XPost: linux.debian.vote

On Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 04:34:40PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:

The standard that we hold *ourselves* to is considerably more than just "don't be racist" for any definition of racist. The code of conduct we
passed via GR says:

1. Be respectful

In a project the size of Debian, inevitably there will be people with
whom you may disagree, or find it difficult to cooperate. Accept that,
but even so, remain respectful. Disagreement is no excuse for poor
behaviour or personal attacks, and a community in which people feel
threatened is not a healthy community.

I think that's the relevant point, and respectful is a much higher
standard than simply "not racist." It also, directly to your point,
applies to behavior towards anyone in the project.

But that's not directly relevant to the contents of *packages*, and
therefore not particularly useful for resolving the point of this thread.

This is an accurate statement, I would think.

When I wrote the code of conduct, I did not make it explicit that I
thought it was not meant to apply to the contents of packages, but I
think that anyone who reads it can understand that this is the case by
the language used.

However, I think it's clear by now that we need a project-wide consensus
on what policies apply to the contents of packages. This discussion
keeps popping up, and we don't really have a good answer, since we never
had a GR about the subject.

I think we should, so hence my posting this to -vote. Please follow up
there.

I can see four options that would hold relevancy in a vote like this:

- The code of conduct applies, unmodified, to all source code in all our
packages
- The code of conduct does not apply to any contents of any of our
packages, and no alternative code of conduct is required (i.e.,
everything is allowed for our packages)

I do not believe either of these two options are appropriate, but
they're opinions that someone could validly hold.

- The code of conduct applies to all program messages or documentation
texts that could be seen by a user in the normal use of a Debian
system, as well as to anything written by a Debian developer for the
Debian project. However, the following exceptions apply:
- Quotes by historic people when provided in appropriate context,
- Historic texts that are widely disemminated outside of Debian.

The main paragraph mentions "program messages (...) that could be seen
by a user in the normal use of a Debian system", which does not
encompass things like offensive messages in source code comments, or problematic variable names. This is not an accident; we are not the
morality police, and I think it serves no purpose for us to try to patch
out code of conduct-violating things in upstream source code. This is
not because I think things like that are not a problem; rather, because
I think it is a fight that should be fought upstream, not in Debian.
Meanwhile, we should not remove packages from Debian just because
there's one four-letter word directed at a particular person in a fringe comment in a barely-used part of the source code.

The first exception would allow for things like quotes from Mein Kampf
in a fortunes-off package or in a package that generally discusses the atrocities committed by the Nazis and provides the quote for context;
the second one would allow things like religious texts or medieval
literature.

I considered adding an exception for "quotes that are in a package
explicitly marked as not following this rule" to allow for fortunes-off packages containing anything the maintainer thinks is reasonable; but I
am not sure that it would be welcomed by most people in our community,
and also think that this opens the door to far too much, and I would
rather have a rule that sets explicit exceptions for particular types of offensive contents like I did before. I would be open to adding more
exceptions if they're reasonable, these are just the two that I can
think of right now.

Finally, there is also,

- The code of conduct does not apply to the contents of any of our
packages, but a code of contents should be written that will apply to
that.

This last option is a lot of work, and I'm quite sure I do not have the
time or inclination to do any of that. I think that anyone proposing
this type of alternative should make sure that they have a text to go
with it, otherwise we're discussing hypotheticals rather than solutions.

I intend to make this a formal GR proposal with the third option in the
above list a few weeks from now, unless the thread is still full-on and productive by then.

--
w@uter.{be,co.za}
wouter@{grep.be,fosdem.org,debian.org}

I will have a Tin-Actinium-Potassium mixture, thanks.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)