On community and conflicts

[Thomas Koch]

Hi Jonathan,

thank you for offering to serve the Debian project for another year as project leader.

To my knowledge, it does not happen often, that a Debian member gets excluded from the project.

Half a year later, would you mind sharing a comment on my exclusion? Would you be open to have a (public?) call with me and maybe also people from the project (e.g. community team)?

There have been conflicts in the last years that separated even families. Also the Debian project has been affected. These conflicts should be healed.

All the best, Thomas Koch

[Soren Stoutner]

Thomas,

I would be interested in hearing the details of what happened. A brief
internet search didn’t pull up any information that seemed pertinent. Is
there some online location where you explain your side of the experience?

Soren

--
Soren Stoutner
so...@stoutner.com

[Thomas Koch]

> Soren Stoutner <so...@stoutner.com> hat am 15.03.2023 19:07 EET geschrieben:

>
> I would be interested in hearing the details of what happened.

There you go:
https://blog.koch.ro/posts/2023-03-15-debian-exclusion.html

[Jonathan Carter]

On 2023/03/15 19:00, Thomas Koch wrote:
> Half a year later, would you mind sharing a comment on my exclusion?

I'm glad that DAM didn't take too long to take action.

> Would you be open to have a (public?) call with me and maybe also people
> from the project (e.g. community team)?
> There have been conflicts in the last years that separated even
> families. Also the Debian project has been affected. These conflicts
> should be healed.

If you care about healing, the best thing you can possibly do is to move
on. From my side, I'm not interested in risking exposing the project to
wasting even more time on more conspiracy theories.

-Jonathan

[Soren Stoutner]

Thomas,

Thank you for this post. I found it an informative read.

My personal opinion is that Debian is not the proper venue for discussions
that do not have a strong nexus to development of Debian itself. As such, I
don’t feel that any of the emails or posts you wrote were appropriate for
sending to Debian’s email lists or posting on Debian websites except for the
email questions about how Debian can best handle the increasing difficulty
caused by laws that prohibit the free-flow of contributions and software
between countries (your email of 3 April 2022).

However much I might agree with the factual content of the other emails and
posts, I don’t think it serves Debian well to get involved in controversial
topics unless they directly impact the operation of Debian itself (for
example, laws related to copyright or patents).

Soren

--
Soren Stoutner
so...@stoutner.com

[Roberto C. Sánchez]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 12:00:55PM -0700, Soren Stoutner wrote:
> Thomas,
>
> Thank you for this post. I found it an informative read.
>
> My personal opinion is that Debian is not the proper venue for discussions
> that do not have a strong nexus to development of Debian itself. As such, I
> don’t feel that any of the emails or posts you wrote were appropriate for
> sending to Debian’s email lists or posting on Debian websites except for the
> email questions about how Debian can best handle the increasing difficulty
> caused by laws that prohibit the free-flow of contributions and software
> between countries (your email of 3 April 2022).
>
> However much I might agree with the factual content of the other emails and
> posts, I don’t think it serves Debian well to get involved in controversial
> topics unless they directly impact the operation of Debian itself (for
> example, laws related to copyright or patents).
>

Yet, would someone posting about the earth being flat, the moon landings
being faked, or aliens being kept in various secret government
facilities around the world have been so swiftly removed from the
project?

BTW, I think that in this particular instance it did "directly impact
the operation of Debian itself" because pandemic-related restrictions
(e.g., vaccines, travel distruptions, etc.) became something that
impacted Debian events and operations.

Regards,

-Roberto

--
Roberto C. Sánchez

[Soren Stoutner]

On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 12:10:01 PM MST Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:

> BTW, I think that in this particular instance it did "directly impact

> the operation of Debian itself" because pandemic-related restrictions

> (e.g., vaccines, travel distruptions, etc.) became something that

> impacted Debian events and operations.

I do see your point, but my personal feeling is that isn’t a strong enough nexus for it to be something that is discussed in Debian itself.  Debian is going to be full of many people from many countries under many different governments with many different laws and feelings about those laws.   If we allowed debate of any topic that affected Debian at the level of vaccines or travel disruptions it would completely disrupt the work that Debian is trying to accomplish.

