Hi, On Sun, Feb 16, 2003 at 02:13:35PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Sun, Feb 16, 2003 at 06:48:32PM +0100, Russell Coker wrote: > > > I further object against any accusations that Ruediger will ever > > > implement harmful or datalosing code intentional. > > > > Why wouldn't he? He has not expressed any plans to avoid doing it again or > > any remorse for it. The problem is that there are three completely different `it's involved: 1. the action as taken by Rüdiger; 2. expressing remorse for 1 or lack thereof; and 3. implementing harmful code (i.e. involving harm outside the not-functioning of the package itself; also note that in this case a solution was presented immediately by the message). > Emile and Rico, it's important to take the whole situation into account: > his action and his subsequent attitude. If he had simply admitted wrongdoing > and apologized, I think more people would be willing to agree with you. He > did not. True, but that doesn't change the fact that 1, 2, and 3 above have /very/ little to do with each other, and that 1 and 2 have no predictive value for the likeliness of 3, especially because I consider that in a completely different league. I'm not saying in any way that 1 was all that nice, and of course the trust placed by debian in its upstream author is harmed, because a maintainer packages the code based on certain assumptions with respect to the (intended) behaviour of the code. However, the harm stops at this trust, because most DFSG-free licenses have this nice disclaimer: no warranty of any kind, including fitness for any particular purpose. Russell, that's also why I think your examples of developers going to jail because the code behaved intentionally different from what people were led to expect are nice, but IMHO not that relevant here. Cheers, Emile. -- E-Advies / Emile van Bergen | emile@e-advies.info tel. +31 (0)70 3906153 | http://www.e-advies.info
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