On 02/01/2022 07:59, Richard Stallman wrote: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > Packaging a program in distros is crucial for the community because it > leads to various teams that independently work on the program, and > thus have a chance to make sure it is honest. This is why free > software tends not to be malware. This does not happen in practice but it could happen. In Debian I've observed that people put more scrutiny on each other than on the code. The words used in their most recent mob outbreak can be seen as a confession that decisions are made by secret tribunals and secret (fictional) evidence. The mentality behind that needs careful analysis: they are saying "trust us because we are a distribution". Yet the moment we let our guard down and give anybody absolute trust, they will change the rules. It is human nature and it happens in every domain. Several character attack emails, including the anti-Appelbaum mob (2016) and anti-RMS mob at Easter 2021, were linked to a Pentagon employee, Paul Tagliamonte. He was pictured with the chairman of the joint chiefs. We are asked to trust all the words of these mobs because "it is Debian". In Afghanistan, when they made a drone strike on a guy transporting water bottles, the Pentagon also asked us to trust them, their anonymous experts had confirmed he was a suicide bomber. These people and their goals appear to be intent upon preventing distributions from fully achieving their potential as independent and trustworthy reviewers of code. Above all else, they are creating a cult around their name. The code, even if it is better than malware, is still second to their aggressive (anti-)social agendas. > You may be right that it doesn't particularly help on other dimensions, > but this one is a must. > > Also, we in our community use distros of GNU/Linux, so if we sponsor or > promote > a program (game or not) we will want it to be packaged for our distros. > > -- Debian Developer https://danielpocock.com _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfellowship.eu https://lists.fsfellowship.eu/mailman/listinfo/discussion
