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Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm?

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  Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-11-19 16:10 +0100
    Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> - 2022-11-19 17:40 +0100
    Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Dominik George <natureshadow@debian.org> - 2022-11-19 17:40 +0100
      Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> - 2022-11-19 21:50 +0100
        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-11-19 22:10 +0100
        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Dominik George <natureshadow@debian.org> - 2022-11-19 23:20 +0100
          Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-11-20 01:00 +0100
            Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2022-11-20 12:00 +0100
              Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> - 2022-11-20 14:20 +0100
              Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-11-20 21:50 +0100
                Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "Roberto A. Foglietta" <roberto.foglietta@gmail.com> - 2022-11-20 22:30 +0100
                  Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Michael Neuffer <neuffer@neuffer.com> - 2022-11-20 23:00 +0100
                    Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Mattia Rizzolo <mattia@debian.org> - 2022-11-20 23:30 +0100
                      Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Michael Neuffer <neuffer@neuffer.com> - 2022-11-21 00:50 +0100
                        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> - 2022-11-21 01:00 +0100
                          Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "Roberto A. Foglietta" <roberto.foglietta@gmail.com> - 2022-11-21 03:20 +0100
                            Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-11-21 08:10 +0100
                            Aw: Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Steffen Möller <steffen_moeller@gmx.de> - 2022-11-21 16:10 +0100
                          Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-11-21 03:20 +0100
                            Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-11-21 08:10 +0100
                            Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> - 2022-11-22 04:50 +0100
                        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org> - 2022-11-21 17:40 +0100
                          Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2022-11-21 18:00 +0100
                          Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Hanno 'Rince' Wagner <wagner@debian.org> - 2022-11-21 18:10 +0100
                          Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-11-21 19:10 +0100
                      Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org> - 2022-11-21 03:10 +0100
                      Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Tiago Bortoletto Vaz <tiago@debian.org> - 2022-11-21 03:10 +0100
                  Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2022-11-21 11:40 +0100
                    Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> - 2022-12-14 00:00 +0100
                      Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-12-14 10:10 +0100
                        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org> - 2022-12-14 18:50 +0100
                          Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "Roberto A. Foglietta" <roberto.foglietta@gmail.com> - 2022-12-14 22:40 +0100
                        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> - 2022-12-14 23:10 +0100
                      Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "Roberto A. Foglietta" <roberto.foglietta@gmail.com> - 2022-12-14 10:10 +0100
                Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> - 2022-11-21 00:50 +0100
                  Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2022-11-21 06:00 +0100
                  Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-11-21 08:10 +0100
                    Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Sam Hartman <hartmans@suchdamage.org> - 2022-11-21 16:10 +0100
                      Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-11-21 21:30 +0100
                        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? nick black <dankamongmen@gmail.com> - 2022-11-21 23:00 +0100
                        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-11-22 06:50 +0100
                          Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> - 2022-12-17 20:20 +0100
                            Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-12-18 23:20 +0100
                              Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-12-19 06:30 +0100
                              Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-12-19 17:40 +0100
                              Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> - 2022-12-20 18:00 +0100
                Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2022-11-21 11:40 +0100
      Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2022-11-21 23:10 +0100
        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-11-22 07:00 +0100
        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Alexander Reichle-Schmehl <alexander@alphamar.org> - 2022-11-22 10:50 +0100
    Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Judit Foglszinger <urbec@riseup.net> - 2022-11-20 12:00 +0100
      Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> - 2022-11-20 12:20 +0100
        Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm? David Prévot <david@tilapin.org> - 2022-11-20 15:50 +0100
    Re: Removing software because we disagree with its values Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2022-11-20 21:50 +0100
      Re: Removing software because we disagree with its values "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-11-20 22:00 +0100
        Re: Removing software because we disagree with its values Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2022-11-20 22:30 +0100
        Re: Removing software because we disagree with its values Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> - 2022-11-21 00:00 +0100
        Re: Removing software because we disagree with its values Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org> - 2022-11-21 03:10 +0100
      Re: Removing software because we disagree with its values Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> - 2022-11-20 23:40 +0100

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#13044 — Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm?

All,

This is in the context of a mail to the Community Team raising a query about
fortunes-off - the fortune cookie database that contains offensive fortunes.

The specific query was about Nazi quotes from someone in Europe - I don't
believe our database currently contains these, as they were purged from the
BSD package from which ours is derived but I would be prepared to be very
wrong here. 

The point was made that if the database did contain Nazi quotes / a swastika
it might make it illegal to host the content on mirrors in at least Germany
or Austria.

The database dates back to 1997 or so - I note one of the upstream maintainers
from around that time (Amy Lewis) having concerns about fortunes-offensive
categories.

This database contains some quotes categories that probably don't fit in with
our Debian values or general societal values 25 years on - ethnic, homophobia
and a few others. 

This does raise the wider question: we're about to freeze for Bookworm.
Removing leaf packages and packages with a small user count might be profitable
at this point. Fortune-mod has some bugs at the moment preventing testing
transition and has had several NMUs prior to the latest upload.

Would it be a good idea to at least remove fortunes-off and the corresponding
data file for Bookworm at this point and going forwards?
It saves a tiny amount of space and a few translations and represents a small
simplification of Debian at minimal cost.

We don't have to ship the whole world of data just because it's available: if
anyone wants to package their own collections of fortune quotes for themselves, the instructions are readily available to do so on the 'Net.

Your thoughts, please.