The key to this subject is how significant the nexus is between the subject and Debian’s work.  In my opinion, it must be much stronger than in the case of any controversial discussion of COVID (again, irrespective of my personal beliefs about the factual content of that discussion).  In my previous email I used the example of discussion of copyright or patent laws, which can become controversial in some quarters, being something where the nexus is strong enough that it is appropriate to discuss them in Debian.  Unless it rises to  that level, I don’t believe this is the right place for it to happen.

Soren

--

Soren Stoutner

so...@stoutner.com

[Joerg Jaspert]

On 16803 March 1977, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:

> Yet, would someone posting about the earth being flat, the moon
> landings
> being faked, or aliens being kept in various secret government
> facilities around the world have been so swiftly removed from the
> project?

Hardly swiftly. And not to a single event. The timeline in the DAM post
he published lists it nicely, about 2 years and multiple warnings in.

And yes, if someone manages to go that way with another conspiracy
theory that directly affects people like this one did, I do believe the
outcome will be the same. The ones you list above are on the comedy side
of things. :)

--
bye, Joerg

[Roberto C. Sánchez]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 10:43:53PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> On 16803 March 1977, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
>
> > Yet, would someone posting about the earth being flat, the moon landings
> > being faked, or aliens being kept in various secret government
> > facilities around the world have been so swiftly removed from the
> > project?
>
> Hardly swiftly. And not to a single event. The timeline in the DAM post
> he published lists it nicely, about 2 years and multiple warnings in.
>

That's a fair point. Perhaps "swiftly" was a mischaracterization on my
part.

> And yes, if someone manages to go that way with another conspiracy
> theory that directly affects people like this one did, I do believe the
> outcome will be the same. The ones you list above are on the comedy side
> of things. :)
>

I'm afraid that you miss the point. I specifically chose flat earth, &
co., as a contrast. My position is that we are all adults, capable of
deciding for ourselves and that, absent some behavior that is a clear
violation of the Code of Conduct and/or mailing list rules (e.g.,
harassment), simply uttering something that some people do not like does
not form cause for removing someone, or even for issuing any sort of
warning. Else, why bother having a Code of Conduct and mailing list
rules?

Thomas' behavior (note that I am not referring to his opinions, but
rather the way in which he chose to express them, because the particular
opinions at issue are actually not particularly relevant), was not
problematic (unless you count his decision to go against DAM warnings,
which in my view should not have been issued in the first place), did
not directly harass anyone, and did not flood/overwhelm mailing list
discussions. To me, in order for something to "directly affect"
someone, that something must necessarily be directed at that person
either directly or indirectly in the way of some attribute. For
example, homophobic, anti-semitic, racist, and those sorts of things are
commonly understood to directly affect people as a result of their
identity or attributes. The things that Thomas chose to write about,
while not especially relevant to Debian (though it seems to a certain
extent there was a connection in his view), did not seem to "directly
affect people" based on any objective (or even subjective) criteria that
we might have used prior to 2020.

You, on the other hand, seem to take the position that DAM (or some
other authority) gets to determine what "directly affects people" and
then act in response to that determination. In effect, you seem to be
advocating for the practice of "thought policing". Or do I
misunderstand what your position is?

Can we have a clear statement of what "directly affects people"? That
way members of our community can have an opportunity to determine if
what they are about to say/write might be considered problematic under
that criterion? Personally, I don't need DAM (or anyone else) to
protect me from hearing or reading things I disagree with. However,
since this seems to be an area where DAM has now demonstrated that
action could be taken, it would be good to have an idea of what the
parameters involved are.

[Holger Levsen]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 07:53:22AM -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> Can we have a clear statement of what "directly affects people"?

for those having lost people due to covid, hearing someone say
it's a hoax, is definitly painful. and this affects Debian directly:

so far we know about one dead DM (yes, Debian Maintainer) and personally I
know several suffering from long covid.

surprise: you're not invisble when you close your eyes.


--
cheers,
Holger

⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ OpenPGP: B8BF54137B09D35CF026FE9D 091AB856069AAA1C
⠈⠳⣄

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Covid is like the flu.

[Roberto C. Sánchez]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 12:29:12PM +0000, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 07:53:22AM -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> > Can we have a clear statement of what "directly affects people"?
>
> for those having lost people due to covid, hearing someone say
> it's a hoax, is definitly painful. and this affects Debian directly:
>
> so far we know about one dead DM (yes, Debian Maintainer) and personally I
> know several suffering from long covid.
>
> surprise: you're not invisble when you close your eyes.
>

Why don't you ask me about the people in my life who have been harmed by
and who I've lost to communist and/or socialist tyranny?

