Much to my confusion and dismay, I am again being dragged down by this bloated sea creature that just won’t leave me alone. Since my last post about them, I have attempted to distance myself from anything FOSS. A few months ago I finally went back to posting a bit on fedi, and that seems to have been a huge mistake.
January 23, 2023:
Funkwhale posts an announcement of their intent to hire their maintainer. This will become important later, I was only made aware of it today.
February 10th, 2023:
The maintainer of Funkwhale decides to get into a conversation with me about social media moderation. He for some reason decides to argue with me about people doing free labor.
As soon as I realize who this is, I tell him to go fuck himself. The audacity is still astounding to me.
He then claims he “wasn’t fully aware of this”. Which, yes he was, as we were in email contact back in 2021, remember? The guy claiming he doesn’t know how to organize funding? Keep remembering that January 23 post.
So usually when you tell someone to go fuck themselves, this means you want them to leave you alone and take their shame with them. But no. This one had to be weird.
February 17, 2023:
I get an email from the previous maintainer of Funkwhale, CCed with the current maintainer and another member of the group.
Georg, the new project manager, and I would like to discuss paying
for your unpaid work at the time. We know it’s happening way too
late, and it doesn’t adress other issues you raised, but maybe it
could help anyway?
They included a calculation of the money already paid and the pay that was due:
leaving 8000€ unpaid.
I was astounded, as tech people offering to pay shit they owe is pretty wild, but also incredibly wary. I kept my reply brief, confirming the amounts I had been paid matched my records.
I would agree with those calculations. I would of course gladly accept any and all money offered, as I live solely on donations week to week. Thanks.
February 18, 2023:
I was sent a reply that included a payment plan for that 8000 euros:
1500 now, 2000 “most likely” in April, and
The remaining 4500 € will be sent to you during this year
Anyone who has ever been owed money knows that chasing people down trying to get it is usually not worth it. I say this as someone who gave up trying to get the money from my ex-husband that he legally owed me. I don’t have the time, the resources, or the temperament for it.
And so with that in mind, I requested a harder date SIMPLY FOR INFORMATION. I again want to stress how much I have not once ASKED for ANY MONEY in this situation. I sought out no one. I have simply agreed they owe me a figure they themselves came to me with:
I’d like an update by email on remaining 4500 by July 1, 2023, whether that ends up being able to be paid then or not, so I am not left waiting until Dec 31 asking questions. If that needs to be smaller installments or something, we can revisit it then.
Along with this, I sent my payment information.
1500 was sent to me that same day, before any response to my questions. The payment plan was not agreed on. This bit is important.
And here is where we go right off the rails again. The current maintainer, Georg, decides to jump in and email me directly.
I fully understand you don’t want to be asking for the money again and again and I hope you don’t have to… no promises can’t be made about the time of the payment, however I will try my best to get those 8000 paid this year.
Instead of getting closer to an agreement, he’s now backtracked with words like “hope” and “try” and “no promises”.
Dear reader, I must ask you, because this makes me feel absolutely crazy. Why would you email someone you know is poor telling them you are going to give them money (that is owed to them!) and then immediately backtrack your initial offer.
February 19, 2023:
My response:
I don’t feel comfortable with statements like this. In one email it went from definitely paying me to trying your best. I am very uncomfortable with this discussion happening in private now that I am getting this kind of pushback on due dates. Maybe this is something that has to be discussed in public since it involves Funkwhale’s funding.
I’ve gotten no response from any of the three recipients.
However, Georg has had time to post to his Mastodon account to complain more about how hard diversity in tech is for privileged people. Remember that first link up at the top, this is the already self-confessed privileged person who quit his job because he’s now getting himself paid.
This is so funny in a wow I kind of want to cry or maybe punch a wall because he doesn’t understand that he’s showing just how financially secure he must be to be this cavalier and wishy-washy with another person’s financial expectations, especially someone he knows is poor. And for the love of all things sane, people paying me money they owe me is not a favor they are doing for me, and making loose promises about it is even less helpful.
All I’ve seen from this dude is that he’s willing to lie about things, and comes off as incredibly immature. This is nothing new in FOSS, or any tech project. I’ve been fucked out of money on every single one I’ve ever been involved with. But I’ve never been fucked out of money, then a year and a half later told “you were right, we do owe you money” when I didn’t even ask, just to attempt to string me along further. This is a new type of fucked up. No one asked for any of this.
I don’t know if the rest of that money will ever materialize. I just know that screwing around with me like this makes no sense from any angle I can work out. If this was an attempt to make Funkwhale look better, it’s not working. If there is anyone left at Funkwhale with any sense, they need to come get their boy.
As of posting this, I have not received a response to my last email on the 19th.
UPDATE: 2/22/2023
I was sent an email by the previous maintainer this evening. Funny what hitting publish does.
I really wish they would just be honest with me and say “I’m taking over talking for Georg because he’s clearly a fucking fool, and we apologize for continuing to subject you and anyone who meets him to his god damn nonsense.” Instead it’s a defense of him with not an apology in sight.
This was my reply:
“Georg’s message was simply a way to emphasise that commitment.”
It really, really wasn’t.
And you can argue intent or language barrier or whatever you want, but the entire exchange is riddled with “hope” and “try” and “no promises”. I’ve run this and all of Georg’s emails and posts by enough people to feel confident in my analysis of the situation. All I did was ask for information on a specific date. His response made no sense. The lack of reply since Sunday only reinforces what I said. I have no reason to trust this person.This isn’t just a response to one email either. Every time this guy has emailed me, he tries to make it sound like he’s some innocent baby who doesn’t know things, even when he’s clearly contradicting the truth. It’s been over a year and a half since his last emails to me. He still doesn’t know better? He claims he can’t organize income for people, but he’s quitting his job because he’s getting paid. None of this adds up and I’m tired of finding out new shit.
This is coupled with the multiple ridiculous things he’s been posting on fedi. If you are concerned about what this looks like for Funkwhale, you should be 1000x more concerned with empty-headed nonsense Georg continues to do than whatever I might have to say about the situation. Or is your maintainer complaining about diversity and paying people just the brand now? It doesn’t matter if it’s malicious or he’s just deeply oblivious, the effect is the same, and the insult to the rest of us is the same.
If you wanna pay me, do it. If you don’t, don’t. I’m tired of explaining to people what it is to fuck around with poor people’s finances. You have my payment details. I don’t need any more email updates or replies.
Something something whale gun.
I consider this issue closed. If these payments show up, I’ll update this post.
May 15, 2023: Payments have been made. I hope I never hear from any of these people or quite frankly any FOSS project ever again. I truly hate you all. 🙂
