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Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod

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  Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> - 2023-08-18 23:30 +0200
    Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Dominik George <natureshadow@debian.org> - 2023-08-19 00:00 +0200
      Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org> - 2023-08-19 03:40 +0200
      Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Marvin Renich <mrvn@renich.org> - 2023-08-19 23:00 +0200
        Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Dominik George <natureshadow@debian.org> - 2023-08-20 11:50 +0200
          Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Tiago Bortoletto Vaz <tiago@debian.org> - 2023-08-20 18:00 +0200
      Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org> - 2023-08-21 20:10 +0200
        Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> - 2023-08-21 21:10 +0200
          Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org> - 2023-08-21 21:30 +0200
            Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2023-08-21 22:00 +0200
      Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Dmitry Baryshkov <dbaryshkov@gmail.com> - 2023-08-21 20:10 +0200
    Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2023-08-19 00:50 +0200
    Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> - 2023-08-19 01:00 +0200

#13334 — Re: Questionable Package Present in Debian: fortune-mod

On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 02:39:00PM -0400, Thomas Ward wrote:
> 
>    This is not yet removed if I read the changelog from Debian.There are
>    additional components in the source code which quote these that suggest it
>    may be prudent for a complete deletion.  Downstream in Ubuntu, this
>    package was removed due to violation of the Ubuntu Code of Conduct [2],
>    and as the package in Ubuntu and the package in Debian are identical to
>    each other, it may be prudent for the Debian community to remove the
>    package in Unstable and Testing for similar reasons.  However, this was
>    extended to the source package as the *source contents* contain the
>    offensive wording, etc.
> 
>    Can we put this package into the 'considered for removal' list or simply
>    remove the package as violation of the Debian Code of Conduct from all
>    releases?
> 
I will offer the classic, "if you don't want to be offended, then don't
install the package or look at its sources." I mean, if you're going to
wave the code of conduct around (or Andy in the case of the initial
report), then perhaps we ought to distinguish between what the code of
conduct was very clearly intended to govern, i.e., personal
communication between participants in the various means of communication
available to participants in the Debian project, and what is contained
in fortunes-mod (and other packages*), which is written content
originating from various sources, none of which was created or
communicated in a way which any reasonable interpretation of the code of
conduct would cover.

* I'll return to the other packages in a moment.

However, that sort of thing seems never to be adequate for those who
seem to insist on policing everyone and everything for the sake
preventing the delicate sensibilities of who knows whom from being
offended, as evidenced by the willingness to blatantly abuse the code of
conduct to contort it to cover something it plainly does not cover, nor
was it intended to cover.

All of that said, let's return to the other packages. If content in
fortunes-mod can be labeled homophobic, misogynist, misandrist, racist
(whatever meaning happens to be attached to those words at the moment),
then the same can be said of a substantial fraction of the content in
fortunes-es. The similarly offensive content in fortunes-es should
result in its removal.

Also, if quoting Mein Kampf or anything else from Hitler is problematic,
then perhaps fortune-anarchism (source package blag-fortune) should also
be considered for removal. It includes quotes from numerous individuals
who have themselves engaged in terrorism or other violence toward
individuals and groups, supported those who have engaged in such
activities, or been otherwise complicit in such.

So, let's at least be consistent.

Regards,

-Roberto
-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez

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#13336

> So, let's at least be consistent.

Totally agree with that.

Debian is not a collection of harmful content, it is an operating system.

But, unfortunately, there are too many people in the project who think, in the name of "free speech", protecting racists, nazists, and anarchists is more important than protecting PoC, jews, or other minorities.

-nik

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#13339

Dominik George dijo [Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 11:43:03PM +0200]:
> > So, let's at least be consistent.
> 
> Totally agree with that.
> 
> Debian is not a collection of harmful content, it is an operating system.
> 
> But, unfortunately, there are too many people in the project who think, in the
> name of "free speech", protecting racists, nazists, and anarchists is more
> important than protecting PoC, jews, or other minorities.