We clearly have a politically biased process when it comes to what
behaviors/words/thoughts are being policed. I'm not even asking for an
unbiased treatment of everyone (though that would be ideal). What I am
asking for is that we have a clear statement of the bias that exists so
that people who are concerned about being affected these policies have
an opportunity to know beforehand.

[Martin Steigerwald]

Roberto C. Sánchez - 16.03.23, 13:50:26 CET:

> Why don't you ask me about the people in my life who have been harmed
> by and who I've lost to communist and/or socialist tyranny?

Or those who where injured or killed by COVID-19 vaccines?

--
Martin

[Salvo Tomaselli]

For those having lost a leg (such as myself, just to name one) because
of some careless driver, reading "I went for a run" could be painful.

Il giorno gio 16 mar 2023 alle ore 13:29 Holger Levsen
<hol...@layer-acht.org> ha scritto:

--
Salvo Tomaselli

"Io non mi sento obbligato a credere che lo stesso Dio che ci ha dotato di
senso, ragione ed intelletto intendesse che noi ne facessimo a meno."
-- Galileo Galilei

http://ltworf.github.io/ltworf/

[Marc Haber]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 02:07:15PM +0100, Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> Or those who where injured or killed by COVID-19 vaccines?

Can we please cut the unscientific bullshit from Debian lists?

Greetings
Marc

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Leimen, Germany | lose things." Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421

[Ansgar]

On Thu, 2023-03-16 at 07:53 -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> > I'm afraid that you miss the point.  I specifically chose flat
> > earth,
> > & co., as a contrast.  My position is that we are all adults,
> > capable
> > of deciding for ourselves and that, absent some behavior that is a
> > clear violation of the Code of Conduct and/or mailing list rules
> > (e.g., harassment), simply uttering something that some people do
> > not
> > like does not form cause for removing someone, or even for issuing
> > any sort of warning.  Else, why bother having a Code of Conduct and
> > mailing list rules?

Using project resources to disseminate conspiracy theories (like Bill
Gates having evil vaccination plans or whatever), using symbolism like
triple parentheses, ... is directly harmful to the project. People,
including non-members, read that and get a certain impression of the
project.

I'm personally not happy with being involved in a project which would
tolerate this, but some are content with such content and run projects
that way (you can, for example, get involved in Debian-based
distributions that are much more "inclusive" there). So people who
think not allowing antivaxx and other conspiracy theories or racism or
whatever on project channels is thought policing have alternatives.

Ansgar
>

[Martin Steigerwald]

Marc Haber - 16.03.23, 14:10:04 CET:

> Can we please cut the unscientific bullshit from Debian lists?

Don't worry, I will just unsubscribe from this list now.

I wrote how I feel about (parts of) the Debian community before. No
point to repeat an experience that I'd rather not repeat.

Whether my statement is "unscientific bullshit" I leave up to history to
decide.

I am sorry for anyone who lost someone, regardless of the cause. And I
hope that someday Debian will be a welcoming community again.

God bless you,
--
Martin

[Gard Spreemann]

Roberto C. Sánchez <rob...@debian.org> writes:

> On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 12:29:12PM +0000, Holger Levsen wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 07:53:22AM -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
>> > Can we have a clear statement of what "directly affects people"?
>>
>> for those having lost people due to covid, hearing someone say
>> it's a hoax, is definitly painful. and this affects Debian directly:
>>
>> so far we know about one dead DM (yes, Debian Maintainer) and personally I
>> know several suffering from long covid.
>>
>> surprise: you're not invisble when you close your eyes.
>>
> Why don't you ask me about the people in my life who have been harmed by
> and who I've lost to communist and/or socialist tyranny?

Nobody is saying that "since X has harmed people, we cannot talk about
X" (or that "if X has harmed people, we must talked about X", for that
matter). The issue is that a project member used the project to spread
lies/disinformation/falsehoods/conspiracies about X being a hoax.

I'm sorry that people in your life have been harmed by a different X,
but as long as Debian members aren't trying to tell you that that X is a
hoax, I don't see how the topics are even remotely related.

