>>16109691
>Travis Brown
>@travisbrown
2 peas in a pod
Supporting Martin Odersky & Other Scala OSS Developers
I’m a technologist and a maker. I love to build. I am not interested in corporate politics or virtue signaling.
More than that, I believe most drama in tech is rooted in professional jealousy and personal insecurity.
I have no desire to participate in such drama. I’d rather focus on creating beautiful and amazing technology that changes the world for the better, and empowering others to do the same.
Yet, there comes a point when even pure technologists such as myself need to wade through the muck long enough to support our colleagues and peers.
For me, that time is now.
Travis Brown
An ex-Scala developer by the name ofTravis Brown has been obsessed with me since 2016, outraged that LambdaConf did not cave to the demands of his own organization, TypeLevel.
As organizer of LambdaConf, I made a decision to not override the vote of our minority speakers on whether a developer named Curtis Yarvin could speak about Urbit (his open source project), despite Yarvin’s alternate life as a pseudonymous neoreactionary political blogger. His proposal had previously been accepted by the double-blind committee based on merit, without my input.
Now, reasonable people can and do disagree with my decision, and I respect their perspectives, even when I do not always agree with them. I have learned a lot from the ordeal, and these days, with events like Functional Scala, I try to curate invitations to ensure these professional events remain focused solely on technology and not political drama.
That said, what could have been a one-time statement from Travis Brown became a never-ending and escalating dark obsession. With each new talk I gave in the Scala community, with each person I mentored, and with each open source library I contributed to, Travis Brown’s rage grew.
Over the course of nearly half a decade, this blind rage has crossed numerous ethical, professional, and even legal lines, including:
Cyberstalking.Travis Brown meticulously tracks all my public posts, likes, and shares across all social media platforms (Github, Twitter, etc.), archives them permanently (without my consent, and against the terms of service of these organizations, and against data protection laws in some countries), and then posts them online with his own grotesque and twisted interpretations.
Career Sabotage. Travis Brown attempted to cancel my business partnerships, and tried to bully technology events to stop inviting me to give talks. Travis Brown was unsuccessful in these attempts, except for SkillsMatter, which canceled my joint keynote with Wiem Zine Elabidine, but soon imploded after a torrent of backlash against their decision.
Online Harassment. Travis Brown directly and specifically targets me in numerous online posts, usually in an inflammatory, aggressive, and sometimes verbally abusive fashion, which results in his followers attacking me. This behavior is sometimes called “trolling”, but make no mistake, Travis Brown’s “trolling” is a form of online harassment.
Defamation. Travis Brown has consistently and repeatedly made false statements about me with the intent to damage my reputation. I am a liberal, with a strong track record of supporting LGBT+ rights, working against prejudice, and donating significant time and money to help disadvantaged individuals break into tech. I have succeeded in creating one of the most diverse open source communities in the Scala community, and I have no tolerance for prejudiced behavior in spaces I managed. Despite this, Travis Brown consistently paints me as an “alt-right supporter”, or worse.
None of this behavior is ever remotely acceptable. In fact, not only is it unacceptable, but it should always be condemned, in the strongest possible terms.
Yet, due to my reluctance to wade into drama, and due to my desire to remain completely focused on technology, I have largely ignored this abusive behavior from Travis Brown.
Indeed, I would have continued to ignore his behavior indefinitely.
As a leader in open source and the CEO of a technology company, I expect to be criticized for decisions that I make, and it is my responsibility to hear that criticism. Given my visibility, I expect not only to be criticized, but to be insulted, harassed, stalked, and even defamed.
However, even I have my limits, and two weeks ago, when Travis Brown started attacking Martin Odersky and personal friends of mine, it crossed a line.
Now is the time for me to speak up. Not in my own defense, but in defense of others.
https://degoes.net/articles/travis-brown-abuser