When is a political view too strong to be compatible with Debian Participation
>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> writes:
Thomas> The point is: is there some restrictions on political views
Thomas> that the Debian community/project would like to enforce?
Yes, I think this is a topic worth discussing.
There has been a motion in the free software community to focus more on
the ethics of our software.
I.E. not working on defense systems and the like.
I've seen more focus on this at free software conferences.
Interestingly, such restrictions fairly clearly fail both the DFSG and
the OSD.
And so I think that while that's a live issue in the community and worth
discussing,
you'll find that most Debian contributors (because of the DFSG) like you
do not favor such restrictions in Debian.
There are doubtless exceptions.
BUT one of those things went further than that, and I think is a lot
more interesting to discuss in the Debian context.
Thomas> What if I were fighting against same sex marriage?
The issue here is that we as a project have adopted a Code of Conduct
and a Diversity Statement and we want to be welcoming to people,
regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and a number of
other characteristics.
I think it is well settled that you cannot fight against same-sex
marriage in your Debian work.
Doing so is inconsistent with our diversity statement.
The interesting question is what happens when you fight against same-sex
marriage outside your Debian work.
Queer members of our community have told us they don't feel very welcome
when they are working alongside people who are working to deny them what
they view as basic rights like marriage.
I'll certainly tell you that's true for myself.
It's really hard to be welcomed when you're standing with people who
don't acknowledge your humanity.
and for basic stuff like the right to marry, being treated as your
gender, using the bathroom, and a whole bunch of other stuff,
disagreements do come across as denying your humanity.
But there's a question about how far activities outside of Debian should
interact with activities inside of Debian.
Some people have argued that positions like fighting against same-sex
marriage are so strong that even if you keep them outside of Debian, we
inherently create a community that is not welcoming to queers by
welcoming people who take those positions (even outside of their Debian
work).
Others have taken the position that we should only judge what people
do within their Debian work.
My suspicion is there is not a project consensus on this point.
I don't even know if there is a consensus within the community team, or
within the union of the community team and delegated members of the
account managers.
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