Does FPC have any policy about packaging when the upstream have chosen a deliberately offensive name for their application/library?
The complete naming policy is viewable at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:NamingGuidelines There's nothing there about offensive package names.
And feel free to type 'dnf search fuck' to see existing examples of what overly sensitive people might see as offensive package names. We even have a "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License" (WTFPL) though for some reason https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main obscures the word "Fuck".
- J<
$ dnf search steam … python-fuckit … python3-fuckit …
$ dnf search sex … libsexy … libsexymm …
I get nothing for
dnf search retard faggot beaner nigger cunt
though.
I get plenty for
dnf search anus bugger
but those all look quite accidental.
Notice that all instances of fuck that show up are at least somewhat appropriate to the app or library, and have little to do with the core obscene meaning of the word. "fuck" in "brainfuck", means "to mess with", "thefuck" is probably short for "what the fuck" (a pretty random exclamation that one might make after mistyping something), and "fuck it" means "just forget about it, ignore it". They are all fairly denatured, and descriptive of the purpose of the library.
"Sexy" is even more denatured than these uses of "fuck". Someone recently told me that a clothes washer was probably the least sexy household appliance I'ld ever buy, and I'm pretty sure they just meant "appealing" or "exciting" or something like that, i.e., they did _not_ really mean "sexually attractive" or anything else to do with sex. It's a pretty common usage, these days.
So, just to make certain, the fact that a library was called, e.g., libeaner, would not be an objection to it being packaged at all, or to the package name itself being libeaner, or anything like that? (Wikipedia tells me that Beaner/Beano is an offensive name for an Hispanic person.) The question assumes that the upstream had deliberately chosen the name for this meaning, that it wasn't an accidental match, as in debugger or manuscript.
- mulhern
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason L Tibbitts III" tibbs@math.uh.edu To: "Anne Mulhern" amulhern@redhat.com Cc: packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2016 3:11:53 PM Subject: [Fedora-packaging] Re: Does FPC have any policy about packaging when the upstream have chosen a deliberately offensive name for their application/library?
The complete naming policy is viewable at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:NamingGuidelines There's nothing there about offensive package names.
And feel free to type 'dnf search fuck' to see existing examples of what overly sensitive people might see as offensive package names. We even have a "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License" (WTFPL) though for some reason https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main obscures the word "Fuck".
- J<
-- packaging mailing list packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/packaging@lists.fedoraproject.or...
"AM" == Anne Mulhern amulhern@redhat.com writes:
AM> Notice that all instances of fuck that show up are at least somewhat AM> appropriate to the app or library, and have little to do with the AM> core obscene meaning of the word.
I've long since accepted that it is pointless to try and make such rational distinctions, since offense is in the mind of the offended.
If someone is crying "You have a package with fuck in the name; it's not family friendly" then there isn't much point in arguing over shades of meaning of the word fuck or the context surrounding its meaning.
AM> (Wikipedia tells me that Beaner/Beano is an offensive name for an AM> Hispanic person.)
It's an extremely mild and somewhat comical slur. And "Beano" is also the brand name for a very common (in the USA) preparation of an enzyme which is used to reduce gas in the digestive tract. So there's hilarity all around.
AM> The question assumes that the upstream had deliberately chosen the AM> name for this meaning, that it wasn't an accidental match, as in AM> debugger or manuscript.
If you have an upstream which does such a thing, what are the chances that the software they're producing is actually useful? If it's useful, it should stand on its merits and not the name. And if it's just crap, then there probably isn't much point in adding it to the distribution. I would assume that any such software would tend towards the 'crap' end of the spectrum, but it's an infinite universe....
Also note that in order for such a thing to make it into the distrubution, at least two people must agree on its relevance. The person who submits the package, the person who reviews the package, and perhaps the person who processes the SCM request (who doesn't always look, though when process things I almost always read the package review).
In any case, if there's a specific instance of something which you believe to be worth including in Fedora but which has a name that might cause offense, feel free to name it so the community can discuss it. Otherwise this a lot of typing for a hypothetical.
Note that Fedora does have restrictions on "offensive" content. I believe they are somewhat misguided, but they've existed since the earliest days of the project, probably to avoid flamewars. See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Code_Vs_Content
- J<
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason L Tibbitts III" tibbs@math.uh.edu To: "Anne Mulhern" amulhern@redhat.com Cc: "Discussion of RPM packaging standards and practices for Fedora" packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2016 6:22:34 PM Subject: [Fedora-packaging] Re: Does FPC have any policy about packaging when the upstream have chosen a deliberately offensive name for their application/library?