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#13045

On Saturday, November 19, 2022 9:52:08 AM EST Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> All,
> 
> This is in the context of a mail to the Community Team raising a query about
> fortunes-off - the fortune cookie database that contains offensive
> fortunes.
> 
> The specific query was about Nazi quotes from someone in Europe - I don't
> believe our database currently contains these, as they were purged from the
> BSD package from which ours is derived but I would be prepared to be very
> wrong here.
> 
> The point was made that if the database did contain Nazi quotes / a swastika
> it might make it illegal to host the content on mirrors in at least Germany
> or Austria.
> 
> The database dates back to 1997 or so - I note one of the upstream
> maintainers from around that time (Amy Lewis) having concerns about
> fortunes-offensive categories.
> 
> This database contains some quotes categories that probably don't fit in
> with our Debian values or general societal values 25 years on - ethnic,
> homophobia and a few others.
> 
> This does raise the wider question: we're about to freeze for Bookworm.
> Removing leaf packages and packages with a small user count might be
> profitable at this point. Fortune-mod has some bugs at the moment
> preventing testing transition and has had several NMUs prior to the latest
> upload.
> 
> Would it be a good idea to at least remove fortunes-off and the
> corresponding data file for Bookworm at this point and going forwards?
> It saves a tiny amount of space and a few translations and represents a
> small simplification of Debian at minimal cost.
> 
> We don't have to ship the whole world of data just because it's available:
> if anyone wants to package their own collections of fortune quotes for
> themselves, the instructions are readily available to do so on the 'Net.
> 
> Your thoughts, please.

Binary was dropped three days ago:

https://tracker.debian.org/news/1385116/accepted-fortune-mod-11991-72-source-amd64-all-into-unstable/

Scott K

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#13046

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

> The specific query was about Nazi quotes from someone in Europe - I don't
> believe our database currently contains these, as they were purged from the
> BSD package from which ours is derived but I would be prepared to be very
> wrong here. 
> 
> The point was made that if the database did contain Nazi quotes / a swastika
> it might make it illegal to host the content on mirrors in at least Germany
> or Austria.

❯ apt source fortunes-off
Leser pakkelister ... Ferdig
MERK: «fortunes-off»-pakker blir vedlikeholdt i versjonskontrollsystemet «Git» på:
git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/fortune-mod.git
Brug venligst:
git clone git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/fortune-mod.git
for at hente de seneste (muligvis ikke udgivet) opdateringer til pakken.
Trenger å skaffe 2 124 kB fra kildekodearkivet.
Hent:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid/main fortune-mod 1:1.99.1-7.1 (dsc) [2 071 B]
Hent:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid/main fortune-mod 1:1.99.1-7.1 (tar) [1 812 kB]
Hent:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid/main fortune-mod 1:1.99.1-7.1 (diff) [309 kB]
Hentet 2 124 kB på 0s (4 918 kB/s)
dpkg-source: info: extraherar fortune-mod i fortune-mod-1.99.1
dpkg-source: info: packar upp fortune-mod_1.99.1.orig.tar.gz
dpkg-source: info: packar upp fortune-mod_1.99.1-7.1.debian.tar.bz2
dpkg-source: info: använder patchlista från debian/patches/series
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar datfiles.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar readme.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar todo.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar man.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar fortune.c.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar fortune-clean.py.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar shortcut_cookie_lists_build_system.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar typo_in_manpage.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar respect_buildflags.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar gcc_warnings.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar fortunes.steve_jobs.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar quotes_not_properly_divided.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar dennis-ritchie.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar search_LOCFORTDIR_even_if_LANG_not_set.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar remove_backspaces.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar rochefoucauld.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar irish_ballad.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar corbet.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar typo.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar manpage_bugs.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar songs-poems.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar mark_twain.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar autocad.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar lawyers.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar politics.diff
dpkg-source: info: tillämpar off-wrong-man.diff
❯ grep -ri "Mein Kampf" fortune-mod-1.99.1/datfiles | wc -l
52


The question is not whether hosting is illegal (I don't think it is).

The question is whether we promote Nazi ideology or not. And the
answer is clearly "No", and that is a fact, not sumething that is up
for discussion.

-nik

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#13048

On Sat, Nov 19, 2022 at 05:31:56PM +0100, Dominik George wrote:
> 
> The question is not whether hosting is illegal (I don't think it is).
> 
> The question is whether we promote Nazi ideology or not. And the
> answer is clearly "No", and that is a fact, not sumething that is up
> for discussion.
> 
Right, and has has been discussed before (more times than can be
counted, most likely) having some sort of content does not imply that
the ideology itself is promoted.  The presence of the texts of the
Torah, the Christian Bible, the Quran, and other holy books in Debian
does not mean that Debian as an organization supports all of the various
ideologies entailed therein.

Neither does the presence of the anarchism and fortune-anarchism
packages mean that the Debian project supports anarchy.

In other words, lets at least be consistent.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez

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#13049

On Sat, Nov 19, 2022 at 03:39:14PM -0500, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 19, 2022 at 05:31:56PM +0100, Dominik George wrote:
> > 
> > The question is not whether hosting is illegal (I don't think it is).
> > 
> > The question is whether we promote Nazi ideology or not. And the
> > answer is clearly "No", and that is a fact, not sumething that is up
> > for discussion.
> > 
> Right, and has has been discussed before (more times than can be
> counted, most likely) having some sort of content does not imply that
> the ideology itself is promoted.  The presence of the texts of the
> Torah, the Christian Bible, the Quran, and other holy books in Debian
> does not mean that Debian as an organization supports all of the various
> ideologies entailed therein.
> 

It may be a fact that we don't promote Nazism but the presence of Nazi texts
may itself be problematic to some people. There are other elements in
fortunes-off which are perhaps inappropriate within Debian.

It may be that fortunes-off doesn't constitute a corpus of (optional)
text that is worth retention? The fashion for fortunes has rather
disappeared in the last 25 years, after all.