> We clearly have a politically biased process when it comes to what
> behaviors/words/thoughts are being policed. I'm not even asking for an
> unbiased treatment of everyone (though that would be ideal). What I am
> asking for is that we have a clear statement of the bias that exists so
> that people who are concerned about being affected these policies have
> an opportunity to know beforehand.

I for one am proud that the project is biased in favor of the best
scientific consensus and evidence at hand, i.e. in favor of the best
tools that we as a species have at our disposal to understand what is
*true* in the physical world. Biased in favor of the truth, if you will.


-- Gard

[Joerg Jaspert]

On 16804 March 1977, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:

>> And yes, if someone manages to go that way with another conspiracy
>> theory that directly affects people like this one did, I do believe
>> the
>> outcome will be the same. The ones you list above are on the comedy
>> side
>> of things. :)

> You, on the other hand, seem to take the position that DAM (or some
> other authority) gets to determine what "directly affects people" and
> then act in response to that determination. In effect, you seem to be
> advocating for the practice of "thought policing". Or do I
> misunderstand what your position is?

I think you do. It was in response to the theories you selected. Clear
nut cases where the ranting is tiresome to hear, possibly, but - for
example - does not make people avoid scientifically proven methods for
protecting themselves and others.

> Can we have a clear statement of what "directly affects people"?

No.

> That way members of our community can have an opportunity to determine
> if
> what they are about to say/write might be considered problematic under
> that criterion?

This seems to come from a point of view that any "wrong thing one may
write leads to an exclusion". And that's just so wrong, that even trying
to define something here is impossible - and also wrong.

We (DAMs) said it many times during numbers of similar threads. We
aren't a thought police, and we are (should be) the last instance things
end up with. And if you look at such DAM actions of the past, you will
find that DAM does not directly go and removes membership. We do try to
work with people, not against.

--
bye, Joerg

[Sam Hartman]

>>>>> "Roberto" == Roberto C Sánchez <rob...@debian.org> writes:
Roberto> I'm afraid that you miss the point. I specifically chose
Roberto> flat earth, & co., as a contrast. My position is that we
Roberto> are all adults, capable of deciding for ourselves and that,
Roberto> absent some behavior that is a clear violation of the Code
Roberto> of Conduct and/or mailing list rules (e.g., harassment),
Roberto> simply uttering something that some people do not like does
Roberto> not form cause for removing someone, or even for issuing
Roberto> any sort of warning. Else, why bother having a Code of
Roberto> Conduct and mailing list rules?


So, I think that this boils down to one of the big disagreements that is
challenging at least the part of the world where I live in.

You can put it several ways.
Are killfiles effective?
Is ignoring people sufficient?

Are communities harmed by long discussions even when everyone can
ignore the discussion.

Or if you view things a bit differently... Are communities harmed by
bullshit? Does not taking steps to limit classes of ideas (even when
people can ignore them) create the perception those ideas are tolerated
in the community? Does such tolerance make classes of people feel
unwelcome?
Does lack of tolerance of those ideas make classes of people unwelcome?

We're all adults and we can just ignore that is an idea that some of us
have come to reject. For people like me, Russ, Steve, and a few
others, I think coming to that conclusion took years. I certainly know
that I started out somewhere close to where you are today.
For other members of our community who lacked certain privileges in the
context of Debian and the Internet, I suspect coming to the conclusion
that killfiles and ignoring was insufficient took a lot less time.

For myself, it's quite clear that people are not actually *just adults
that ignore it*.
There are lots of reasons for that. Some of them I regret--like how in
a community where we all have a voice we tend to debate everything,
rather than asking ourselves whether we need to participate. Which is
to say that there is a human tendency against just ignoring it even when
we can.
Other ideas I find I do not regret like the idea that I will not stand
for people being hurt in the community because of who they are.
(And yes, I understand there are members of the community who believe
hurt should only be used in relation to physical actions--I find myself
not in agreement with that.)


I was not involved in actions taken in response to Thomas's messages. I
cannot remember if I was a DAM trainee during any part of that, but my
recollection is that I was never involved in any significant way.
I was definitely not involved in DAM when he was expelled from the
project; I even sent mail questioning a small part of DAM's message.

