Subject: Re: bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

From: Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 21:30:59 -0400

Hi Maxime,

Maxime Devos <[email-masked]> writes:

> Hi guix,
>
> fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense) various
> non-nice things like objectification, misogeny, religious intolerance,
> anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape.  That is not an exhaustive
> list, these are just the first few things I encountered with "fortune
> off".
>
> To reproduce the issue, run "fortune off" a few times.  Or just
> "fortune", though then it can take a bit longer.
>
> There are also a few non-nice things in the non-off set.  E.g.:
>
> $ fortune
>> User n.:
>>	A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
> # ^ from 'definitions'
>
> As such, just removing 'off' doesn't seem sufficient.  Unless Someone™
> volunteers to remove the anti-fortunes (*), I would just remove
> 'fortune-mod', given that it seems to serve no practical purpose byond
> being non-nice.  WDYT?

'off' here apparently means the 'offensive' database, as explained by
Liliana; seems it offends alright :-).

The GNU FSDG has says nothing about what programs may or may not
contain, for a good reason: the line to draw could get very subjective
(similar to how the GPL ).

I don't think we should judge our software on terms falling outside of
the Free Software Distribution Guidelines, but a simple thing we could
add here would be a note in the description to caution the user that
running

@example
fortune off
@end example

is intended to be offensive.

What do you think?

Thanks,

Maxim