> Neither does the presence of the anarchism and fortune-anarchism
> packages mean that the Debian project supports anarchy.
> 

It could be argued that the Bible, Koran and anarchism texts are a corpus
of study texts - 51 quotes from Mein Kampf maybe not justifiable as such?

> In other words, lets at least be consistent.
> 
> Regards,
> 

With every good wish, as ever,

Andy Cater

> -Roberto
> 
> -- 
> Roberto C. Sánchez
> 

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#13050

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> Right, and has has been discussed before (more times than can be
> counted, most likely) having some sort of content does not imply that
> the ideology itself is promoted.  The presence of the texts of the
> Torah, the Christian Bible, the Quran, and other holy books in Debian
> does not mean that Debian as an organization supports all of the various
> ideologies entailed therein.

You should probably take a history book and look up again what the
author of Mein Kampf did, and compare that to what the authors of the
other texts you mention did.

If you succeed in drawing any comparison between Adolf Hitler and any
of the evangelists and prophets who rote the bible, or mostly any
other authors of any other books, repeat the procedure. If that still
doesn't help, please take a trip to one of the concentration camps
that are now museums.

Then, should you still find that murdering 6 million Jews in what is
known as the Holocaust can be compared to ideas of anarchism,
Christianity or the Islam, I fail to assume good faith.

-nik

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#13051

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At 2022-11-19T23:07:50+0100, Dominik George wrote:
> > Right, and has has been discussed before (more times than can be
> > counted, most likely) having some sort of content does not imply that
> > the ideology itself is promoted.  The presence of the texts of the
> > Torah, the Christian Bible, the Quran, and other holy books in Debian
> > does not mean that Debian as an organization supports all of the various
> > ideologies entailed therein.
> 
> You should probably take a history book and look up again what the
> author of Mein Kampf did, and compare that to what the authors of the
> other texts you mention did.

You should probably read Numbers, Joshua, and Judges (attend
particularly to the fate of the Midianites), as well as the centuries of
history of Christian and Muslim expansion and global colonization.

> Then, should you still find that murdering 6 million Jews in what is
> known as the Holocaust can be compared to ideas of anarchism,
> Christianity or the Islam, I fail to assume good faith.

It's a good thing we take so little time to remember the non-Jewish
victims of the Holocaust, isn't it (non-heterosexuals, Roma, Slavs,
the mentally ill or disabled, communists, labor organizers, and
non-conformists of many sorts).  Let's pay particularly little attention
to those that might be going on today.

I concede that anarchists have made a poor showing in the slaughter
sweepstakes of global history.  As in Spain from 1936-1939, we usually
find that liberal capitalists, authoritarian communists, royalist
revanchists, and the Roman Catholic Church, all frequently in conflict
with each other, can come rapidly to an ecumenical consensus, even under
circumstances of war, that democratic socialists and everyone to the
left of them need to be expediently liquidated and utterly forgotten.

On that note, to indulge in recollection of institutional memory here, I
believe it was our second DPL Bruce Perens who first decreed that
"fortunes-off" needed to be excised from the formerly monolithic cookie
collection for the fortune(1) program; it was not thus segregated by our
upstream.  His rationale was that the Debian distribution badly needed
to be made more palatable to the tender sensibilities of corporations
that might otherwise find no excuse to make a deal with Red Hat Software
instead.  Debian's "apt", now widely recognized as a terrific innovation
in package management due to its automatic dependency resolution with
cycle-breaking, was forcibly renamed at Bruce's direction from "deity",
which he also thought might unduly alarm the tender-hearted
philanthropic sensibilities in C suites throughout Silicon Valley.

By autocratic pronouncements such as these, many years ago the Debian
distribution was molded and reshaped to make itself more congruent with
the demands of U.S. tech sector capitalism.  The problem with this is
less that it situates Debian more comfortably within what we might term
a militantly centrist Anglo-American politics (with Schumpeterian
"creative destruction" for tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists
followed by pervasive rent-seeking and financialization as a firm
matures), than that people don't critically examine these processes and
acknowledge them as themselves inherently political.  This very
paragraph, if uttered aloud in a Fortune 50 workplace in front of the
right (or wrong) ears, might mark one as "not a team player" and unfit
for professional advancement.  (At the same time, if you share your
ideas for market disruption or rent extraction discreetly to the right
management consultants who can then vouch for you, the sky's the limit,
if you have a way to cash out your options/cryptos before the people
higher than you on the pyramid do.)

Debian can discard fortunes-off if it wants to; I'm not sure I could
motivate myself to vote in a GR regarding that question if it came to
pass.  But if any Debian contributor thinks that by doing so we make
Debian somehow more "ideologically neutral", or less encumbered by
political doctrine, that person is as self-deluded as anyone who finds a
Rosetta stone in _The Protocols of the Elders of Zion_.

