Re: Content Rating System in Debian
On 25/06/19 14.31, Philip Hands wrote:
Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@gmail.com> writes:
Russ Allbery:
It sounds like a whole ton of work to get a useful amount of coverage (not
to mention bothering upstreams with questionnaires that I suspect many of
them would find irritating -- I certainly would with my upstream hat on),
and I'm not clear on the benefit. Do you have some reason to believe that
this is a common request by users of Debian? If so, could you share with
us why you believe that?
I'm discussing about CRS inspired from Google Play.
Do Google Play not pay IARC for this?
I would assume that there is a fee that covers IARC's costs in running
the service, which is then paid out of the profit that Google makes on
the games.
What is it going to cost us to get 'bison' rated PG? Why is this useful?
Also, it seems clear to me that the same game in all Linux disros is
very likely to get the same rating, so this would be better done as a
distribution agnostic level, preferably by someone that makes a profit
from games or content anyway.
For instance, I'd imagine that Steam have some sort of rating mechanism,
which might even use IARC already, so one might be able to achieve this
aim by talking to them about getting access to their system somehow, and
perhaps getting them to include things in their database that they don't
actually distribute themselves.
One might imagine that one could buy a subscription to their rating
database, say. Alternatively, parents who are interested might simply
decide to subscribe to Steam if Steam provided a package that allowed
subscribers to see the ratings for packages they were about to install.
(I'm only saying Steam here because they've been quite Debian friendly
AFAIK, but there's nothing stopping anyone else offering such ratings as
a service to Debian users).
Asking Debian to do it seems like it's just asking for trouble -- what
happens when a child is traumatised by content that most people find
completely innocuous in a package we've not yet got round to rating?
Cheers, Phil.
I don't know whether Google Play and Steam pay IARC or not, but if they do, the fee would be so expensive that Debian
can't afford (unless we're RedHat or similar). Also, to implement CRS, major overhaul to packaging system (apt/dpkg)
and user accounts need to be done in order to accommodate CRS. But CRS can give users insight about maturity of
packages. So if sysadmins (parents in home networks) is about to install Apache HTTPD or other packages, they need to
answer whether the packages are appropriate for their users' age or not. In multi-user setups (such as in servers)
CRS can be a problem, because although majority of users are adults (18+), there are possibilities that children (7+)
or teens (12+) also use such packages. Some packages might recommend Parental Guidance (PG) but it is not possible in
server setups.
I'm agree that CRS should be done on distribution-independent manner. This means that upstream file rating request to
IARC in order to get their programs rated. Distributions (Debian/Ubuntu, RedHat, etc.) then package programs which have
been rated. In Google Play, rating process is slightly different: upstream upload their applications/games to Google
Play, then they fill rating questionnaire provide by Google Play and send it to IARC.
Regardless, for CRS, we need a CRS system that is cross-distribution that can be implemented to package managers and
user administration tools on most distributions.
Erm, not 'PG' -- I meant whatever the "Anyone can watch this" label is.
In IARC classification, that is 3+ (for anyone as long as they are not toddlers).
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