"AM" == Anne Mulhern amulhern@redhat.com writes:
AM> Notice that all instances of fuck that show up are at least somewhat AM> appropriate to the app or library, and have little to do with the AM> core obscene meaning of the word.
I've long since accepted that it is pointless to try and make such rational distinctions, since offense is in the mind of the offended.
When I'm walking down the street and someone yells "faggot" at me, as does occasionally happen, the offense is in _their_ mind, not mine. _They_ _mean_ it to be an insult, I'm just bored by their stupidity, momentarily depressed by the general unpleasantness of the world, and rendered somewhat wary, since now somebody might actually attack me.
If someone is crying "You have a package with fuck in the name; it's not family friendly" then there isn't much point in arguing over shades of meaning of the word fuck or the context surrounding its meaning.
A package with "fuck" in the name _isn't_ "family friendly" in the accepted meaning of that phrase. But sometimes, when I observe somebody holding a kid, while talking into a cell-phone, and every third word is "fuck", I expect that it'll be the first word that 50% of all children in the US learn to say in just a few more years. Certainly it must be the one that many hear the most often.
AM> (Wikipedia tells me that Beaner/Beano is an offensive name for an AM> Hispanic person.)
It's an extremely mild and somewhat comical slur. And "Beano" is also the brand name for a very common (in the USA) preparation of an enzyme which is used to reduce gas in the digestive tract. So there's hilarity all around.
I'm sorry I picked an easy one. I just quickly scanned wikipedia for ethnic slurs that happened to start with "b" so I could prepend "li" to it. I'm sure I could have come up with something a whole lot less easy to dismiss if I'd tried.
AM> The question assumes that the upstream had deliberately chosen the AM> name for this meaning, that it wasn't an accidental match, as in AM> debugger or manuscript.
If you have an upstream which does such a thing, what are the chances that the software they're producing is actually useful? If it's useful, it should stand on its merits and not the name. And if it's just crap, then there probably isn't much point in adding it to the distribution. I would assume that any such software would tend towards the 'crap' end of the spectrum, but it's an infinite universe....
There's a lot of not super high quality software packaged for Fedora. And just because a person is talented doesn't mean they are also a thoroughly decent, kind, person. Take Evelyn Waugh, for example. It follows pretty easily that a person might write quality software and attach a name that they absolutely meant to be cruel, possibly partly to demonstrate that they could get away with it.
Also note that in order for such a thing to make it into the distrubution, at least two people must agree on its relevance. The person who submits the package, the person who reviews the package, and perhaps the person who processes the SCM request (who doesn't always look, though when process things I almost always read the package review).
In any case, if there's a specific instance of something which you believe to be worth including in Fedora but which has a name that might cause offense, feel free to name it so the community can discuss it. Otherwise this a lot of typing for a hypothetical.
I have a slightly different problem. I was looking for a package to do a review swap with, and I found a new package with a lame sexist name. I couldn't at first figure out why, since the upstream link didn't have that name, but AFAICT, that is the name of the actual library. The upstream link refers to a related library. I don't know if the library is actually useful or not, but it is perfectly possible that it is at least as useful as many other libraries already packaged for Fedora. I've made myself the reviewer, and will put the issues that seem to me to arise from this unfortunate situation on the agenda for the next FPC meeting.
Note that Fedora does have restrictions on "offensive" content. I believe they are somewhat misguided, but they've existed since the earliest days of the project, probably to avoid flamewars. See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Code_Vs_Content
- J<
-- packaging mailing list packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/packaging@lists.fedoraproject.or...
I hope that works.
- mulhern
On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 6:22 PM, Jason L Tibbitts III tibbs@math.uh.edu wrote:
"AM" == Anne Mulhern amulhern@redhat.com writes:
AM> The question assumes that the upstream had deliberately chosen the AM> name for this meaning, that it wasn't an accidental match, as in AM> debugger or manuscript.
If you have an upstream which does such a thing, what are the chances that the software they're producing is actually useful? If it's useful, it should stand on its merits and not the name. And if it's just crap, then there probably isn't much point in adding it to the distribution. I would assume that any such software would tend towards the 'crap' end of the spectrum, but it's an infinite universe....
The word "git" actually has a pretty rude standard meaning.
On Sun, Jun 12, 2016 at 8:44 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia nkadel@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 6:22 PM, Jason L Tibbitts III tibbs@math.uh.edu wrote:
> "AM" == Anne Mulhern amulhern@redhat.com writes:
AM> The question assumes that the upstream had deliberately chosen the AM> name for this meaning, that it wasn't an accidental match, as in AM> debugger or manuscript.