Regards,
Branden

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#13053

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote on 20/11/2022 at 00:22:29+0100:

> [[PGP Signed Part:No public key for D19E9C7D71266DCE created at 2022-11-20T00:22:22+0100 using RSA]]
> At 2022-11-19T23:07:50+0100, Dominik George wrote:
>> > Right, and has has been discussed before (more times than can be
>> > counted, most likely) having some sort of content does not imply that
>> > the ideology itself is promoted.  The presence of the texts of the
>> > Torah, the Christian Bible, the Quran, and other holy books in Debian
>> > does not mean that Debian as an organization supports all of the various
>> > ideologies entailed therein.
>> 
>> You should probably take a history book and look up again what the
>> author of Mein Kampf did, and compare that to what the authors of the
>> other texts you mention did.
>
> You should probably read Numbers, Joshua, and Judges (attend
> particularly to the fate of the Midianites), as well as the centuries of
> history of Christian and Muslim expansion and global colonization.
>
>> Then, should you still find that murdering 6 million Jews in what is
>> known as the Holocaust can be compared to ideas of anarchism,
>> Christianity or the Islam, I fail to assume good faith.
>
> It's a good thing we take so little time to remember the non-Jewish
> victims of the Holocaust, isn't it (non-heterosexuals, Roma, Slavs,
> the mentally ill or disabled, communists, labor organizers, and
> non-conformists of many sorts).  Let's pay particularly little attention
> to those that might be going on today.
>
> I concede that anarchists have made a poor showing in the slaughter
> sweepstakes of global history.  As in Spain from 1936-1939, we usually
> find that liberal capitalists, authoritarian communists, royalist
> revanchists, and the Roman Catholic Church, all frequently in conflict
> with each other, can come rapidly to an ecumenical consensus, even under
> circumstances of war, that democratic socialists and everyone to the
> left of them need to be expediently liquidated and utterly forgotten.
>
> On that note, to indulge in recollection of institutional memory here, I
> believe it was our second DPL Bruce Perens who first decreed that
> "fortunes-off" needed to be excised from the formerly monolithic cookie
> collection for the fortune(1) program; it was not thus segregated by our
> upstream.  His rationale was that the Debian distribution badly needed
> to be made more palatable to the tender sensibilities of corporations
> that might otherwise find no excuse to make a deal with Red Hat Software
> instead.  Debian's "apt", now widely recognized as a terrific innovation
> in package management due to its automatic dependency resolution with
> cycle-breaking, was forcibly renamed at Bruce's direction from "deity",
> which he also thought might unduly alarm the tender-hearted
> philanthropic sensibilities in C suites throughout Silicon Valley.
>
> By autocratic pronouncements such as these, many years ago the Debian
> distribution was molded and reshaped to make itself more congruent with
> the demands of U.S. tech sector capitalism.  The problem with this is
> less that it situates Debian more comfortably within what we might term
> a militantly centrist Anglo-American politics (with Schumpeterian
> "creative destruction" for tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists
> followed by pervasive rent-seeking and financialization as a firm
> matures), than that people don't critically examine these processes and
> acknowledge them as themselves inherently political.  This very
> paragraph, if uttered aloud in a Fortune 50 workplace in front of the
> right (or wrong) ears, might mark one as "not a team player" and unfit
> for professional advancement.  (At the same time, if you share your
> ideas for market disruption or rent extraction discreetly to the right
> management consultants who can then vouch for you, the sky's the limit,
> if you have a way to cash out your options/cryptos before the people
> higher than you on the pyramid do.)
>
> Debian can discard fortunes-off if it wants to; I'm not sure I could
> motivate myself to vote in a GR regarding that question if it came to
> pass.  But if any Debian contributor thinks that by doing so we make
> Debian somehow more "ideologically neutral", or less encumbered by
> political doctrine, that person is as self-deluded as anyone who finds a
> Rosetta stone in _The Protocols of the Elders of Zion_.
>
> Regards,

I'm personally fine to defend the "less neutral" position we take by
dropping fortunes-off which is total garbage.

-- 
PEB

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#13056

I got curious at the offensive fortunes so I looked at English and
Italian ones.  I wrote a couple of comments in this email, that I then
deleted...

I think that in the XXIth century an ambitious replacement would be to
train a "Deep Learning" model with social network trolls to generate
offensive statements on the fly.  Somtimes, the mismatch between the
output and the expectation, while deeply offensive, could be funny or
even reveal some neglected traits of our societies.  But maybe the model
would be too large for our archive, not to mention that the source to
train it would be huge.

In the absence of such a first-class modernisation, and given the
abundance of internet connectivity our current slice of the XXIth
century, a good fortune packages could focus on delivering tips on how
to find and download the cookie package that fits each users taste.

Have a nice day,

Charles

-- 
Charles Plessy                         Nagahama, Yomitan, Okinawa, Japan

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#13059

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

At 2022-11-20T11:41:56+0100, Pierre-Elliott Bécue wrote:
> I'm personally fine to defend the "less neutral" position we take by
> dropping fortunes-off which is total garbage.

"Total garbage."  Have you _read_ it?

Running "fortune -o" myself a few times, I get the following results.
These are in the order they came back from my shell prompt.

"... mid-eighteenth century America had a smaller proportion of church
 members than any other nation in Christendom...."in 1800 [only] one
 of every fifteen Americans was a church member"
      [Richard Hofstadter, _Anti-Intellectualism in American
       Life_, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, p. 89]

This quote is from a well-known book from a widely (if not universally)
respected author.  It is surely in the "offensive" category because it
merely _mentions_ religion, not because it lays out an authoritarian or
anti-Semitic political program.  Several of the messages in this thread,
including the one to which I replied (and of course my own), are equally
offensive by a metric of _mentioning_ religion, and include parties on
both sides of the "rip out the package" debate.

Granted, about 20 years ago, political conservatives in the U.S.
occasionally expressed offense at mere mention of Hofstadter (but not a
lot, as most of their audience had no idea who the guy was), as the
Rupert Murdoch/Roger Ailes program of _cultivating_ anti-intellectualism
as aggressively as possible was just taking root in the G. W. Bush
administration amid the exciting adventures of the Iraq War and the
jailing of a _New York Times_ journalist.

"The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three
little children for their insurance money."
                -- Sherlock Holmes

I've read the entire corpus of A. C. Doyle's Holmes stories more than
once and don't recall this line, but again, the foregoing sentiment is
neither garbage nor does it promote fascism.  I suppose it is in there
because it mentions a reprehensible crime.