But I can respond in the general context and comment on how I think
about just ignoring Thomas's ideas if I disagreed with them.
It's quite clear to me that many people were going to respond to
Thomas's conspiracy theories. They did.
They did not just ignore it.
It was disruptive, and disruptive of Debian's mission.
This was true even before DAM acted.
Even before any action was taken, people were not ignoring Thomas's
messages.

Thomas's messages were disrupting our mailing lists in a way that is in
my mind inconsistent with our mailing list rules.
Creating a huge stir of off-topic messages--creating a flame war as we
used to call it--is and ought to be inconsistent with the mailing list
rules.

DAM sent Thomas a warning, and in discussions with Thomas he *agreed not
to do it again*.

Trust is important.
If in a proceeding with DAM you make some promise about your future
behavior, and then later violate that promise, that's a big deal.
In my mind, going back on your word in a situation like that very much
is an actionably big deal.
And DAM acted.

It might have been different if Thomas wrote to DAM and said that after
consideration, he thought DAM was wrong and he would not be able to
abide by his promise. Thomas and DAM could have figured out how to
approach that--Thomas could for example have tried to get support for a
GR if he felt DAM was being unreasonable in expecting such a promise.
But if you say you're not going to do something, and you then go do it
without withdrawing your commitment, you have broken trust.

Trust is really important in our community. DDs have a lot of power. I
support DAM in acting when people break trust with them or with the
community.
--Sam

[Russ Allbery]

Roberto C. Sánchez <rob...@debian.org> writes:

> I'm afraid that you miss the point. I specifically chose flat earth, &
> co., as a contrast. My position is that we are all adults, capable of
> deciding for ourselves and that, absent some behavior that is a clear
> violation of the Code of Conduct and/or mailing list rules (e.g.,
> harassment), simply uttering something that some people do not like does
> not form cause for removing someone, or even for issuing any sort of
> warning. Else, why bother having a Code of Conduct and mailing list
> rules?

Let me propose an alternate way of thinking about this, which I think is a
bit more accurate description of what happens in practice.

1. Someone has something they feel passionately about but which is not
very related to the work of Debian. One can argue some connection (we
are people living in the world -- there will always be some
connection), but it's not obviously directly relevant to our work.
They start using project resources (mailing lists, etc.) to talk about
this topic.

2. Those discussions upset other people in the project. Often this is
because they directly disagree, sometimes it's just because they don't
want to talk about that topic here. The former is usually what creates
the initial reaction, of course, and the latter is more of a fallback
position among the vocal people, but I suspect is a more common initial
position among the quieter people who just want to do Debian work.

3. We reach some sort of rough consensus as a community that this
discussion is disruptive and we don't want to have it here. This is
the critical point: for many previous controversial discussions, we
*didn't* reach this consensus for one reason or another. Perhaps
there's ongoing disagreement over whether this topic is directly
relevant to Debian or not. But sometimes we reach a pretty
overwhelming consensus (by this I mean nearly everyone speaking up is
arguing in that direction) that regardless of the merits of the
argument we don't want to talk about it on project resources.

4. The person who feels passionately about this thinks that consensus is
wrong and keeps talking about it anyway.

5. Eventually DAM gets involved, judges the consensus about declaring this
off-topic, and asks the person to stop.

6. The person refuses to stop because this topic is of overwhelming
importance to them and for some reason they feel like they have to
discuss it in Debian.

7. Eventually, DAM takes action to force them to stop. At this point, I
would argue that it doesn't make sense for them to continue as members
of the project because they're pretty clearly unwilling to respect a
boundary the project is trying to draw (step 3). That's a fairly
irreconcilable difference and it's better for everyone to go their
separate ways.

I think this is a pretty typical process for just about any community
space where people interact. I've seen versions of this play out in just
about every community I've been involved in. Usually things stop at step
2 because discussing something when other people are upset at the
discussion isn't very fun and usually people don't like to keep doing it.
Very often the process stops at step 3 because no sufficiently strong
consensus emerges. Hopefully the rest of the time the process stops at
step 5. Very rarely it runs through the whole list.

If this is a reasonably accurate model, I think it makes it somewhat
obvious that you can't have a list of banned topics written down in
advance because steps 2 and 3 are really important (and step 3 can change
over time!). The point isn't that there is a specific set of off-topic
topics. The point is that if you talk about something that makes other
community members actively upset (step 2) *and* they can build a project
consensus that we want to shut down this specific topic here (step 3),
then the rest of the process potentially comes into play.

