GNU bug report logs -
#38002
Please remove this joke
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Reported by: Cecilio Pardo <cpardo <at> imayhem.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 14:35:01 UTC
Severity: wishlist
Tags: fixed, patch
Fixed in version 27.1
Done: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.
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Deleting any jokes (including the one you're acquiescent to removal),
after accepting the persons work (the code that came along with the
joke) is extremely disrespectful to the person who did the programming
work along-side it.
(And I mean /that/ person, including a time-period element (people
change, sadly, they're always better when they're younger: when they're
old they simply give up and obey).)
It is like tearing their essence out of the program, their joys, their
perspective. It is treating them as a mule.
Just like proprietary companies threat their programming m[a|u]les.
It also erases the history of the program, the men behind it, their
time-period. With the joke and all the rest you can remenice and
remember /THAT/ time and even the day when the commit was added, and
interacting with the person. This is like kicking over their gravestone
and is /effectivly/ deleting them from the history of the program (the
Authors list does /not/ give you context regarding who they were: just
gives their names, which is useless, especially since everyone uses the
same handful of first names, and the last names aren't too varied either
(usually it's just a job title from their family's past peasant or
mercantile work)).
Let me suggest this: When it came time to have family names, the losely
Confederated central-european states gave some people cruel jokes of a
family name: "gold water" (piss water) etc.
They kept the names anyway when they came to America and could change
them. Yet you can't keep the joke because a woman is offended? The women
are /more important/ than the /men/ who /actually/ helped you guys?
EMACS is old, like many of you are now. Would you like your history
erased because a woman was offended?
Also: in the USA after 35 years an author, or his estate, can recover
his copyrights on whatever works he produced, regardless of who he
assigned the copyright to, within a window of time.
If I were one of the men who's jokes were being removed I would do
exactly that (these sound like 1980s jokes... even 1970s ones). Then
when the code was reimplemented I would sue for contributory copyright
infringement. That's just me though.
Then you would have to make the real choices:
US Copyright Law OR Free Software as your basic creed.
Men OR Women as your programmers.
I will tell you: while you grasp at women and obey their speech codes,
and bend us to /their/ will: you lose the flock of gulls in your hand.
If we liked them we would not waste our lives programming: we would
chase the women. There is a reason we have the time to do the free
software programing and media creation. The fact is we tacitly reject
them because they are tyrants (they would say they rejected us: just as
they attacked you, RMS, in the past saying you would "never get laid"
when you asked them to stop sending birth announcements to the list),
slave drivers, and banned everything we /actually/ wanted (marrying
/girls/ not /women/).
They demand a joke written by a programmer be removed from the program.
What do they offer? Nothing. They offer nothing in payment for the
erasure of the man's mark. They certainly offer nothing to said man.
I know, in the end, it's your program, RMS (and the other original
programmers of emacs in the 70s, you being one of them, this being a
continuation-in-kind, grown from a clone). But you accepted these men's
code, and their joke. Now we watch as "maintainers" and women disrespect
the programmers, and attack you (trying to oust you), and you agree with
them and go along with them. So we silently walk away.
What do you even gain from it? The women and their supporters had you
thrown out of MIT, tossed out of the FSF, and do you have a very young
bride or two that's adorable? No you don't have that either. You got
nothing for it. It would be better to move the free software movement to
Jordan. Even Russia would be a better option; they'll give you a pretty
young woman there (not a girl though; Islam is the only one standing
against Americanism on this).
On 2019-11-01 14:29, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> There is nothing wrong with jokes in general, and no valid reason in
> general to delete jokes in the Emacs distribution. If you think there
> is something bad about a particular joke, please suggest deleting that
> specific joke and give the specific reason.
This bug report was last modified 5 years and 287 days ago.
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