Package Maintainers Flags policy

Paul W. Frields stickster at gmail.com
Tue May 19 13:27:56 UTC 2009


On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 01:59:06PM +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 14:38 +0200, Denis Leroy wrote:
> > On 05/19/2009 12:39 PM, David Woodhouse wrote:
> > > I don't much like the reasons that we have to do it -- but I do agree
> > > that it's best just to stay out of the political debate by not shipping
> > > _any_ flags.
> > 
> > Will you also stay out of the profanity debate and blacklist all 
> > packages contains any textual occurrence of a profane word ? Or ship 
> > them in a separate "-adult" subpackage ? This is completely ridiculous, 
> > and the fact you are a member of FeSCO is plain scary. This can only be 
> > excused by lack of time and/or interest to think about a better solution.
> 
> I believe we do remove profanity where it's visible to the user, such as
> in fortune files. We also removed the 'random image' screensaver, didn't
> we?
> 
> I don't really _approve_ of those changes, just as I don't really
> approve of removing flags. But it's not that I disagree with the Fedora
> decision -- it's more that I disagree with the screwed-up society which
> makes it necessary. I do reluctantly concede that it's the most
> appropriate decision for Fedora. As did an overwhelming majority of my
> colleagues on FESCo, iirc.
>  
> > Worst of all, this "policy" is forced on us, without any sort of valid 
> > legal reason for it, or even chance for discussion on the mailing list. 
> 
> I'm sorry if that impression was given. I thought we actually postponed
> the discussion and vote on it for a week so that it could get more
> visibility -- do I misremember that?
> 
> And my understanding is that there _is_ a valid legal reason for it.
> Distributing Fedora in some countries is _illegal_ if it contains
> certain flags, and can lead to extremely uncomfortable repercussions.

And since I was asked for my opinion, I think David stated it pretty
clearly.  But frankly I don't think my opinion is needed or, indeed,
that relevant.  I do feel strongly that FESCo, as a community elected
body, needs to be empowered to make these kinds of decisions without
worrying about the FPL second-guessing them constantly.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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