On Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 02:39:31PM +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: > Quoting Julian Andres Klode (2022-03-31 12:31:18) > > Under 4.1.5 of the Constitution, the developers by way of GR are the > > body who has the power to issue nontechnical statements. > > This is a proposal for Debian to issue a statement on an > > issue of the day as given as an example, the recent invasion > > of Ukraine. > > ==== Text of GR ==== > > The Debian project issues the following statement: > > The Debian project strongly condemns the invasion of Ukraine by > > Russia. The Debian projects affirms that Ukrain is a souvereign > > nation which includes the Donbas regions of Luhansk, as well as > > Crimea, which has already been illegaly annexed by Russia. > No we don't - we care about our users, and our users include those who > do evil. I think this thread has largely petered out, with many people having laid out the reasons why Debian taking a public position on this is not necessarily a good idea. But I don't think it should go unadddressed that it's quite a bizarre twist to go from "our priorities are our users and Free Software" to "we care about evil users". "Our priorities are our users and Free Software" means that, in our decision making and our governance we should be oriented FIRST towards users and do what is good for the people who are using our software; and that our SECOND priority, only when not in conflict in the first, is to promote Free Software. That is far different from "people who are doing evil are using Debian, and therefore we should support them". Now, there are quite a lot of people who do evil and use Debian, most of which happens well outside the context of a geopolitical conflict. It is unrealistic to stop evil people from using Debian (or to stop Debian users from doing evil). But that doesn't mean people doing evil should somehow get a free pass from us because they are Debian users. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer https://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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