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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