If you have an upstream which does such a thing, what are the chances that the software they're producing is actually useful? If it's useful, it should stand on its merits and not the name. And if it's just crap, then there probably isn't much point in adding it to the distribution. I would assume that any such software would tend towards the 'crap' end of the spectrum, but it's an infinite universe....
The word "git" actually has a pretty rude standard meaning.
And my wife just pointed out "gimp".
Long ago, there was a network monitoring tool called "satan" that was pretty good, and came with a configuration flag that changed the URL's and webpage images to "santa". Satan gave birth to Netsaint, which gave birth to Nagios, which will probably give birth to Throg, who will accompany the nine startup devs on their quest for the Golden Venture Capitalist.
You're talking to someone who stopped saying the pledge of allegiance during homeroom, refused to be confirmed in the church that she had been brought up in, and became a vegetarian in a meat-eating family all when she was still in middle school. It wasn't fun.
Arguments that have the flavor of "Everybody else is doing it, therefore it is OK, desirable, possibly even obligatory, you will be punished if you don't." are just going to sound suspicious and wrong to me, making it more and more clear to me that there really is a problem.
I'm opting out of addressing each name on a case-by-case basis, although I really doubt that they all fall into the same category and were all chosen with an identical purpose. It would be a waste of time at this point, for everybody.
- mulhern
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nico Kadel-Garcia" nkadel@gmail.com To: "Discussion of RPM packaging standards and practices for Fedora" packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2016 9:40:51 PM Subject: [Fedora-packaging] Re: Does FPC have any policy about packaging when the upstream have chosen a deliberately offensive name for their application/library?
On Sun, Jun 12, 2016 at 8:44 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia nkadel@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 6:22 PM, Jason L Tibbitts III tibbs@math.uh.edu wrote:
>> "AM" == Anne Mulhern amulhern@redhat.com writes:
AM> The question assumes that the upstream had deliberately chosen the AM> name for this meaning, that it wasn't an accidental match, as in AM> debugger or manuscript.
If you have an upstream which does such a thing, what are the chances that the software they're producing is actually useful? If it's useful, it should stand on its merits and not the name. And if it's just crap, then there probably isn't much point in adding it to the distribution. I would assume that any such software would tend towards the 'crap' end of the spectrum, but it's an infinite universe....
The word "git" actually has a pretty rude standard meaning.
And my wife just pointed out "gimp".
Long ago, there was a network monitoring tool called "satan" that was pretty good, and came with a configuration flag that changed the URL's and webpage images to "santa". Satan gave birth to Netsaint, which gave birth to Nagios, which will probably give birth to Throg, who will accompany the nine startup devs on their quest for the Golden Venture Capitalist. -- packaging mailing list packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/packaging@lists.fedoraproject.or...
2016-06-09 22:34 GMT+02:00 Anne Mulhern amulhern@redhat.com:
So, just to make certain, the fact that a library was called, e.g., libeaner, would not be an objection to it being packaged at all, or to the package name itself being libeaner, or anything like that? (Wikipedia tells me that Beaner/Beano is an offensive name for an Hispanic person.) The question assumes that the upstream had deliberately chosen the name for this meaning, that it wasn't an accidental match, as in debugger or manuscript.
Just a minor nit for this example - it could be very well a some kind of wordplay - when you link against libeaner you pass a -leaner flag to the compiler. But I guess that the library you had in mind is probably something else.
- mulhern
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason L Tibbitts III" tibbs@math.uh.edu To: "Anne Mulhern" amulhern@redhat.com Cc: packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2016 3:11:53 PM Subject: [Fedora-packaging] Re: Does FPC have any policy about packaging
when the upstream have chosen a deliberately
offensive name for their application/library?
The complete naming policy is viewable at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:NamingGuidelines There's nothing there about offensive package names.
And feel free to type 'dnf search fuck' to see existing examples of what overly sensitive people might see as offensive package names. We even have a "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License" (WTFPL) though for some reason https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main obscures the word "Fuck".
- J<
-- packaging mailing list packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/packaging@lists.fedoraproject.or...
packaging mailing list packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/packaging@lists.fedoraproject.or...
On 06/09/2016 04:34 PM, Anne Mulhern wrote:
I get nothing for
dnf search retard faggot beaner nigger cunt
though.
I get plenty for
dnf search anus bugger
but those all look quite accidental.
Notice that all instances of fuck that show up are at least somewhat appropriate to the app or library, and have little to do with the core obscene meaning of the word. "fuck" in "brainfuck", means "to mess with", "thefuck" is probably short for "what the fuck" (a pretty random exclamation that one might make after mistyping something), and "fuck it" means "just forget about it, ignore it". They are all fairly denatured, and descriptive of the purpose of the library.