"FORTUNE PRESENTS FAMOUS LAST WORDS:     #4

Socrates:               I DRANK WHAT!?!?
Tarzan:                 Who greased the grape viiiiiiiiiiiinnnneee........
Al Capone:              There's a violin in my violin case!
Pilot, TWA Fl. #343:    What's a mountain goat doing 'way up here?"

These are old jokes.  Again, there are references to death.  (A web
search reveals that TWA Flight 343 does not appear to be a reference to
a real-life air disaster.  TWA _was_ a functioning commercial airline
back before some Debian developers were born.  CFITs are a regrettably
common class of air accident.[7])

The next one is lengthy.

        "Well, it's a little rough... it might not be necessary to drag him 40
blocks.  Maybe just four.  You could put him in the trunk for the first 36
blocks, then haul him out and drag him the last four; that would certainly
scare the piss out of him, bumping alone the street, feeling all his skin being
ripped off..."
        "He'd be a bloody mess.  They might think he was just some drunk and
let him lie there all night."
        "Don't worry about that.  They have a guard station in front of the
White House that's open 24 hours a day.  The guards would recognize Colson...
and by that time of course his wife would have called the cops and reported
that a bunch of thugs had kidnapped him."
        "Wouldn't it be a little kinder if you drove about four more blocks
and stopped at a phone box to ring the hospital and say, 'Would you mind going
around to the front of the White House?  There's a naked man lying outside
in the street, bleeding to death...'"
        "... and we think it's Mr. Colson."
        "It would be quite a story for the newspapers, wouldn't it?"
        "Yeah, I think it's safe to say we'd see some headlines on that one."
                -- Hunter Thompson, talking to R. Steadman on C. Colson,
                   ex-Marine captain, now born again, of Watergate fame.

This is a discussion of violence, so maybe that's what makes it
offensive.  Hunter S. Thompson is immensely enjoyable to read, and Chuck
Colson was a snake of a man complicit in crimes in high office.  Once
imprisoned, he found God, and was instantly and thoroughly forgiven his
transgressions by conservative Americans who would never extend such
grace to a young person of color who stole goods from a convenience
store.  Colson outlived Thompson by 7 years.

"Science was tearing through the 'fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs'
 to behold a new cosmos, in which our Earth is merely an 'eccentric
 speck'-- a world of evolution 'and unchanging causation'. It invited
 new ways of thinking. It demanded a new rationale for belief. With
 science's truths the only accessible ones, 'blind faith' was no
 longer admirable but 'the one unpardonable sin'."
               [Adrian Desmond, "Huxley", p. 345]"

This one is yet another example of something being categorized as
offensive because it challenges a dominant belief system, namely the
Calvinist, vaguely Catharite, anti-empirical strains of Protestant
Christianity which all polite discourse, in the U.S. of the 1990s,
anyway, was compelled to accommodate.  After a couple of decades of
conservative Christian triumphalism in my home country, this may no
longer be the case[1][2].  (Australia's doing even better! :D [3])

I'll stop here.  That's 5 out of 5, none of which advocates the
oppression of any group based on ethnic or ideologic categories.  One of
them is rough on Chuck Colson, but like Hitler, he's a specific person
with crimes for which he was inadequately held to account.  (Likely
Henry Kissinger, an even worse figure who also served under Nixon, has
blood on his hands from Cambodia to Chile, and is still alive at age 99,
will by contrast die wealthy and celebrated.[4])

That's a better much proportion than I was expecting.  The worst of
these is the "famous last words" one, and that mainly because of its
stale, generic content, not because it offends any but the most timid
and censorious dispositions.  The remainder of the quoted figures all
promise to reward further reading (in 3 cases, I can aver such myself).

I also ran "fortunes -o -m Hitler" to see what turned up.  One of these
is of unclear provenance but popularly attributed to him, in an
expression of what in the U.S. used to be called "family values".

"There is a road to freedom.  Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor,
 Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and
 love of the Fatherland."

Not as pithy as "Travail, familie, patrie!", is it?  How many of these
adjectives shall we classify as offensive because they were purportedly
endorsed by one of the worst figures in history?

Most others were quotations to damn the man with his own words, or were
quotes _about_ him by his opponents (spoiler alert: the man was no
feminist).  These opponents include Winston Churchill, who, while widely
celebrated in Anglo-American culture, turns out to be a pretty dark
figure if you read something other than the works of his hagiographers
(or self-serving memoirs).[5]  (The U.K. electorate themselves
understood Churchill's limited utility at the time.[8])

I do observe that if we fear charges of anti-Semitism for having Hitler
quotes in fortunes-off, even if they (spoiler alert again) reveal him to
be a hateful ass, we could add offsetting ones from, say, the late Rabbi
Meir Kahane, whose admirers in the Israeli Knesset have been
key partners in the coalition returning Benjamin Netanyahu to power.[6]

Thank you for, perhaps inadvertently, compelling me to review some of
the content of the package.  I can now say that I am certain there is
material of worth in the fortunes-off package and support its retention
in the Debian distribution.  A review process for individual entries
that are incompatible with the project's values is manifest in the BTS.

