>Stallman, however, replied that "a GNU manual, like a course in history, is not meant to be a 'safe space'". He suggested the possibility of adding a trigger warning about functions that create child processes, since childbirth is "far more traumatic than having an abortion" "It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it." -Michael Scott
Who controls glibc?
381–390 of 528 posts
Re: Who controls glibc?
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the new spirit of 'liberalism', or the tumblr version of it, mentioning a traumatic event is as bad as causing the traumatic event. You can't mention rape because it might trigger someone, it doesn't matter if you are excusing it, or demanding harsher punishments for it. Unless you've been on a collage campus in the last 10 years you don't know how insane the movement is. Calling it 'liberal' is complete wrong bec…
I've been on a college campus within the last 10 years and I can only assume the people who genuinely think this either haven't or have their careers depend on pretending it's true (e.g. Turning Point USA).
Then you're either willfully blind, or extremely lucky.
My alma mater allows talks about helping tweens transition to their preferred gender, but banned a talked by a "pickup artist" in the last 18 months.
Last Thursday I looked up a dissertation from the graduate library for work and they had a sticker on every door un-ironically using "lgbtqia+ and allies". Here's another one that does the same: https://lgbtqia.ucdavis.edu/educated/glossary.html
Re: Who controls glibc?
#383"I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing."
Alan J. Perlis (April 1, 1922-February 7, 1990)
https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/...
Re: Who controls glibc?
#384Lots of people seem to be rooting around like truffle hogs looking for the partisan politics embedded in this story, but you won't find any. The conflict happening here is between maintainers, who don't want a dated left-leaning joke embedded in the glibc documentation, and Stallman, who does. If there's "political correctness" involved, it's right-leaning. But, as a left-leaning pro-choice person: there's no "politi…
No, even though this seems like exactly the kind of thing which should offend right wingers, the "political correctness" involved isn't right-leaning - that's the most astounding thing about this. The objections to including this are fundamentally feminist, left-leaning ones about how it could be "triggering" to women. This doesn't even seem to be a case of the right adopting feminist language as they sometimes do - its removal is backed mainly by left-wing campaigners like Matthew Garrett, some of whom are implacably opposed to the idea that free software should even be welcoming to people with right-wing views.
Somehow, using the glibc documentation to attack US anti-abortion policy offended not the right wing, but the modern feminist left; ironically enough, the same folks who believe that everything must be political and that any developer who doesn't care about politics is an active enemy of the cause.
Re: Who controls glibc?
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with RMS on this. People need to grow up. It's ok to be offended, but not ok to try and correct everyone just because you are offended. A line needs to be drawn somewhere and this is harmless.
I wish I could make RMS, and you, and everyone who agrees with you, live in a sort of reverse-Kantian world, where whatever you advocate for as acceptable behavior when you do it becomes a universal law of conduct for other people to use when interacting with you. No matter how much of a "thick skin" you may think you have, I'd lay money that in a world which truly worked this way, you'd last under an hour before aba…
> I wish I could make RMS, and you, and everyone who agrees with you, live in a sort of reverse-Kantian world, where whatever you advocate for as acceptable behavior when you do it becomes a universal law of conduct for other people to use when interacting with you.
You want to transport me back to the 70's MIT AI lab? I'm so there!
Re: Who controls glibc?
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it's vague enough that you can probably find what you want in it. For that reason alone, there probably is a legitimate case to remove it. I think it's interesting how one's background can affect this too. I think everyone agrees that GNU & FSF are left-wing projects but where the "left" falls on different issues depends on where you're from. For RMS & most American lefties, "freedom" includes things like aborti…
You can add Romania to that list even if it's not part of Catholic Europe. It's part of Orthodox Europe. Abortion was outlawed under communism, but after the fall of Iron Curtain it was immediately legalized.
> Abortion was outlawed under communism
It was also fully legalised under communism.
The USSR was very big on getting women into the workforce (to help fill some of the enormous manpower shortage caused by WW2 casualties); improved reproductive health & choice obviously let women contribute more to industry & helped post-war rebuilding efforts.
Abortion was fully legalised in 1957 (after being controlled by communists since 1947): it was Nicolae Ceaușescu (the second Communist leader) who criminalised it in 1966, as part of his totalitarian autocrasy.
Re: Who controls glibc?
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with RMS on this. People need to grow up. It's ok to be offended, but not ok to try and correct everyone just because you are offended. A line needs to be drawn somewhere and this is harmless.
