Re: "purity" package

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>]

Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> I'm very disturbed to see the recent controversy over this issue.

Well, I am somewhat disturbed to see your post on this issue :-)

> Furthermore, I have an EXTREMELY STRONG objection to the suggestion
> that these files should be censored because some people find them
> offensive.  I would have thought Americans net users particularly
> would have learned this lesson by now.

You're not looking at it from the same angle as others, apparently.
First: there is no "freedom of speech" issue.  That applies to
governments, etc.  This is no different than an editor of a newpaper
choosing to omit a certain story but include a different one.  There
are many such examples of "censorship" that really aren't.

These things have already been posted to the 'net.  Obviously they are
not "censored".

However, what purpose do they have in an operating system?  None,
really.  The purity program itself is fine, and as it has been revised
lately (omitting the worst of the tests), the package looks fine too.
If we want to give people a pointer to more data files available on
some FTP site somewhere, that would seem OK as well.

I notice that you didn't really respond directly to the points I made
originally, namely:

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.
 
Well, ok, you kinda dismissed #1 and #2.

Use a bit of common sense.  Surely you would agree that this is not
the sort of thing that should make up an operating system, especially
one that is attempting to provide an alternative for users of Windows.

> Do you also want to withdraw the FAQs for sex and drugs-related
> newsgroups ?  (I presume we have a FAQs package - we used to at one
> point, anyway.)

Not quite sure what you are referring to here...

> Saying "free speech is fine but don't force me to be part of the
> distribution of this stuff" is NOT good enough.  As a project we've

This is not the argument.  Free speech is not the issue.  People are
"censored" (your word) all the time in situations like this.
Corporations decide what products to ship and whose ideas will be used
and whose ideas will not be used.  People like RedHat I'm sure
exercise some control over what goes into their software.

> set out to provide people with information as well as just software -
> numerous documentation-only packages exist.  To say that a particular

This is not what our social contract states.  It says that we are
"guided by the needs of our users and the free-software comunity."  I
really don't think that most users of Unix need this sort of thing in
an OS, and since it is not really software that is in question, I
don't think the second part applies.

In light of Bruce's recent announcement regarding the election, it
worries me that there is a lack of common sense here.

There is nothing to say that just because we aren't putting smut in
here that we must take off other things.  Some have (incorrectly)
claimed that if we remove this, that we must remove the Bible from
here.  Wrong.  The Bible is not offensive.  And as a Christian, I
would not be offended if some Buddhist or whatever wants to put their
religious texts in here since there are Christian texts in here.

It's not the same issue, so let's quit trying to make it to be the same.

-- 
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.
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