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-sharply-past-two-decades.aspx
[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx
[3] https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/religious-affiliation-australia
[4] https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2004/12/kissinger-declassified
[5] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/04/the-medals-of-his-defeats/306061/
[6] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-722026
[7] controlled flight into terrain
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_United_Kingdom_general_election

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#13061

On Sun, 20 Nov 2022 at 21:42, G. Branden Robinson
<g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you for, perhaps inadvertently, compelling me to review some of
> the content of the package.  I can now say that I am certain there is
> material of worth in the fortunes-off package and support its retention
> in the Debian distribution.  A review process for individual entries
> that are incompatible with the project's values is manifest in the BTS.
>

rational approach vs cancel culture: 1 vs 0
<3

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#13063

On 11/20/22 22:14, Roberto A. Foglietta wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Nov 2022 at 21:42, G. Branden Robinson
> <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thank you for, perhaps inadvertently, compelling me to review some of
>> the content of the package.  I can now say that I am certain there is
>> material of worth in the fortunes-off package and support its retention
>> in the Debian distribution.  A review process for individual entries
>> that are incompatible with the project's values is manifest in the BTS.
>>
> rational approach vs cancel culture: 1 vs 0
> <3

I can only very much agree to this.

Cheers

   Mike

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#13064

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 10:45:15PM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote:
> On 11/20/22 22:14, Roberto A. Foglietta wrote:
> > On Sun, 20 Nov 2022 at 21:42, G. Branden Robinson
> > <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > Thank you for, perhaps inadvertently, compelling me to review some of
> > > the content of the package.  I can now say that I am certain there is
> > > material of worth in the fortunes-off package and support its retention
> > > in the Debian distribution.  A review process for individual entries
> > > that are incompatible with the project's values is manifest in the BTS.
> > > 
> > rational approach vs cancel culture: 1 vs 0
> > <3
> 
> I can only very much agree to this.

I also wholly agree, alas it seems we already lost before this even
started :(

https://tracker.debian.org/news/1385116/accepted-fortune-mod-11991-72-source-amd64-all-into-unstable/

-- 
regards,
                        Mattia Rizzolo

GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18  4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540      .''`.
More about me:  https://mapreri.org                             : :'  :
Launchpad user: https://launchpad.net/~mapreri                  `. `'`
Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia  `-

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#13068

Am 20. November 2022 23:04:05 MEZ schrieb Mattia Rizzolo <mattia@debian.org>:
>On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 10:45:15PM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote:
>> On 11/20/22 22:14, Roberto A. Foglietta wrote:
>> > On Sun, 20 Nov 2022 at 21:42, G. Branden Robinson
>> > <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > 
>> > > Thank you for, perhaps inadvertently, compelling me to review some of
>> > > the content of the package.  I can now say that I am certain there is
>> > > material of worth in the fortunes-off package and support its retention
>> > > in the Debian distribution.  A review process for individual entries
>> > > that are incompatible with the project's values is manifest in the BTS.
>> > > 
>> > rational approach vs cancel culture: 1 vs 0
>> > <3
>> 
>> I can only very much agree to this.
>
>I also wholly agree, alas it seems we already lost before this even
>started :(
>
>https://tracker.debian.org/news/1385116/accepted-fortune-mod-11991-72-source-amd64-all-into-unstable/
>

As it was an NMU, this should be easily rectified.
Don't let cancel culture win.

Cheers
   Mike
 
-- 
Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android-Gerät mit K-9 Mail gesendet.

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#13069

On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 12:07:53AM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote:
>Am 20. November 2022 23:04:05 MEZ schrieb Mattia Rizzolo <mattia@debian.org>:
>>On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 10:45:15PM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote:
>>> On 11/20/22 22:14, Roberto A. Foglietta wrote:
>>> > On Sun, 20 Nov 2022 at 21:42, G. Branden Robinson
>>> > <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > 
>>> > > Thank you for, perhaps inadvertently, compelling me to review some of
>>> > > the content of the package.  I can now say that I am certain there is
>>> > > material of worth in the fortunes-off package and support its retention
>>> > > in the Debian distribution.  A review process for individual entries
>>> > > that are incompatible with the project's values is manifest in the BTS.
>>> > > 
>>> > rational approach vs cancel culture: 1 vs 0
>>> > <3
>>> 
>>> I can only very much agree to this.
>>
>>I also wholly agree, alas it seems we already lost before this even
>>started :(
>>
>>https://tracker.debian.org/news/1385116/accepted-fortune-mod-11991-72-source-amd64-all-into-unstable/
>>
>
>As it was an NMU, this should be easily rectified.
>Don't let cancel culture win.

Are you volunteering to pick up the package and review its contents,
removing the worst stuff that is clearly *not* fit for us to publish?
In its previous state it included:

 * content that is downright illegal in many jurisdictions
 * content that is impossible to justify against Debian's stated
   values

so simply undoing the NMU here is clearly not an acceptable route
forward.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve@einval.com
< Aardvark> I dislike C++ to start with. C++11 just seems to be
            handing rope-creating factories for users to hang multiple
            instances of themselves.

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#13073

On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 at 00:59, Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 12:07:53AM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote:
> >Am 20. November 2022 23:04:05 MEZ schrieb Mattia Rizzolo <mattia@debian.org>:
> >>On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 10:45:15PM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote:
> >>> On 11/20/22 22:14, Roberto A. Foglietta wrote:
> >>> > On Sun, 20 Nov 2022 at 21:42, G. Branden Robinson
> >>> > <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> >
> >>> > > Thank you for, perhaps inadvertently, compelling me to review some of
> >>> > > the content of the package.  I can now say that I am certain there is
> >>> > > material of worth in the fortunes-off package and support its retention
> >>> > > in the Debian distribution.  A review process for individual entries
> >>> > > that are incompatible with the project's values is manifest in the BTS.
> >>> > >
> >>> > rational approach vs cancel culture: 1 vs 0
> >>> > <3
> >>>
> >>> I can only very much agree to this.
> >>
> >>I also wholly agree, alas it seems we already lost before this even
> >>started :(
> >>
> >>https://tracker.debian.org/news/1385116/accepted-fortune-mod-11991-72-source-amd64-all-into-unstable/
> >>
> >
> >As it was an NMU, this should be easily rectified.
> >Don't let cancel culture win.
>
> Are you volunteering to pick up the package and review its contents,
> removing the worst stuff that is clearly *not* fit for us to publish?
> In its previous state it included:
>
>  * content that is downright illegal in many jurisdictions

Obviously illegal material should not be distributed. How many of
these quotes do you find that violate the law in some countries?
Please, keep in mind that in Germany the nazi propaganda is out-of-law
but in some other countires out-of-law is the use of the name of the
profet (whoever he is). So, law compliance might not be as easy as you
pretend to be unless OUR ONLY culture is considered (which by the
way?).