This is harmless - probably true, nobody would die or suffer harm from having irrelevant content in the manual. We could splice full seven books of Harry Potter into it, and provided it is clearly marked up, it won't cause any serious harm. But glibc technical manuals are not exactly the place for RMS - or anybody else - to wage political advocacy campaigns, criticize US federal government or joke on the topics unrel…
>But glibc technical manuals are not exactly the place for RMS - or anybody else - to wage political advocacy campaigns, criticize US federal government
What I write or not write in my manuals is not for you to decide. If I want pro-choice or pro-life advocacy in there, that's my decision. If I want "I'm with Her" or "MAGA" in there, still my decision. If I make a sucky hoke, you cannot and should not be able to force me to stop telling it.
Of course, you're free to criticize me, or offer feedback on how to improve, or just go with or create a competitor to my stuff, or even just resort to call me a "poohead" if you prefer. But don't ever presume you can just dictate to me what is OK, or "professional".
Same goes for RMS, whom I agree with in his argumentation in favor of his joke, but utterly wrong for trying to dictate to the actual maintainers of the glibc to keep it in against their wishes.
Re: Who controls glibc?
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try reading GPL license... is a political statement itself. Is joke in documentation useful? Probably not...
True (which is one of the reasons I don't use GPL for my personal projects) but that doesn't mean GNU technical space should be a venue for every other political discussion in the world. There are far better venues out there.
That's up for the people in the "GNU technical space" to determine.
Re: Who controls glibc?
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always find these discussions weird, as a Christian who believes in the literal reality of hell. (I hope it will be empty, but I have no reason to believe that other than hope, and I must realistically admit that plenty of people appear to die in a state of mortal sin.) Being respectful of others , even in a codified way, is in no way an affront to my non-PC beliefs. I'm not going to start having opinions about whe…
I think you're ignoring that witch hunting that has been going on in recent years. As a hypothetical, let's say that you believe all homosexuals will go to hell. Of course in a project or a workplace their will never be a need to bring this up and being respectful of others you never bring it up in those environments. But what about other environments? Should you be able to express your belief on your personal twitte…
Again, I totally do not feel that pressure. (And I tweet perhaps too much about my faith.)
I admit that certain people with public prominence might feel the pressure of public scrutiny, but I have never seen that pressure be aligned in any particular way, whether left vs. right, or religious vs. atheist, or "politically correct" vs. "politically incorrect," or whatever. Every US presidential candidate of every party felt this pressure. Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote about it yesterday (in an aside in his essay about Kanye West). I've seen /r/Catholicism accuse the actual Pope of virtue signaling. If I become a prominent person, I don't think there's anything about my particular beliefs that will make me more of a target of people looking for a reason to knock others down. Maybe they'll find what they're looking for more easily, but they'll look, regardless.
There are certain jobs I wouldn't be well-suited for. My denomination teaches that abortion should be legal, but should also be avoided. If you appointed me as a leader of a pro-legal-abortion group, I'd like to think I'd be honest to the people I represent and as effective as I can, but if you believed I'd be fundamentally compromised because my denomination isn't unequivocally pro-abortion and that there are better candidates, I'd say, yes, you can find better candidates. If I actually believe in the group's mission, I'd like to see the best person in the job, and if I don't, I certainly shouldn't have the job. I'm not qualified for all things, and part of the nature of having beliefs is that they influence your actions and worldview.
But that's about public prominence. The simple fact of the matter is that I feel completely welcome as a random contributor in projects with codes of conduct and among "SJWs," and I openly talk about my religion in casual conversations, and you are the one telling me that I should keep my opinions to myself.
Re: Who controls glibc?
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with RMS on this. People need to grow up. It's ok to be offended, but not ok to try and correct everyone just because you are offended. A line needs to be drawn somewhere and this is harmless.
Nobody who removed the joke said they were offended by it, they just said that they didn't believe it was the sort of thing that belonged in technical documentation. If anyone is offended, it is RMS, in the sense that he seems personally affronted that he doesn't carry the line-item veto power he thinks he had over all of GNU and people did not ask him before removing something he added 25 years ago. Not everyone who…
The main justification for why it shouldn't be there is that it was offensive. The idea that software should not be political is, in fact, itself just as offensive to the community of campaigners who've joined the calls to have this removed as this joke is. The last big controversy I saw was the entire console jailbreaking community being declared a bunch of bigots because someone mocked the idea that code could have views on LGBTQ rights.