On Mon, 27 Jul 2026 at 17:25, Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Quoting Aigars Mahinovs (2026-07-27 17:04:23)
> > Rejecting a class of contributions, without any reference to the *actual*
> > quality or merit of the contribution sounds like a classic case of
> > prejudice. Consider what your or public opinion would have been if the
> same
> > package-specific policy were applied to all contributions from people
> from a
> > specific continent or of a specific gender?
>
> I'm not sure whether you are trolling but I'll assume you really believe
> this.
>
> Consider the opposite case: suppose there was a machine creating perfect
> software you have to constantly feed it baby kittens (yes, this is
> intentionally an unrealistic example). In that case, I'd like Debian to say
> that we do not accept contributions from somebody using this machine. And
> even
> though we cannot really 100% check whether somebody is using that machine
> behind our backs, I'd find it important for Debian to make a public
> statement
> where we, as a project declare that we find the use of such a machine to
> produce software unethical and that these contributions are not welcome.
>
>
We had that machine. It was called Windows. We did not ban contributions
made with Notepad or graphics drawn in Photoshop (hello, Debian Logo!). We
worked on technical solutions to, over time, allow more people to create
similar results without the negative feature.
> And you are also insulting the review capabilities of the actual person
> > standing behind that submission.
>
> Instead, I'd find it insulting if somebody would expect me to spend my
> valuable
> free time on reviewing what comes out of such a machine automatically.
>
That was never the request. The *contributor* is expected to review the
proposed change and *they*, as a *human being* are the ones contributing
that change to you and to Debian in the end. If that *individual*
contributor does a poor job of reviewing the change and is proposing actual
"slop", then the maintainer is perfectly with in their rights to reject
such contributions from *that* person until they improve. Exactly like
maintainers *always* had the right to reject individual contributions for
various reasons (including just not fitting into the intended scope/vision
of the project) and even reject all contributions from particular
individuals (who have shown poor judgement in the past), but I expect that
we, as Debian, would generally frown upon maintainers blanker-rejecting all
contributions from all contributors belinging to some specific class or
having some specific property. I provided a couple examples of such
features above, the ones that would be particuarly problematic.
> > That might sound acceptable to you. I am sure that there are many other
> > people in Debian who would think otherwise.
> >
> > Additionally it breaks the doocratic principle.
>
> Aha.
>
> I would say it breaks the doocratic principle if my own contributions
> become
> insignificant because those with enough money to buy tokens are able to
> produce
> a thousand times more output in a fraction of the time.
>
> Why would I want to spend my time on a packaging patch if I can assume that
> others in the team are willing to automate its creation? Then I'll just
> spend
> my free time doing other things that I'm having fun with.
That is up to you. Noone can force you to do any volunteer work. But if you
state that you have time to review patches from one class of contributors,
but not from another class of contributors, regardless of the technical
content of those patches or their size or quantity, then why others can't
do the same for other classes of contributors? Maybe never accepting any
patches from people workign for a corporation? Or from people from USA?
--
Best regards,
Aigars Mahinovs