>  * content that is impossible to justify against Debian's stated values

Nice, so we are going to burn "Mein Kampf" in such a way nobody will
be able to read it? Every library should do that, conforming to their
values. Burning books, uhm where we saw these before? So, the great
difference here is to explicitly tell the reader that the content can
be offensive in some culture or under some PoV.

This is exactly what the -o option does

-o     Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms.

Please, elaborate your opposition because it is quite generic,
everything above considered.

Best regards, R-

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#13076

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

At 2022-11-21T03:10:27+0100, Roberto A. Foglietta wrote:
> Please, keep in mind that in Germany the nazi propaganda is out-of-law
> but in some other countires out-of-law is the use of the name of the
> profet (whoever he is). So, law compliance might not be as easy as you
> pretend to be unless OUR ONLY culture is considered (which by the
> way?).

Be aware that lèse-majesté is still a crime on the books in Thailand,
and actively prosecuted with harsh penalties--long prison sentences.
They really do come after people for this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se-majest%C3%A9_in_Thailand#Political_weaponisation

Blissfully, our fortune cookies appear to be of sufficiently insular
perspective that the question of Thailand's monarch doesn't come up.

Regards,
Branden

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#13081 — Aw: Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm?

> Gesendet: Montag, 21. November 2022 um 03:10 Uhr
> Von: "Roberto A. Foglietta" <roberto.foglietta@gmail.com>
> An: "Steve McIntyre" <steve@einval.com>
> Cc: "Michael Neuffer" <neuffer@neuffer.com>, debian-project@lists.debian.org
> Betreff: Re: Fortunes-off - do we need this as a package for Bookworm?
>
> On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 at 00:59, Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 12:07:53AM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote:
> > >Am 20. November 2022 23:04:05 MEZ schrieb Mattia Rizzolo <mattia@debian.org>:
> > >>On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 10:45:15PM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote:
> > >>> On 11/20/22 22:14, Roberto A. Foglietta wrote:
> > >>> > On Sun, 20 Nov 2022 at 21:42, G. Branden Robinson
> > >>> > <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>> >
> > >>> > > Thank you for, perhaps inadvertently, compelling me to review some of
> > >>> > > the content of the package.  I can now say that I am certain there is
> > >>> > > material of worth in the fortunes-off package and support its retention
> > >>> > > in the Debian distribution.  A review process for individual entries
> > >>> > > that are incompatible with the project's values is manifest in the BTS.
> > >>> > >
> > >>> > rational approach vs cancel culture: 1 vs 0
> > >>> > <3
> > >>>
> > >>> I can only very much agree to this.
> > >>
> > >>I also wholly agree, alas it seems we already lost before this even
> > >>started :(
> > >>
> > >>https://tracker.debian.org/news/1385116/accepted-fortune-mod-11991-72-source-amd64-all-into-unstable/
> > >>
> > >
> > >As it was an NMU, this should be easily rectified.
> > >Don't let cancel culture win.
> >
> > Are you volunteering to pick up the package and review its contents,
> > removing the worst stuff that is clearly *not* fit for us to publish?
> > In its previous state it included:
> >
> >  * content that is downright illegal in many jurisdictions
>
> Obviously illegal material should not be distributed. How many of
> these quotes do you find that violate the law in some countries?
> Please, keep in mind that in Germany the nazi propaganda is out-of-law
> but in some other countires out-of-law is the use of the name of the
> profet (whoever he is). So, law compliance might not be as easy as you
> pretend to be unless OUR ONLY culture is considered (which by the
> way?).

Not a lawyer, and I did not have a look into that package, but in Germany, in part also because of our censoring-and-we-punish-your-family-if-we-cannot-get-you-for-it past, it is unlikely that you are censored as long as this is satire - and fortune-off from the descriptions given I consider to qualify. Also, just wait until we are sued, then we know.

The main concern I understood to be that our community would see some damage by such an exceptional package being redistributed. But I do not see that.

> >  * content that is impossible to justify against Debian's stated values
>
> Nice, so we are going to burn "Mein Kampf" in such a way nobody will
> be able to read it?

That is is bit off. The question would be if Debian would decide to redistribute it. I have my full trust in our FTPadmins that this would not happen, though. That package would be a bit sick, also a fortunes-meinkampf that comes up with random quotes from it. There are many differences between redistributing that with redistributing anything like fortunes-off, the most important one to me is "intent".

> Every library should do that, conforming to their
> values. Burning books, uhm where we saw these before? So, the great
> difference here is to explicitly tell the reader that the content can
> be offensive in some culture or under some PoV.

But if there was something like fortunes-rickygervais - oder fortunes-jordanpeterson - not? Even though those two are triggering many feelings.

> This is exactly what the -o option does
>
> -o     Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms.
>
> Please, elaborate your opposition because it is quite generic,
> everything above considered.