Nearly all controversial topics in Debian do not get past step 3. We have
endless recurring topics that run up to step 3 every year or so, and never
progress any farther.

At least in my opinion, having watched this specific incident from the
start, we passed point 3 fairly clearly with a rather remarkable consensus
by Debian standards (not unanimity, but a pretty strong consensus). I
realize other people may disagree, and that perhaps part of your point in
getting involved in this discussion is to register your disagreement with
the conclusion that we reached a step 3 consensus. But I do think we did.

This process is *inherently subjective*, because it depends on the people
in the community and what upsets them and what topics they form a step 3
consensus about. It's not a question of absolute right or wrong or any
generalizable universal moral judgment. It's a question of self-policing
and a community's ability to declare what they do and don't want the
community discussion space to be used for. And yes, that inherently
requires someone with power in the community to make a judgment call about
whether step 3 was truly satisfied, and that judgment call is often going
to be controversial, and we as a community should guard against making it
prematurely or too easily, and there may be ongoing disagreements over
whether that happened.

But I don't think the process *as such* is inherently unfair; in fact, I
think it would be hard to have a community of humans that didn't have some
sort of process similar to this. Not everything is going to be talked
about everywhere all the time; people are occasionally going to say "hey,
please don't talk about this here," and I think that's a reasonable thing
to want. And there's really no way to build a comprehensive list of such
topics in advance.

--
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

[Timo Röhling]

* Joerg Jaspert <jo...@debian.org> [2023-03-16 16:20]:

>This seems to come from a point of view that any "wrong thing one may
>write leads to an exclusion". And that's just so wrong, that even trying
>to define something here is impossible - and also wrong.

That point of view has been insinuated and rebutted often enough
that it might qualify for a Debian extension to Godwin's law.


Cheers
Timo


--
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ │ Timo Röhling │
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ │ 9B03 EBB9 8300 DF97 C2B1 23BF CC8C 6BDD 1403 F4CA │
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

[Thomas Goirand]

On 3/16/23 16:24, Sam Hartman wrote:
> It was disruptive, and disruptive of Debian's mission.
> This was true even before DAM acted.
> Even before any action was taken, people were not ignoring Thomas's
> messages.
>
> Thomas's messages were disrupting our mailing lists in a way that is in
> my mind inconsistent with our mailing list rules.

I find all of this thread also disrupting, off-topic, and very annoying.

Thomas, if you feel like you need to discuss your case in public *again*
(which IMO, you shouldn't do at all...), could you please at least avoid
hijacking the DPL elections to do so?

Thomas Goirand (zigo)

[Pierre-Elliott Bécue]

Roberto C. Sánchez <rob...@debian.org> wrote on 15/03/2023 at 20:10:01+0100:

> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 12:00:55PM -0700, Soren Stoutner wrote:
>> Thomas,
>>
>> Thank you for this post. I found it an informative read.
>>
>> My personal opinion is that Debian is not the proper venue for discussions
>> that do not have a strong nexus to development of Debian itself. As such, I
>> don’t feel that any of the emails or posts you wrote were appropriate for
>> sending to Debian’s email lists or posting on Debian websites except for the
>> email questions about how Debian can best handle the increasing difficulty
>> caused by laws that prohibit the free-flow of contributions and software
>> between countries (your email of 3 April 2022).
>>
>> However much I might agree with the factual content of the other emails and
>> posts, I don’t think it serves Debian well to get involved in controversial
>> topics unless they directly impact the operation of Debian itself (for
>> example, laws related to copyright or patents).
>>
> Yet, would someone posting about the earth being flat, the moon landings
> being faked, or aliens being kept in various secret government
> facilities around the world have been so swiftly removed from the
> project?

I sincerely hope so.

We have already a lot of energy invested in our daily lives to not lose
more in Debian about non-scientific garbage.

Debian is not for that, and no place should be used for that anyway.
--
PEB

[Wouter Verhelst]

Hi Russ,

I realize I'm very late with this (sometimes one is just delayed with
reading emails), but I wanted to thank you for this mail. I think it
captures quite well how this all works, and why it is difficult to write
down a set of rigid rules (occasionally, that is also why I did not add
such a rigid set of rules to the code of conduct, when I wrote it).

So, thanks!

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

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