Re: inappropriate racist and other offensive material

[Scott Dier <dieman@ringworld.org>]

* user list <debian-user@icantbelieveimdoingthis.com> [020315 00:42]:
> Let's just say that this is a free-speech issue. The point is that free-speech

Lets just say this isn't a free speech issue and worry about policies
that restrict the sort of 'speech' that a maintainer could become
liable for.

I don't want to see RC bugs based around 'speech' and hours/months
wasted chainging the original intent of volunteers.  Is it a worthwhile
task to save our users from the evil of bad ideas?  Or is it a more
worthwhile task to just provide a extremely good System of Software.

Note I don't say Good Software.  People might imply that these bad ideas
are taken out of Bad Software before becoming Good Software.

These things might sound strange in a institution, but thats because
institution have been eroding our rights for ages, its about damn time
some institutions enhance our rights as Users, as Developers, and as
Software Contributors.

The Social Contract says that, "Our Priorities are Our Users and Free
Software".  Theres a bit after it that elaborates on this.  It states
that, "We will be guided by the needs of our users", however clarifies,
"..the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of
computing environment."  I feel that we are providing 'operation' to our
users in a 'computing environment', what I'm worried about is a widining
of this into 'social environment'.  That widining can easily create a
ton of work that impedes on that part of the contract, and a disservice
to many users.

-- 
Scott Dier <dieman@ringworld.org> http://www.ringworld.org/