Re: Let's CENSOR it! (was: Uploaded anarchism 7.5-1 (source all) to master)
On Thu, 18 Mar, 1999, Branden Robinson wrote:
> I completely disagree.
>
> "We cannot allow a trend like this to start"? It already has. We have
> stuff like funny-manpages, and as I said before, the King James Bible.
funny-manpages is computer related.
>
> What aren't we going to let in, again? Inflammatory material? What about
> Project Gutenberg? Is Shakespeare allowed? What about _Ulysses_?
How about this then? [with random snips and comments]
$ dpkg -L miscfiles
/usr/doc/miscfiles/GNU-manifesto.gz - The GNU manifesto
/usr/doc/miscfiles/ascii.gz - ASCII codes referance table
/usr/doc/miscfiles/abbrevs.gen.gz - abbreviations used on the internet
/usr/doc/miscfiles/abbrevs.talk.gz - abbreviations in talk and live chat
/usr/doc/miscfiles/airport.gz - List of airports
/usr/doc/miscfiles/birthtoken.gz - stone and flower for each month.
/usr/doc/miscfiles/cities.dat.gz - List of cities
/usr/doc/miscfiles/inter.phone.gz - International phone codes
/usr/doc/miscfiles/languages.gz - ISO 639 Language specifications
/usr/doc/miscfiles/latin1.gz - ISO_8859-1:1987 character listing
/usr/doc/miscfiles/mailinglists.gz - GNU mailing lists
/usr/doc/miscfiles/na.phone.gz - North America phone codes
/usr/doc/miscfiles/operator.gz - c operators
/usr/doc/miscfiles/postal.codes.gz - USA state postal codes
/usr/doc/miscfiles/zipcodes.gz - USA Zip Codes
/usr/share/dict/web2.gz - Webster's Second International wordlist
/usr/share/dict/web2a.gz - Webster's Second Internations appendix
/usr/share/dict/connectives.gz - prepositions, pronouns, and the like
/usr/share/dict/propernames.gz - ???
/usr/share/state/us-constitution.gz - The US Constitution (Political?)
/usr/share/state/us-declaration.gz - The US Declaration (?)
/usr/share/rfc/std-index.txt.gz - Indexes of internet standardization docs
/usr/share/rfc/fyi-index.txt.gz - "
/usr/share/rfc/rfc-index.txt.gz - "
/usr/info/tasks.info.gz - The GNU task list
>
> Why *shouldn't* people be allowed to package politically oriented
> documents? Some folks outside our bizarre little niche of the world would
> find the GNU General Public License a pretty politically inflammatory
> document.
Definatly
>
> Who's going to be Debian's censor? I submit that no one should be. There
> is no objective criterion for evaluating the worth of documents in this
> fashion. I vote that we let it in. If this pains you, get about drafting
> some policy for that long-proposed super-extra section of the archive.
> There's lots of stuff that could go into it, and which would make room on
> future CD-ROM's of main.
Call it `data'.
> But if we're going to that, we MUST have unambigious rules about what will
> be categorically rejected from the distribution (as being non-germane to
> the purpose of an operating system). That means NO religious, political,
> ideological, or other tracts will be allowed in. I see no reason why
> packages like verse, or programs with similar function should be removed,
> as they are just that -- programs. The data files may not be included with
> the programs however.
Makes the programs pretty useless without there data files.
>
> This leaves fortune in a nasty place, though. fortune-mod could stay in
> for the same reason as verse, but what about the cookie files themselves?
> It's tempting to want them grandfathered in (the fortune program goes way,
> way back), but frankly I think it would be hypocritical of me to suggest
> this (regardless of how many fortune cookies are on computer science
> topics). If you're going to start a fire in your neighbor's yard, you have
> to accept the possibility that it will spread to yours.
A lot of the fortune cookies are computer releated.
$ fortune -f
100.00% /usr/share/games/fortunes
3.28% art
0.07% ascii-art
7.29% computers
8.13% cookie
7.88% definitions
1.48% drugs
1.45% education
1.16% ethnic
1.41% food
3.09% fortunes
0.39% goedel
1.40% humorists
1.07% kids
1.43% law
0.75% linuxcookie
1.83% literature
1.08% love
0.21% magic
0.53% medicine
4.15% men-women
4.60% miscellaneous
0.38% news
8.78% people
0.36% pets
3.55% platitudes
4.94% politics
0.96% riddles
4.44% science
5.13% songs-poems
1.05% sports
1.61% startrek
0.14% translate-me
2.87% wisdom
4.50% work
3.91% zippy
2.77% linux
1.95% perl
Well maybe not.
> But do address Yann's earlier question, yes, in the meantime its priority
> should be lowed to extra.
Have you tried reading it? Some of the principles are quit interesting and
could be appiled to Debian.
--
I consume, therefore I am
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