Re: inappropriate racist and other offensive material
On Sun, 17 Mar 2002, Lex Spoon wrote:
> tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) wrote:
> > "Lex Spoon" <lex@debian.org> writes:
> >
> > > Second, is it acceptible to sanitize offensive programs as they are
> > > packaged? I'm strongly against this one. I'd like Debian packages to
> > > reflect the upstream author's intent as much as possible.
> >
> > It is the Debian developer's choice.
> >
> > The developer can choose to alter the package, or not, as he sees
> > fit. You are proposing a serious restriction on developers, and I for
> > one would be *most* upset.
> >
> > Upstream sources do *not* have a right to demand or even expect that
> > Debian will do whatever they want, either technically or politically.
> > At present, those decisions are nearly always the responsibility of
> > the relevant Debian developer, and this is as it should be.
>
> Well I'm glad we had this discussion. I'm clearly outnumbered, but I
> don't know why. I never said anything about *upstream* demanding
> anything of us. I'm just wondering what we should demand of ourselves.
> This is as technical an issue as demanding DFSG compliance, and it seems
> moderately important to me: authorship is important in for open source.
While there are many folks whom seem hell-bent on saving the world by
bending the terms of the DFSG to become censors and human agents of their
deity of choice, I doubt that you're outnumbered.
The people who want to yell and be heard are doing just that. But there
are a fair number of Debian developers (ok, at least one) who believe that
the value of packaging is to do a good job of integrating upstream with
our fine distribution. Period. I view maintainership as a purely
technical task, and since I force no one to run Debian, and prevent no one
from modifying it to suit their policical/social/religious mores, I feel
no compulsion to pass judgement on the non-technical aspects of my
packages.
All that being said, I think your point is quite interesting. Let's say
we do "sanitize" packages? When will we get to the point where the bitchx
upstream folks tell us just where to stick it? They may rightfully
request that we fork the code before they come after us for using their
name and the name of their software on something so icky and clean. I
don't really understand, why, with all the work there is to do, folks see
the need to start a crusade. But then again, maybe we just needed
something (else) to divert our attention from the release of woody.
/me dons 4mil asbestos and dusts off his killfile...
tony
--
When in doubt, tell the truth.
-- Mark Twain
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