As a Jew myself, I often find that quoting bits of Mein Kampf _protects_
Jews. Why? Because it is full of contradictions.

(And... Yes, I have a printed copy of the book at home; I was curious to read
it. It is an easy read, but I'd never consider it high literature or even
instrumental to the third reich's raise to power... but that's a completely
different topic)

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#13346

* Dominik George <natureshadow@debian.org> [230818 17:52]:
> Debian is not ..., it is an operating system.

This is simply and blatantly incorrect.  Debian is a distribution.

It includes an operating system and many, many application packages that
different people find useful or interesting.  The vast majority of
packages are not part of the OS.  The vast majority of users will only
be interested in a small portion of the applications.

I would go as far as saying that the applications are the most important
part of the distribution, and that the OS is included as a necessity so
that the applications can be run.  I will certainly agree that the OS
can, itself, be considered an application, useful for doing things
independently of other packaged applications.

As others have said, the CoC is specifically intended to be applied to
communications and interactions within the Debian community, not the
content of the distribution.

The only document that I can think of that describes what is appropriate
content for the distribution is the DFSG.  Other than paragraph 2, which
states that the program must include its source code, the DFSG talks
entirely about the license.

However, if we extrapolate paragraphs 5 and 6 of the DFSG, which talk about
discrimination against persons, groups, and fields of endeavor, along with
the Diversity Statement, to how we decide what packages are allowed, I
think it is clear that we should be very accepting of packages with
content that we don't agree with, as long as someone finds it useful or
interesting enough to go to the effort of packaging it.

Not doing so is equivalent to saying, "We accept you but not your
contribution."

The whole point of the Diversity Statement is that we accept people into
the Debian community who have ideas and values that are different than,
and even contradictory to, our own.  How can we not accept the packages
that they would like to include?

The point is to make them available to those who want to use them; we
are not forcing anyone who does not want to use them to do so.

...Marvin

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#13348

Hi Marvin,

>This is simply and blatantly incorrect.  Debian is a distribution.

To some, that is the same.

If you think describing Debian as an "operating system", then for a start, you should go and propoae to update the banner on the front page of https://debian.org/

-nik

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#13349

On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 10:54:18AM +0200, Dominik George wrote:
> Hi Marvin,
> 
> >This is simply and blatantly incorrect.  Debian is a distribution.
> 
> To some, that is the same.
> 
> If you think describing Debian as an "operating system", then for a start, you should go and propoae to update the banner on the front page of https://debian.org/

Well, it also says "Debian is a Community of People!".

Yet many people seem to ignore this part.

Bests,

-- 
Tiago Vaz
https://tvaz.cc

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#13356

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On 2023-08-21 20:16:22 +0300 (+0300), Dmitry Baryshkov wrote:
[...]
> According to Debian's CoC we use non-offensive ways to communicate
> within the project, so that everybody is welcome to speak and
> contribute. But we should not censor software. If there is a
> misogynistic comment in GNU HURD sources, should we censor it out?

For that matter, if Debian was going to get into book burning over
racist, homophobic and misogynistic writing, all those packaged
versions of religious texts would presumably be the first things
tossed onto the pyre.
-- 
Jeremy Stanley

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#13358

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On Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 05:32:22PM +0000, Jeremy Stanley wrote:
> On 2023-08-21 20:16:22 +0300 (+0300), Dmitry Baryshkov wrote:
> [...]
> > According to Debian's CoC we use non-offensive ways to communicate
> > within the project, so that everybody is welcome to speak and
> > contribute. But we should not censor software. If there is a
> > misogynistic comment in GNU HURD sources, should we censor it out?

> For that matter, if Debian was going to get into book burning over
> racist, homophobic and misogynistic writing, all those packaged
> versions of religious texts would presumably be the first things
> tossed onto the pyre.

