Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2017 22:26:08 +0800 From: Julian Elischer <julian@freebsd.org> To: Bill Sorenson <instructionset@gmail.com>, mike@karels.net Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Benno Rice <benno@freebsd.org>, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The future of fortune(6) Message-ID: <0b9a0042-8ab8-004d-437b-a836f5b05907@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <CACcTwY=r2=V8yd5WiP_iTV_oaThub9toOEbqET0givPwmVJQpg@mail.gmail.com> References: <66D39828-ADBA-4973-BEB8-B2F6657E9996@FreeBSD.org> <201711261832.vAQIWNaV006777@mail.KARELS.NET> <CACcTwY=r2=V8yd5WiP_iTV_oaThub9toOEbqET0givPwmVJQpg@mail.gmail.com>
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On 27/11/17 12:31 pm, Bill Sorenson wrote: >> No kidding. At least 30 years ago, when I was at CSRG, a female professor >> complained that she had received an offensive fortune when she logged out. >> After some investigation, we found that she was using her husband's account, >> and he had "fortune -o" in his .logout file. Case closed. >> >> Mike >> > I want to 2nd Mike Karels' sentiments. There is a *big* - huge - > massive difference between words people don't like and someone being > offensive. > > I don't want to give the impression that I see value in having Hitler > quotes in base, I don't, its out. Great by me. At the same time I > don't see the value of scrubbing base of arrangements of words people > don't like. If I see that fortune spits out a Rush Limbaugh quote, a > Hitler quote, an Franklin D Roosevelt quote or an Al Franken quote or > a bad joke I for one don't instantly come to the assumption that this > is somehow an endorsement by the project or even a commiter of any > particular thing. Its just stuff in history. In a way thats really > what fortune is, a collection of history (even if just FreeBSD tips). > > Frankly, I'm a bit offended (if mildly) by the stance that "we've > decided to excise fortune from base because its a tool used to spread > hate and bad ideas." This is dangerously approaching the point of > censoring the project because of how people might decide to use the > software. Even Richard Stallman doesn't go for this sort of thing. > Maybe we should start to discuss ripping OpenSSH out of base because > it could be used in the commission of a felony or to hurt somebody's > feelings. I don't want to remove vi from base just because I feel > stupid after using it. There is a cost to having a free and open > society, one of those is that someone may use fortune to print > detestable quotes about Hitler on their terminal. The fact that something was said by Adolf Hitler doesn't make it automatically unsuitable for the fortune files. I'd say that if you think it does, that gives a lot more new information about you than it does about Adolf Hitler, who we already know about. Most of the deleted quotes (to do with Women) are so offensive by modern standards that I view them as almost satirical, and somewhat educational. One or two of them are positively scary in how well they fit to current politics and I view them as cautionary.. (and certainly should have stayed). For those who didn't read them you can find them in the commit history now. The unilateral declaration to be the "arbiter of FreeBSD morals" does grate with me more than the demise of the data files however. It's the old "Who elected you king?" line from Monty Python. Think of the bikesheds that Stalin avoided when he just killed all his opponents. I imagine that somewhere in those files was "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’ Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947" While we are not a democracy, Our desire to remain open leads unavoidably to some of the same messiness, and we should accept that as the price of our freedom to feel part of the project. The claim to avoid a bikeshed (hmm how did that play out for you?) is not an excuse to work without consultation. > > I for one would recommend leaving things alone unless it is a > substantive improvement. > > -Bill S. > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >
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