moon-lander "offensive" messages: a Debian Jr. perspective
While moon-lander is not currently a part of the Debian Jr. offering, it
could be. By all accounts it appears to be a fun and perfectly suitable
for children game. Nevertheless, inclusion in Debian Jr. at this point
would be saying "we, the Debian Jr. developers, feel this package is
suitable for use with children of all ages". I think that's a precarious
position to put ourselves in, so I would omit it in its current state.
Why not just send this suggestion upstream? I'm sure they never meant to
offend anyone or even considered the implications when it came to
recommending this software for children:
Please consider finding an alternative for the message
that includes the word "shit" in your game, as Debian Jr.,
a sub-project within Debian is trying to come up with a
list of software they recommend for use with children, and
except for this one message, your package is a good
candidate.
If you feel that changing this word detracts from the game,
or that some users may prefer this message over an alternative,
then you might solve the problem by making the "offensive"
message an alternative either at compile or installation
time. This would allow projects like Debian Jr. to include
an alternative version of the package (e.g. moon-lander-jr)
without the "offensive" message. (I use quotes because the
judgement of what is offensive and what isn't is entirely
subjective.)
Thanks,
etc.
How about it? This should silence the cries of "censorship" while
intelligently addressing the legitimate concerns of a narrow subgroup of
users of Debian.
Ben Armstrong <synrg@debian.org> (project leader for Debian Jr.)
--
nSLUG http://www.nslug.ns.ca synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca
Debian http://www.debian.org synrg@debian.org
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