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

From: Maxime Devos <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2022 21:45:04 +0200

On 14-07-2022 03:30, Maxim Cournoyer wrote:

> 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
>
> @exampleGNU licellabourlabourabournse incompati
> fortune off
> @end example
>
> is intended to be offensive.
>
> What do you think?

I believe criteria like the FSDG to be important, but not the only 
important criteria -- free software does not live in a vacuum. In this 
case, I believe the absence of misogeny, etc., to be important and 
choosing to further those (*) to be straight-out unethical.

Also, it is already policy to take such things in account, e.g. it has 
been codified in CODE-OF-CONDUCT to some degree, though I want to be 
clear that even if it wasn't codified, it should be policy anyways.  So 
far, the principles behind things like CODE-OF-CONDUCT haven't been 
applied to the contents of package but I see no reason they shouldn't be.

(*) here I consider choosing to take no action to be a choice.

Also, I would like to note that nobody here seems to actually want the 
fortune-mod or disagrees that those "jokes" are vile and serve no useful 
purpose, so it's not like removing it would cause fragmentation, so that 
potential issue you seem to be referring to (or maybe I'm reading to 
much in your response?) does not seem to apply here.

Greetings,
Maxime.