diverse people out of the community, as there is no safety guaranteed.

That question is very important. I myself, as a trans person, am in the vulnerable group. And I will use all reasonable means and knowledge to keep the environment around me safe for myself, and for likes one me. Because people upholding racist, homophobic, transphobic views are not safe. If that means pointing to a resource where they - under their own name - embrace such views, and there is provable connection between the identity, and the real name, I won't hesitate to reveal it. For my own safety.

As far as I know - and I am glad to be corrected if I am wrong - no personal data has been revealed regarding the person with unacceptable views. So, "doxing" is yet another manipulation. And the way you have handled this item also says a lot about the priorities of your own values.

To put it clearly. You have fucked this situation deeply. And you need to rethink both: your values, and your moderation procedures.

And I believe the honest apology is due, to the user base, and - particularly - to Sweetluna.

Take your time, talk internally, and make a consistent statement, which will show your values and commitments clearly.

And a note for potential disputants. If I am factually wrong, feel free to correct me. I am not afraid to admit my own mistakes or ignorance. Not the first time, and not the last.

But if you are going to try to convince me to reinterpret facts known to me without providing factual background - please spare that both of us. I have made my mind.

#kdegate (I do not know, if I will participate in further discussion, as I have nothing more to add right now, but if that happens, I will use this tag - feel free to filter it out, if not interested).

Calling any of this brigading is pitiful. It's one thing to need to as a community consider a multitude of opinions, but you are discarding the opinions of users.

I'm not a developer. But i've still contributed to this community. I've turned people onto this software because i believed and had faith in it. So have hundreds of thousands of others. And this is a betrayal of that trust.

No, word-of-mouth support doesn't make me the most important person ever. But you're going to lose a lot of people to GNOME doing this. I was ready to stand back and do nothing so long as there was no policy implemented in the end- because there doesn't HAVE TO BE. You can leave it at a per-team, per-project basis.

But supporting and publishing and publicising this kind of narrative, that people expressing valuable opinions that dictate the flow of public support for KDE and its valuable initiatives is "brigading" is pitiful, and shows the priorities of the team managing this. All you had to do was nothing, and nothing would change. Projects would still accept or deny AI contributions at their own will and the community would self-moderate.

Instead you're speaking out in favor of something meaninglessly divisive that changes nothing, but resulted in these outlandish ideas that the USERS mean nothing anymore and should be ignored entirely.

If this doesn't get walked back, i will be leaving KDE, and i will be taking everyone i've gotten onto KDE and Plasma with me. And looking at these comments, i won't be close to the only person.

I didn't want this to be a matter of confrontation or good or evil, because like i said- all you had to do to win this issue was NOTHING. But speaking out in favor of and publicising such an ass-backwards, inflammatory opinion all stemming from a policy that has no teeth and doesn't change the circumstance at all, is a willing initiation of that confrontation.

I already left a comment about this, but something I'd really like to get clarified is what constitutes as "contributing" to KDE in the minds of the KDE development team. I feel that people who contribute to the greater KDE project and community through other elements than just source code are being unfairly dismissed as "brigaders", a military term which gives very different associations to me than "signing a calmly and professionally written open letter".

In other words - are KDE Contributors only those who can contribute code, or does it also include:

• Graphical artists, both who make 'separate' community works and who make the official graphics for KDE (also those who make themes, icon packs etc. for use in Plasma)
• Translators
• Testers, both in formal QA and in alpha/beta (and by extension people who report bugs)
• People who publically promote KDE
• People who write plugins, scripts, and applets to integrate into KDE Plasma
• People who help users solve KDE-related problems, both IRL and on forums
• People who organize physical gatherings related to KDE, be it for KDE 30th anniversary, hackerspaces, or "switching to linux"-events
• People who donate money and/or hardware to KDE
• People who write programs either for apps.kde.org or for otherwise being neatly integrated or intended for use in KDE Plasma
• People who actively partake in the discussion of how to further the KDE Project and its cause, both on official forums and on other forums

I'm generally speaking left with a very ill feeling after this. If the gold of free software lies in the community and not in the lines of written code, I highly feel that this should be adressed differently.

14. Two people unknown to any KDE contributors appeared and began fighting with one another about the broader topic of the morality of AI, not the proposed guidelines.
15. One of those people doxxed the other.
16. Comments on the draft proposal were locked to only KDE developers.
17. The person who doxxed the other was banned.

oh yeah cause pointing out the heinous shit someone said on twitter is "doxxing them" now. And sweetluna wasn't even part of the conversation before dropping that, so saying "One of those [two] people [fighting with each other about the broader topic of the morality of AI] doxxed the other" is just outright wrong.

19. Someone else outside of KDE set up kdeforpeople.com in an attempt to brigade KDE into banning LLMs.

remember guys!! organizing to effect change is brigading!! it's evil actually!!

That pages says "Neither the organizers nor the signees of this page condone harassment of anyone involved or in support of the above linked proposal.". Brigading is not the point of that site.

No one in FOSS is a cackling techbro… outside of maybe Omarchy. 😬

God I wish.