Re: CoC policy for package contents
On Mon, Jul 21, 2025 at 08:29:03AM -0400, The Wanderer wrote:
> On 2025-07-21 at 07:02, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
>
> > When I wrote the code of conduct, I did not make it explicit that I
> > thought it was not meant to apply to the contents of packages, but I
> > think that anyone who reads it can understand that this is the case by
> > the language used.
> >
> > However, I think it's clear by now that we need a project-wide consensus
> > on what policies apply to the contents of packages. This discussion
> > keeps popping up, and we don't really have a good answer, since we never
> > had a GR about the subject.
>
> <snip>
>
> > - The code of conduct applies to all program messages or documentation
> > texts that could be seen by a user in the normal use of a Debian
> > system, as well as to anything written by a Debian developer for the
> > Debian project. However, the following exceptions apply:
> > - Quotes by historic people when provided in appropriate context,
> > - Historic texts that are widely disemminated outside of Debian.
> >
> > The main paragraph mentions "program messages (...) that could be seen
> > by a user in the normal use of a Debian system", which does not
> > encompass things like offensive messages in source code comments, or
> > problematic variable names. This is not an accident; we are not the
> > morality police, and I think it serves no purpose for us to try to patch
> > out code of conduct-violating things in upstream source code. This is
> > not because I think things like that are not a problem; rather, because
> > I think it is a fight that should be fought upstream, not in Debian.
> > Meanwhile, we should not remove packages from Debian just because
> > there's one four-letter word directed at a particular person in a fringe
> > comment in a barely-used part of the source code.
> >
> > The first exception would allow for things like quotes from Mein Kampf
> > in a fortunes-off package
>
> I infer from the context here that you are intending that the fact of
> being included in a package whose name marks it as containing
> potentially-offensive material would be the "appropriate context"
> referenced by the rule. (If that is not correct, then the next paragraph
> or two would not be applicable.)
>
> However, it would be easy to argue that when the Mein Kampf quotes are
> presented by a call to 'fortune -o' or 'fortune -a', they are presented
> without *any* context, and therefore are not being provided "in an
> appropriate context".
Yes, good point. Let me reword the exception to say,
"Quotes by historic people when either provided in an appropriate
content, or when behavior contrary to these policies was explicitly
requested."
This leaves the "by historic people" part of the exception, even to
fortunes-off packages. I don't think we should be having a policy that
basically allows discriminatory remarks by any Tom, Dick or Harry who
found their way to IRC at some point in the past to make it through this
or our regular code of conduct.
[...]
> > or in a package that generally discusses the atrocities committed by
> > the Nazis and provides the quote for context; the second one would
> > allow things like religious texts or medieval literature.
>
> Would there be need to consider the definition of "historic" for these
> purposes?
Not in my opinion, no.
One thing I learned while drafting the original code of conduct is that
it's always OK, and sometimes sometimes beneficial, to be vague.
If you make up rules of human behavior, there will always be a bit of a
gray zone where it is not clear whether something is allowed, according
to the rules, or not. You can never hope to eliminate that gray zone
completely; you can only make it asymptotically smaller. However, every
time you try to do so, there are two things that will happen:
- Your text gets larger and larger, until it gets unwieldy
- The chance increases of the rules outlawing something that should not
be outlawed, or not outlawing something that should be.
Because of this, I think it is a better idea to have a definition that
uses terms that are generally understood while still having some leeway
in it.
The phrase "historic person" is generally understood to mean "a person
of note who lived some time ago". Plato is, today, a historic person. So
are Adolf Hitler, JFK, and Yassir Arafat. But my
great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Petrus Verhelst[1], is
not, because he was not "a person of note". The current US president,
whoever that is at the time of writing of a particular text, also not. I
don't know where the cutoff point is, and neither do you, and I think
that's a feature, not a bug.
[1] Thanks, uncle Jan, for doing the whole genealogy thing so I can say
this with confidence :-)
> Would that be a line that shifts forward as history
> progresses? Is there even an important value in the "historic" qualifier
> here, at least for the second exception, vs. letting that exception
> cover widely-disseminated texts more broadly?
I think "widely-disseminated texts" also covers "memes", and just
because a racist text became a meme in some despicable Internet subgroup
doesn't mean we should accept it in Debian.
--
w@uter.{be,co.za}
wouter@{grep.be,fosdem.org,debian.org}
I will have a Tin-Actinium-Potassium mixture, thanks.
Reply to: