The debian-private mailing list leak, part 1. Volunteers have complained about Blackmail. Lynchings. Character assassination. Defamation. Cyberbullying. Volunteers who gave many years of their lives are picked out at random for cruel social experiments. The former DPL's girlfriend Molly de Blanc is given volunteers to experiment on for her crazy talks. These volunteers never consented to be used like lab rats. We don't either. debian-private can no longer be a safe space for the cabal. Let these monsters have nowhere to hide. Volunteers are not disposable. We stand with the victims.
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: "purity" package

Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu> writes:

> bruce@va.debian.org writes:
> 
> > This program might be of fleeting interest to 14-year-olds.
> 
> I haven't looked at the purity package, so I don't have any opinion
> yet, but...

Well, it has some *very* explicit things in it.  It is very
outlandish.

I am worried about several things:

1) Legal problems related to distributing these sorts of "adult"
   materials.

2) Legal problems related to distributing versions of posts to Usenet,
   some lacking explicit copyright notices, without the author's
   permission.  This would suggest that, at a minimum, the package
   shouldn't be in main.

3) Public relations problems once people see that we are distributing
   that sort of thing.  There are a lot of people using Linux that are
   minors and this puts us in questionable legal situation in the US.
   And that doesn't even begin to touch what the parents of these
   people may think about it.  We could face a PR nightmare here.

4) PR problems for CD distributors.  As I mentioned in my original
   message, they can be placed in a very awkward position if they
   want to distribute our official CDs but not this sort of smut.
   They cannot call a modified version "official", and they can
   lose revenue by not selling the "official" version.

> > I think "purity" and the offensive fortunes should be in a separate
> > distribution. Call it "offensive" or something. Let people who want to
> > carry it do so.
> 
> I think this is a dangerous line to be drawing.  If this stuff will
> actually get us in legal trouble, fine, but otherwise, I'd say stick
> it in a separate directory in main like "risque" and forget about it.
> I think the postinst question that the fortune package uses is more
> than enough to keep these things off sensitive systems.

Rob, what do you think of this in light of the above points?  I in
particular find it appaling to force CD vendors to distribute smut if
they want to distribute our official CD.

> > I'm all for your first ammendment freedoms, but I don't see how carrying
> > this stuff improves the functionality of the Debian system.
> 
> Call me adolescent, but I certainly find *some* of the "offensive"
> fortunes quite amusing, and they don't offend me at all.  The others I
> just harrumph at and ignore.  To my mind "fortune -o" is certainly not
> any less of an "improvement to the functionality of the distribution"
> than something like xeyes -- both are amusing, and useless.

I agree that the "offensive" fortunes probably pose no problem.  They
are not very "explicit".  However, I can see how they could
potentially be a problem.

The "purity" package is much, much worse...  There are things in it
about all sorts of things, many illegal and quite immoral.  Please
take a look at it and let us know what you think then.

BTW, I am a little concerned that I was the first one to notice this :-(

Do we need some sort of guidelines for new packages?

-- 
John Goerzen          | Developing for Debian GNU/Linux (www.debian.org)
Custom Programming    | Debian GNU/Linux is a free replacement for
jgoerzen@complete.org | DOS/Windows -- check it out at www.debian.org.
----------------------+----------------------------------------------
Find out how to avoid all those pesky crashes, lockups, application errors,
and slow applications at http://www.debian.org -- Debian can replace Windows
95 with a much more stable operating system.


--
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-private-request@lists.debian.org . 
Trouble?  e-mail to templin@bucknell.edu .