Warniong : I'm not an Ordained Debian Developper (TM) : my words are
just those of a Debian User, worried by this new upsurge of hair
splitting, US smelling madness.
Hi again,
perhaps to bring down the conversation to something more constructive,
I think we should base decision to have something or not in Debian:
1. _NOT_ on personal belief (else we would probably end with nothing).
2. _NOT_ on local laws (same comment).
Agreed so far.
3. does it have some technical interest? (technical documentation
OK, technical tool to show/use the Bible is OK, Bible in HTML format
is probably _not_ OK, Gutenberg can do it better).
NOT fully agreed : while I don't think that political|religious|sexual
propaganda belongs to Debian (it's an operating system and
environment), I feel I'm not entitled to ask for pulling it out (freedom
of speech, remember ? Fortunately, that entails freedom of not hearing).
After all, some people might argue that they can't function properly
without their weekly|daily|hourly biblical fix, and who am I to tell
them no ?
4. does it respect basic democratic values?
NOT agreed : freedom of speech (which IS a democratic value, maybe THE
democratic value..) implies ALSO feedom to speak against democracy (and
ENTAILS freedom to speak FOR democracy. That's debate vs censorship,
guys !). See Voltaire for further explanations.
5. does it respect other people's belief and personallity?
NOT agreed ! Some people's belief and|or values may be, in my not so
humble opinion, a serious impediment to fundamental rights and freedoms
; I want to be free to tell why and how much I despise such beliefs and
values (freedom of speech again, guys !).
Personally, I find Bellamy's pictures quite artistic and not
aggressive, but I would say, Women on the list should decide on this
one (criteria 5).
Bloody NOT agreed : I do not agree to give censor's scissors to ANYONE,
male or female. The so-called political correctness is, IMHO, a
bigotry as bad as or worse than any other.
Note of interest : this kind of issues comes up regularly on Debian
lists. May I point out that this way of making big issues of
sex-(semi-)related points seems to emanate mainly from citizens of one
country where the dominant opinion seems to be that morals is something
people wear about 8 inches below their navels ? Debian might fare much
better if its members who happen to be citizens of the U f*ck*ng S of A
rememeber sometimes that they are *not* center and moral arbiter of the
world... The same can be told of (semi-) legal concerns, which have no
relevance outside the US : insisting that Debian should cater to any
possible foolish demands of an US attorney|sycophant is at best
provincialism, at worst parochialism.
Sincerely,
Emmanuel Charpentier
PS : I'm not on the list, and not following it on a regular basis.
Should you want to react, please Cc me... EC
