Rob posted <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, excerpted below, on Sat, 01 Nov 2003 15:37:52 -0500:
> I suppose you wouldn't worry about legal liability for programs called > "New Instant GNOME Graphic Enhancer/Repository" or "KDE Interactive Kernel > Extender" either? I wouldn't worry about legal liability, no, but then that's probably one reason I'm a computer hobbyist, not professional. OTOH, at least the N one is offensive enough I seriously doubt it would gain enough critical acceptance to get much of anywhere as an open source application. (Sorry, but I hadn't even been exposed to the "K" term until I read a mention of it on a list such as this some months ago.. so can't accurately gauge its offensiveness rating -- "honky", "red-neck", and "white trailer-park trash" are POTENTIALLY as equally offensive, but don't have the bite, because those to whom it may apply have apparently simply not taken the extreme offense to it of some other groups to their labels. IMO, that makes sense, as there's really no real reason to take that extreme offense to ANY of them, N word included, but some people do..) If it doesn't gain at least a minimum level of acceptance within the open source world, it's simply not going to have the support necessary to become a major enough application to cause any real problem, as if it's an important niche, some other application will fill any hole it might leave. BTW, if there's any question, I've been marking "other" and claiming "human" on any forms with the race question for some time. I certainly did so for the 2K census. The majority of my close ancestory has been German/English, but IMO, that has about as much to do with my "race" as does "brown-haired", or "hazel-eyed". I simply belong to the HUMAN race, or perhaps more precisely the "Milky-Way-Sol-Earth-Human race". (Maybe I should start putting THAT down on the forms? BTW, wasn't there some movement to make Klingon an official race in the UK, if enough folks claimed it on their census forms? <g> I guess it wasn't official, but what was the final stat on how many folks DID so?) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
