Backbytes: Open-source developers targeted in honeytraps, claims Eric Raymond

'Deliberately planned and persistent campaign to frame Linus and feed him to an outrage mob' - Raymond

Open-source luminary Eric Raymond has claimed that there is a concerted campaign to snare well-know open-source developers in "honey traps" - including multiple attempts to frame Linux creator Linus Torvalds.

The claims are made by Raymond in a blog posting, which quotes a conversation with an informant who suggests that Torvalds and other top open-source developers already try to protect themselves by never being left alone at public events, and being careful over who they mentor professionally.

"If my source is to be believed (and I have found him both well-informed and completely trustworthy in the past) this was not a series of misunderstandings, it was a deliberately planned and persistent campaign to frame Linus and feed him to an outrage mob," wrote Raymond.

His informant claimed: "Linus is never alone at any conference. This is not because he lets fame go to his head and likes having a posse around. They have made multiple runs at him."

He claimed that the "campaign" was run by the Ada Initiative, a group established in 2011 intended to support women in technology and culture. The group closed last month, according to its website.

Raymond continued: "Linus hasn't spoken out about this; I can think of several plausible and good reasons for that. And the Ada Initiative shut down earlier this year [but] I think it would be safest to assume that they are being replicated by other women-in-tech groups."