From
Sam Hartman@21:1/5 to
All on Sun Nov 20 21:50:02 2022
TL;DR: I think that we need to be significantly more permissive of ideas expressed in software in our archive, especially for software that
exhibits creative speech, than we do conduct in our community. I do not
think that the Code of Conduct is an appropriate tool for judging
software in Debian. For that and related reasons, I do not think the
Community Team is a good team to make such judgments.
For the long version:
We've talked about how not all conduct is welcome in our community.
There are different reasons people have supported the CoC, Diversity
Statement, and related decisions.
For me, two factors are most important. First, I believe that by being welcoming to a large community, we can build a better free software
operating system. We must reject intolerance and promote respect to be welcoming to the largest community.
Second, I enjoy working in respectful, welcoming communities, and for
selfish reasons I'd like to encourage Debian to be welcoming to me.
People have argued that Debian does not need to promote free speech
within our community--that there are ideas, topics, and styles of
discourse that make the community less welcoming, and they don't belong
here. We've argued that in many cases, that is not a huge restriction
because those same topics are not related to free software or the work
we've gathered here to do. People have made analogies to the conduct
we approach in professional settings/while at work.
And yes, we've had disagreements about all that.
EVEN IF YOU BUY INTO THAT, SOFTWARE WE PACKAGE IS DIFFERENT.
First, Debian has significant power as a distribution.
If your software is in Debian, it is more available than if it is not.
If I can type `apt install your_software_name` and get the software on
my system, your software is easy to get to. No, Debian is not the only influential software distribution channel, but it is a powerful one.
Removing software from Debian because of its values does have a chilling effect;it works to curve and suppress those values.
No, it's not as big of a chilling effect as people breaking into your
house in the middle of the night.
But it is restricting the flow of ideas—restricting speech in a way that limiting conduct in our community is not.
We do not have as much power as a government, but when we remove
software from our archives because of the ideas it expresses, we are
using that significant power we have to force our views about what
values are appropriate on the world. We, in a position of power, are exercising that power to restrict speech.
I understand people will disagree with me, but in my mind, that’s
censorship.
Censorship is not always bad. I think the c-word is appropriate because
it reminds us of the responsibility that comes with choosing to use our
power in that way and the consequences of abusing that power.
Again, Debian censoring its archive is no where near as consequential as government censorship. I respect others may use different words like moderation rather than censorship. I trust you will respect my choice
here, just as I respect the reasons why others might choose differently.
There are times when we will need to reject software because of its
ideas. As an example, some content is not content we can legally
distribute. We have chosen generally not to distribute sexually
explicit content because of legal and other complexities.
We also reject software for many other reasons unrelated to the ideas
it expresses. It might not meet our quality standards. We might not
have someone who wants to maintain it. We might not be able to keep up
with dependencies. I’m explicitly not talking about any of that.
Also, individual maintainers make content decisions all the time. They
might rephrase something that people find objectionable. I support maintainers having wide latitude to do this.
But I think the bar for rejecting software from our archive because of
its ideas should be really high. Not insurmountable, but really high.
1) Freedom of speech is something I value. Having a wide variety of
ideas expressed—even ideas I strongly reject—is part of what makes a
good free software distribution in my mind. I don’t know that the
project has taken a position on this, but for myself, that kind of
freedom and inclusivity is something I value. I do think that sections
of the DFSG that ban discrimination against fields of endeavor suggest
that we may be leaning in the pro-freedom direction. Similarly, the
Dissident Test suggests we at least value users who have unpopular
ideas. Again, that’s not the same as arguing we should permit the
software with those unpopular ideas, but it suggests to me that we may
be leaning that way.
Regardless of how far we have made such a decision in the past, I hope
we will generally choose to value free speech in this direction.
2) If we censor software, we need to decide what form of censorship is appropriate. If the bar isn’t really high, Debian is going to be a very unwelcoming place while we hash all that out. Some things are probably easy—I bet we have a consensus that if ftpmaster or the mirror team says
we cannot legally distribute something, it’s gone at least until someone
pays for and obtains a legal opinion saying otherwise that ftpmaster
finds compelling. I bet we have a strong consensus that if no one wants
to maintain something, or no DD wants to initially sponsor something, it
doesn’t belong in our archive.
But imagine if we wanted to censor things that disagreed with our values
about hot political issues like gender identity, medical issues, or the environment.
We’d have to figure out what those values are.
And suddenly a bunch of conversations that didn’t need to happen in
Debian become directly related to the core mission of Debian–making our
free software operating system.
It’s a lot easier to decide that in our interactions in Debian we’re
going to respect people’s identities than it is to agree on values to
judge software against.
Even answering questions like “is that referring to an idea we reject
talking about historical context, or is it promoting the idea,” could
get very thorny and messy.
3) I think censorship is particularly problematic the more creative
speech is.
The games section of Debian includes fiction. For games, creative
freedom, and the ability to explore a bunch of ideas is the entire
point. Often exploring things we find distasteful can be valuable.