"Sexy" is even more denatured than these uses of "fuck". Someone recently told me that a clothes washer was probably the least sexy household appliance I'ld ever buy, and I'm pretty sure they just meant "appealing" or "exciting" or something like that, i.e., they did _not_ really mean "sexually attractive" or anything else to do with sex. It's a pretty common usage, these days.
So, just to make certain, the fact that a library was called, e.g., libeaner, would not be an objection
If I were to see a package called libeaner, my assumption as a C coder would be to assume that it was like libiberty: named that way because when passed to GCC it would become "-leaner" (like libiberty becomes "-liberty"). If it carried a racial connotation, I'd probably give them the benefit of the doubt that it was unintentional.
My question post-supposes that they had indicated that the racist meaning was certainly intended by them/why they chose the name.
I'm greatly in favor of giving people the benefit of the doubt...but not when there isn't any.
- mulhern
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Gallagher" sgallagh@redhat.com To: packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 10:08:49 AM Subject: [Fedora-packaging] Re: Does FPC have any policy about packaging when the upstream have chosen a deliberately offensive name for their application/library?
On 06/09/2016 04:34 PM, Anne Mulhern wrote:
I get nothing for
dnf search retard faggot beaner nigger cunt
though.
I get plenty for
dnf search anus bugger
but those all look quite accidental.
Notice that all instances of fuck that show up are at least somewhat appropriate to the app or library, and have little to do with the core obscene meaning of the word. "fuck" in "brainfuck", means "to mess with", "thefuck" is probably short for "what the fuck" (a pretty random exclamation that one might make after mistyping something), and "fuck it" means "just forget about it, ignore it". They are all fairly denatured, and descriptive of the purpose of the library.
"Sexy" is even more denatured than these uses of "fuck". Someone recently told me that a clothes washer was probably the least sexy household appliance I'ld ever buy, and I'm pretty sure they just meant "appealing" or "exciting" or something like that, i.e., they did _not_ really mean "sexually attractive" or anything else to do with sex. It's a pretty common usage, these days.
So, just to make certain, the fact that a library was called, e.g., libeaner, would not be an objection
If I were to see a package called libeaner, my assumption as a C coder would be to assume that it was like libiberty: named that way because when passed to GCC it would become "-leaner" (like libiberty becomes "-liberty"). If it carried a racial connotation, I'd probably give them the benefit of the doubt that it was unintentional.
-- packaging mailing list packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/packaging@lists.fedoraproject.or...
On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 9:26 AM, Anne Mulhern amulhern@redhat.com wrote:
My question post-supposes that they had indicated that the racist meaning was certainly intended by them/why they chose the name.
I'm greatly in favor of giving people the benefit of the doubt...but not when there isn't any.
+1 ^^^^THIS.
- mulhern
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Gallagher" sgallagh@redhat.com To: packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 10:08:49 AM Subject: [Fedora-packaging] Re: Does FPC have any policy about packaging
when the upstream have chosen a deliberately
offensive name for their application/library?
On 06/09/2016 04:34 PM, Anne Mulhern wrote:
I get nothing for
dnf search retard faggot beaner nigger cunt
though.
I get plenty for
dnf search anus bugger
but those all look quite accidental.
Notice that all instances of fuck that show up are at least somewhat appropriate to the app or library, and have little to do with the core obscene meaning of
the
word. "fuck" in "brainfuck", means "to mess with", "thefuck" is probably
short
for "what the fuck" (a pretty random exclamation that one might make after mistyping something), and "fuck it" means "just forget about it, ignore it". They are all fairly denatured, and descriptive of the purpose of the library.
"Sexy" is even more denatured than these uses of "fuck". Someone
recently
told me that a clothes washer was probably the least sexy household appliance
I'ld
ever buy, and I'm pretty sure they just meant "appealing" or
"exciting" or
something like that, i.e., they did _not_ really mean "sexually
attractive"
or anything else to do with sex. It's a pretty common usage, these
days.
So, just to make certain, the fact that a library was called, e.g., libeaner, would not be an objection
If I were to see a package called libeaner, my assumption as a C coder
would
be to assume that it was like libiberty: named that way because when passed
to
GCC it would become "-leaner" (like libiberty becomes "-liberty"). If it
carried
a racial connotation, I'd probably give them the benefit of the doubt that
it
was unintentional.
-- packaging mailing list packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/packaging@lists.fedoraproject.or...
packaging mailing list packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/packaging@lists.fedoraproject.or...
packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org
-
Anne Mulhern -
Jason L Tibbitts III -
Jon Ciesla -
Krzesimir Nowak -
Nico Kadel-Garcia -
Raphael Groner -
Stephen Gallagher