Re: developer vs user wants
On Sun, Jul 28, 2002 at 01:53:42PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> Package: debian-jr
> Conflicts: limewire
>
> <g>
Ack! While realizing this is humour, I do feel I have to clear up a bit of a
misconception here that seems to be prevalent about Debian Jr. Our group is
not about censorship. We have a mandate to help administrators of
children's systems to configure them in a way that serves the needs of the
child users the best. But a Conflicts is stepping way beyond this mandate.
Unless there's a clear technical reason a package included in Debian Jr.
cannot coexist with some other package, you can rest assured that I will
never be an advocate of using hard-wired conflicts to keep children's
systems "safe" (although I don't have any problem with an administrator-
chosen list of conflicts assembled into a site-specific pseudo-package
via 'equivs' -- but that's an entirely different matter).
There are better ways of ensuring children have a "safe" computer
environment to work within than to simply build higher and stronger
"fences". Not the least important of these is vigilant supervision (which
has many other benefits as well, both to the child and guide). I will
always advocate these more effective methods first. But in the end, it is
the child's guide's choice as to what is suitable for a child to use or not
use. A conflicts takes away that choice and sets Debian Jr. up as the
"moral guardians" of our children. I emphatically reject that role!
Ben Armstrong (Debian Jr. project leader)
--
nSLUG http://www.nslug.ns.ca synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca
Debian http://www.debian.org synrg@debian.org
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