Making these judgments get very dicey. I think back to one of my
favorite games as a kid: the Ur-Quan Masters. These days it is in our
archive (non-free so not in Debian).
Depending on how you view the game, you might argue it promotes suicide,
sexual objectification, sexual promiscuity, slavery, and genocide. Or
perhaps you look at things a little differently and argue it’s all about cultural openness, fighting oppression, building community across racial boundaries, and scientific progress.
I hope we choose to decide making those decisions is up to individual maintainers whenever possible.
As a creative artist, I get really nervous reading Andrew’s mail.
This stuff is very personal to me. I face censorship of large platforms
like Amazon that decide which ideas they promote and which ideas they
relegate to tolerated disreputable status (and which they outright
reject).
I don’t want to be part of seeing Debian turn into that.
I note that fortune-off is in the games section and in my mind should be
held to the most permissive standards.
I think there is an argument that the further away from the core of the software an idea is, the lower the bar might be for censorship. As an
example, take weboob. I am not arguing that we should bring weboob
back. I’m bringing it up to argue about where we might draw lines. In
the interest of full disclosure, if it came to a GR, I might well
have voted that if someone wanted to maintain weboob, they should be
able to. I’m not sure; that case was on a border for me. It was
complicated because the sexual humor was so far removed from the primary purpose of the software. You don’t need sexual humor to have command
line tools for interacting with the web without a browser. The major
functions of the software would not be reduced by using different
imagery.
I think the bar is even lower as we get into source code comments,
revision control comments, and internals. There, we begin to move our
focus in towards the community of developers, and the CoC starts to
apply in my mind. I absolutely would not have supported the homophobic comments in the weboob source code. (My recollection of the situation
is they were eventually removed upstream–perhapss not in the most professional way, but were generally removed.)
========================================
Because I think we should have a high bar for censoring software, and
because I do not think the CoC should apply to the content of software,
I think the Community Team should not be involved in deciding what
software is appropriate in Debian.
The Community Team is by its nature made up of people who are ready to
say “Hey, that’s not appropriate.” The Community Team does consider
each case; they are also willing to say “hey, we don’t see a CoC
violation here,” but they are not afraid to say “that’s not cool.” That’s their job. Even when the CT doesn’t see a CoC violation, they
often ask whether people could adopt different approaches that might
work well for everyone involved.
Again, that’s what we need to create a welcoming community.
That is not what I want to see for rejecting software because of its
ideas.
I want us to feel discomfort for doing that.
I want it to be rare enough that we don’t have a group of people in the business of saying “yes, that doesn’t meet our values.” I want each instance to feel a bit uncomfortable, to be a bit difficult.
And so I think the very things that makes the CT good at what we’ve
charged them to do, make them a bad fit for the kind of decisions we’re talking about in this thread.
========================================
Coming back to the package that starts this, unless fortune-off is a lot
worse than I remember, I think that fortune-off is well below the bar
where censorship is appropriate. If ftpmaster decides it cannot legally
be distributed, that’s one thing. I hope they would give a stronger justification than I’ve seen in this thread.
That said, if the fortune maintainers choose not to distribute
fortune-off, and no one wants to take it up, I’m fine with that. Again,
I think the bar for maintainer action should be a lot lower than the bar
for we as a project won’t do something.
========================================
I feel very strongly about this issue.
Here are my commitments:
1) If a DD wants to see fortune-off in Debian, and runs into political
trouble making that happen, I will provide my skills at understanding
Debian process and governance and will try to help overcome the
political obstacles. If you are such a DD and run into trouble, reach
out to me.
2) I will try and build a consensus that we want the bar to be high for rejecting software from Debian based on the ideas it expresses.
3)If we fail to get a consensus behind point 2, I will work to draft a
GR establishing such a principle.
Obviously I won’t go draft a GR if a consensus against my position
emerges.
Thanks for your consideration,
–Sam
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From
Roberto =?iso-8859-1?Q?C=2E_S=E1nch@21:1/5 to
Andrew M.A. Cater on Mon Nov 21 00:00:01 2022
On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 08:54:14PM +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
I suspect there is also a slight difference of understanding of the merits of free speech on either
side of the Atlantic: it's a cultural thing and I suspect I tend to the European side here :)
Thank you for acknowledging this. One of the things that frustrates me tremendously is when we pretend to be neutral and unbiased (both things
which are mere illusions, and often strong self-delusions at that) and
then go around forcing some view, belief, or idea on others without any
regard for validity of the views, beliefs, or ideas that must
necessarily be displaced for those upon whom the new views, ideas, or
beliefs are being imposed.
If we could simply drop the pretense and honestly state "I am/we are
advocating for such and such and I/we fully acknowledge that such and
such is superior to whatever it must displace in your own worldview
because (insert reasons)", then I would find that much more forthright
than what we go around doing now.
Regards,
-Roberto
--
Roberto C. Snchez
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