Don't you think it's a bit hyperbolic to equate "not distributing a text in
our archive" to "book burning"?

-- 
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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#13360

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On 2023-08-21 11:43:04 -0700 (-0700), Steve Langasek wrote:
[...]
> Don't you think it's a bit hyperbolic to equate "not distributing
> a text in our archive" to "book burning"?

Removing a package from the archive purely on the grounds that it
contains objectionable text, if such is the reason for not
distributing it, is making a value judgement of that text. The
concerns that have been raised so far for objecting to the content
of the package in question are applicable to quite a number of other
packages in Debian as well. Hyperbolic perhaps, but it doesn't seem
that far separated as analogies go.

Maybe book banning rather than book burning is more familiar to
modern audiences? In the country where I reside, libraries are
pressured not to carry books that vocal members of the community
find offensive for whatever reason, and those libraries often cave
to the pressure because it's easier than explaining to
pitchfork-carrying mobs that not every book in the library is going
to be to their tastes.

Removing a package from the archive because there's nobody
interested in maintaining it (not merely expressing an interest but
actually doing the work), is another matter of course. Like a
library choosing not to repurchase a particular damaged book due to
lack of popularity, rather than being pressed to remove it from the
shelves because someone disagrees with what's printed inside even
though they're never going to check it out and read it for
themselves anyway.
-- 
Jeremy Stanley

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#13362

Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org> writes:

> Removing a package from the archive purely on the grounds that it
> contains objectionable text, if such is the reason for not distributing
> it, is making a value judgement of that text. The concerns that have
> been raised so far for objecting to the content of the package in
> question are applicable to quite a number of other packages in Debian as
> well. Hyperbolic perhaps, but it doesn't seem that far separated as
> analogies go.

I think the analogy adds a lot of heat, but I think this is getting to the
heart of the problem with this recurring discussion.

I think one can make an argument that Debian is not intended to be a
collection of random data that someone finds interesting.  There are a lot
of things in the world that are available under free-software-compatible
licenses and that we could theoretically package, such as the entire
contents of the Gutenberg Project.  We by and large don't package such
things, in part because that feels a bit afield of the purpose of the
project.

We could potentially make a firmer decision that we only package software
and not large data files, and that would be a reasonable and relatively
straightforward decision we could build criteria around.  That would imply
that we wouldn't package large fortune databases, the Bible, doc-rfc, and
so forth.  It would probably also affect a lot of other things that I
haven't thought about.

I'm dubious there's a consensus to make that sort of change, but I think
that would at least be a clear boundary to draw around the purpose of
Debian that would be consistent with some of the other comments on this
thread.

But if we're not going to do that, I think these decisions get a lot more
subjective.  Currently, what we're roughly doing in practice is that
people package whatever they feel would be useful in a package, with some
check by the archive team that this has some plausible connection to
Debian and doesn't consume excessive Debian resources.  (For instance, I
suspect they wouldn't be willing to accept the complete Gutenberg
Project just because it's quite large.)  Things that have a more direct
tie to software that we're also packaging are going to be more readily
accepted, something that applies to both fortune databases and to the text
of the Bible, since in both cases they are packaged alongside software in
Debian designed to consume and manipulate that data format.

We could adopt an additional subjective decision process around how much
we like the content, but, well, this feels to me like a recipe for
constant contentious project arguments of exactly the type we're both not
great at handling and that burn huge amounts of emotional energy for
everyone involved.

I think it's possible to draw a very clear distinction between the
contents of packages and our interactions with each other (the subject
matter the project Code of Conduct is designed for).  The primary
distinction is *context*: communications with each other are directed at
specific people and happen within the context of an ongoing working
relationship.  We're trying to accomplish something together, that
requires communicating with each other, and that communication should
therefore support that joint effort and reflect the ideals of the
*community* that we're trying to build to work on the project.

