* David D.W. Downey (david-downey@codecastle.com) [020314 20:45]: > Your use of a distribution does NOT NOT NOT preclude YOU YOU YOU from being > socially an parentially responsible for ensuring your daughter does not see, > hear, or become exposed to any software or real world items you don't want > her to see. YOU are the irresponsible party IF you di NOT first check the > software that was installed BEFORE allowing her to viewor use it. It's also his right, if not duty, to make Debian be the best Debian it can be. If a simple change can make it more appropriate for his daughter and daughters around the world, great! If everyone who found something they'd like changed about Debian just said "Fuck it, it's not perfect; I'll use something else," we'd have no users. Someone saw something he thought could be improved and filed a bug report. Where's the harm in that? He didn't just say "Well, I guess Debian is a racist distro. Back to windows with me!" The beauty of our system is that it is run by the community, and that it is free to be changed. He did what he could to improve Debian rather than just walking away from it. > I had an incident where my son came home from kindegarten saying the word > nigger. When asked where he heard that he said the teacher. I tore down to > that school so fast it wasn't funny. I berated the school for allowing such > comments to be said in front of my child and then promptly disenrolled him > and placed him in a different school. THAT is MY reponsibility, if I do not > like the way the school does something **I** have the responsibility to > change it. NOw, yes, the school does as well since they are a school of You didn't just walk away from the school. First you went and told them what you thought they did wrong. Similarly, someone saw something he thought was being done wrong in Debian and brought the issue to discussion. The difference here is that instead of giving up all hope for Debian, the forces of good prevailed. The bug was accepted and fixed, and for it, Debian is a better distribution, more suitable for use by more people (including children and schools, and even corporations with strict sensitivity regulations). If the maintainer had just said "No, fuck off. I'll include whatever racist remarks I want in my package," he's entitled to do so. But that would probably be the point where I'd start to lose faith in Debian. So far I think I trust the maintainers to do what's in the best interest of the Debian project, to the best of their abilities. > My entire point in this is, IT IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF DEBIN GNU/LINUX > TO POLICE OR MONITOR PACKAGE CONTENTS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH YOUR SOCIAL AND > PERSONAL VALUE SYSTEMS. Nope. But is it the responsibility of Debian GNU/Linux to actively defend racist content? I'm not saying we shouldn't be allowed to distribute whatever we want. I'm just saying it's not in our best interests. Nor is it our responsibility to blindly include everything that comes from upstream authors at all costs. Someone brought it to our attention; shouldn't we be compelled to correct this oversight? Nobody said "and don't let it happen again! Go examine every package and make sure you don't offend anybody!" If someone (or a large group of people, as in this case) lets you know that something is offensive to them, and it doesn't cost you anything to change it, where's the harm in that? > Now, can we PLEASE, for the love of (your deity or lack thereof here), end > this thread? <sarcasm> Who are you, the thread police? It's not our responsibility to make sure every posting on this list fits your ideas of what's "on-topic". If you don't like it, YOU YOU YOU can unsubscribe. </sarcasm> Really, there's only one way for this thread to die. I'll give you a hint: it's the exact opposite of what I'm doing right now. good times, Vineet -- Currently seeking opportunities in the SF Bay Area Please see http://www.doorstop.net/resume/
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