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Re: Censorship in Debian



Christian Kastner <ckk@kvr.at> writes:

> We agree on this: Debian's is a (very!) limited form of government.
> However, I argue that censorship is within these limits.

Debian doesn't even have enough legal existence to open a bank account,
let alone apply even the lightest form of coercion to someone.

How is that anything like a government?

There is no territory or jurisdiction into which one can stumble by
mistake and find oneself suddenly within the zone of influence of
Debian.

There's not even any way of persuading the people with the job titles in
Debian to do anything if they happen to lose interest for some reason.

The only real sanction that can be exercised in the name of the project
is the removal of a previously granted privilege.

Since those privileges are not rights, one cannot demand that they be
maintained or even really expect them to be maintained, since they all
depend upon donations in one way or another, where those donations are
certainly not guaranteed to continue indefinitely.

Alleging that removal of such privileges amounts to an infringement of
rights[1] simply makes no sense.

Cheers, Phil.

[1] using the word "censorship" suggests a belief in a right to demand
syndication for one's blog, which is not a right I'm aware of.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands  [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]  HANDS.COM Ltd.
|-|  http://www.hands.com/    http://ftp.uk.debian.org/
|(|  Hugo-Klemm-Strasse 34,   21075 Hamburg,    GERMANY

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