This is generally not the context of Debian packages.  I could think of
cases where it was, and where the Code of Conduct would apply, but that
would involve packages that are being uploaded to specifically target
other people in the project, which thankfully isn't the case here.  Or it
would involve using the package to communicate directly to users, such as
enabling an offensive fortunes database by default to show quotes during
the Debian installation process, something we obviously wouldn't do.
Absent that sort of intent, packages are very much like books in a
library.  The person checking out the book brings their own context; the
presence of the book does not impose a context in the way that direct
communication between project members do.

For example, I would find it very off-putting for someone to prosletyze at
me within a Debian collaboration context.  If I asked them to stop, I'd
expect them to stop.  But the presence of the text of the Bible in the
archive doesn't do that; it's a lot like a book in a library.  And even if
one disagrees quite strongly with things that it says, it still serves a
separate purpose in a separate context: as a reference, as a research
tool, etc.

The fortunes database is kind of a trivial instance of this.  The stakes
are pretty low, which is probably part of why the argument is so heated
(to borrow the old trope about academic debates).  It's essentially only a
proxy fight over larger principles.  But I think the larger principles
weigh against embracing some sort of project-wide content-based decision
on package vetting, and certainly against applying the Code of Conduct to
something that does not have at all the same context as what the Code of
Conduct was designed to address.

If we were going to write a project content policy (which I'm dubious we
really need to do, or that it would be worth the emotional effort
required), I think it would look much different than the Code of Conduct
because it would have different goals.  It wouldn't be about building a
community or encouraging productive collaboration, because the contents of
our archive don't need to do either of those things.  Lots of people use
Debian who are not members of any shared community, and this is a feature.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)              <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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#13357

On Sat, 19 Aug 2023 at 00:52, Dominik George <natureshadow@debian.org> wrote:
>
> > So, let's at least be consistent.
>
> Totally agree with that.
>
> Debian is not a collection of harmful content, it is an operating system.
>
> But, unfortunately, there are too many people in the project who think, in the name of "free speech", protecting racists, nazists, and anarchists is more important than protecting PoC, jews, or other minorities.

Coming from the country that started to ban some kinds of information
"to protect children", later transferring that to a whole wide
censorship, I'd support protecting 'free speech', which includes all
kinds of minorities: PoC, LGBTQ+ and anarchists, masochists, etc.

According to Debian's CoC we use non-offensive ways to communicate
within the project, so that everybody is welcome to speak and
contribute. But we should not censor software. If there is a
misogynistic comment in GNU HURD sources, should we censor it out?

-- 
With best wishes
Dmitry

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#13337

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>>>>> "Roberto" == Roberto C Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> writes:

    Roberto> sources." I mean, if you're going to wave the code of
    Roberto> conduct around (or Andy in the case of the initial report),
    Roberto> then perhaps we ought to distinguish between what the code
    Roberto> of conduct was very clearly intended to govern, i.e.,
    Roberto> personal communication between participants in the various
    Roberto> means of communication available to participants in the
    Roberto> Debian project, and what is contained in fortunes-mod (and
    Roberto> other packages*), which is written content originating from
    Roberto> various sources, none of which was created or communicated
    Roberto> in a way which any reasonable interpretation of the code of
    Roberto> conduct would cover.

I strongly agree with the above.
I really hope that if Branden is not going to get around to bringing
back fortunes-off and closing the bug asking for its removal that
someone else does.

My blood pressure goes up enough when I interact with this kind of
conversation that perhaps I should not agree to maintain fortune-mod
myself.

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#13338

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On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 05:27:55PM -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> Also, if quoting Mein Kampf or anything else from Hitler is problematic,
> then perhaps fortune-anarchism (source package blag-fortune) should also
> be considered for removal. It includes quotes from numerous individuals
> who have themselves engaged in terrorism or other violence toward
> individuals and groups, supported those who have engaged in such
> activities, or been otherwise complicit in such.

Lol bothsidesing anarchism and fascism

-- 
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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