I would leave that fortunes-off package in. And I just hope for some self-censoring that keeps the trolls in us in check so we can delay discussing what we are discussing here.

Steffen

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#13074

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At 2022-11-20T23:55:52+0000, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> >As it was an NMU, this should be easily rectified.
> >Don't let cancel culture win.
> 
> Are you volunteering to pick up the package and review its contents,
> removing the worst stuff that is clearly *not* fit for us to publish?

You adopt the aspect of Mephistopheles, sir.  Alas, I have limited time
and a more preferred vehicle through which I would return to package
maintainership in main (if I don't try Colin Watson's patience).

> In its previous state it included:
> 
>  * content that is downright illegal in many jurisdictions

You should know better than to voluntarily self-incriminate.  Have we
received official communication to this effect from any jurisdiction in
the world?  My understanding is that even the dreaded _Mein Kampf_ is
not categorically banned where it is contextualized.  This could easily
be done with counterpoints in the same entries from, say, Hannah Arendt,
Emma Goldman, or George Orwell.

(Admittedly, were I the curator, I'd indeed be tempted to throw out a
lot of the AH crap.  Much more instructive would be to cite similar
sentiments by figures who enjoy more apologists, like Marine Le Pen or
Viktor Orbán, or greater efforts at rehabilitation, like Miklós Horthy
or Marshal Pétain.  Or maybe juxtaposing their quotations with Hitler's
would rebut them more effectively than any critic could do.  Convinced
neo-Nazis can't be reached by any means.  We've had some over the years.
One went by the nom de guerre "krooger".  Worst.  Grocery.  Ever.)

>  * content that is impossible to justify against Debian's stated
>    values

Has anyone cited any specific instances of these?  I wouldn't be
surprised if there are some crappy jokes in fortunes-off given its age
and origins in a field with narrow demographics that were more cramped
still in the 1990s.

I observe this obnoxious gem that the NMU did nothing to remove because
it's not categorized as "offensive".

  Personally, I don't often talk about social good because when I hear
  other people talk about social good, that's when I reach for my
  revolver.
                  -- Eric Raymond

This is a person's way of cautioning you that if you play iterated
prisoner's dilemma with them, they'll defect--every single time.[1]

Recalling that fortunes-off as a separate package owes its existence to
Bruce Perens, who was thick as thieves with Raymond at various times and
complained to LWN of death threats from him at others, it appears that
the notion of "offensiveness" applied was a snapshot of Bruce's personal
perspective.

With the removal of fortunes-off, we've lost the following riposte to
Raymond's posturing conservo-glibertarianism.

  America ... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesman
  with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing
  anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
                  -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the
                     Campaign Trail"[7]

Perhaps some of our European friends would be surprised both at the
sentiment above and its categorization as offensive, given the usual
tenor of global public reaction to the U.S.'s frequent mass shootings.

> so simply undoing the NMU here is clearly not an acceptable route
> forward.

Clear according to whom?

I feel sure of one thing: unless things have changed significantly since
I was in leadership,[2] any attempt to restore anything like
fortunes-off to the archive can be vetoed by the archive administration
team without procedural recourse short of a GR, because the overrides
file will have to be edited to let it (back) in, that's a function of
said team, and said team is delegated by the DPL.[3][4]

Since Jon Dowland did the upload in question,[6] perhaps someone could
compose a galliard to commemorate the occasion.  Whether a dirge or a
jig is up to them.  I suggest only a title: "Fait Accompli".

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOvAbjfJ0x0

[2] I recall that one thing did change, Steve--though I did not learn
    of it until years later--and you and your predecessor made it
    happen.  You have my deepest thanks for that.

[3] Still called "FTP masters"[4].  Even long after FTP is deprecated
    and Git repositories the world over have gotten their main branches
    renamed to avoid terminology redolent of unjust power inequities,
    we'll cling to our antiquated terms to the bitter end, won't we?

[4] Dare I hope that at least the _technological_ aspect of incoming
    processing has changed to exhibit less allergy to changes in the
    list of binary package names generated from a source?

[5] https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/FTPMaster

[6] https://tracker.debian.org/news/1385116/accepted-fortune-mod-11991-72-source-amd64-all-into-unstable/
    Thanks to Mattia Rizzolo for pointing that out.

[7] It seems a damn shame to throw out so much H. S. Thompson.  His
    obituary for Richard Nixon has several of my favorite quotes, none
    of which I think is in any fortunes package.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-a-crook/308699/

    Some day soon, I hope, a successor to Thompson will reveal
    themselves by writing with equally exquisite vituperation of the
    unmournable Donald J. Trump.

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#13078

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On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 07:58:38PM -0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> At 2022-11-20T23:55:52+0000, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> > >As it was an NMU, this should be easily rectified.
> > >Don't let cancel culture win.
> > 
> > Are you volunteering to pick up the package and review its contents,
> > removing the worst stuff that is clearly *not* fit for us to publish?
> 
> You adopt the aspect of Mephistopheles, sir.  Alas, I have limited time
> and a more preferred vehicle through which I would return to package
> maintainership in main (if I don't try Colin Watson's patience).

[...]

You had a point, Branden (I had to cringe at the onslaught of
the "cancel culture" jingle in the answers, though).

You seem to prefer to dissipate the point you had instead of
accepting a collaboration offer. In a very eloquent and even
entertaining way, but alas, effectively nonetheless.

I'd agree that the quotes you presented don't seem to deserve
to be thrown out. But the path this is taking seems more
appropriate to set off a "culture war" worthy of... twitter
than to produce any result.

So: propose a sketch of a curation process some people can
agree on. That's the challenge.

Cheers
-- 
t

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