The Debian project has suffered from a long string of negative events recently, ranging from severe discontent over the inclusion of systemd, to talk of forking the project, to a grave bug affecting the important 'wine' package, to the resignation and reduced involvement of long time contributors.
The latest strife affecting Debian revolves around a request for a Debian package of the GPC-Slots 2 software. This request has been rejected with little more than an ad hominem attack against the software's author.
In response to the request, Stephen Gran wrote,
This is code by someone who routinely trolls Debian. I doubt we want any more poisonous upstreams in Debian, so I at least would prefer this never get packaged.
Jonathan Wiltshire proceeded to mark the request as 'wontfix', and closed it.
While Debian does strive to maintain high standards regarding the software it packages, the negative and personal nature of this rejection, without any apparent technical or licensing concerns, appears to conflict with Debian's own Code of Conduct. Such a personal attack could be seen as contradictory to the Code of Conduct's mandate that Debian participants "Be respectful", "Be collaborative", and most importantly, "Assume good faith".
Given its recent troubles as of late, many of them concerning the poor treatment of Debian developers and users alike, can Debian really afford to get embroiled in yet another negative incident?
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According to an email sent to the Debian debian-devel-announce mailing list by Adam D. Barratt, the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD port is in grave danger of being dropped from the upcoming Debian 8 "Jessie" release. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD runs the GNU userland tools, the GNU C library and the Debian package set on top of the FreeBSD kernel.
Barratt states:
We remain gravely concerned about the viability of this port. Despite the reduced scope, we feel that the port is not currently of sufficient quality to feature as a fully supported release architecture in Jessie.
We therefore advise the kFreeBSD porters that the port is in danger of being dropped from Jessie, and invite any porters who are able to commit to working on the port in the long term to make themselves known *now*.
We will assess the viability of kFreeBSD in Jessie on or after 1st November, and a yes/no decision will be taken at that time.
A grave bug has been introduced into the "wine" package of Debian Jessie, just days before the November 5th freeze deadline. The /usr/bin/wine launch script fails with an "error: unable to find wine executable. this shouldn't happen." message.
Debian has already suffered much unrest lately over the inclusion of systemd, with threats of a fork being issued, along with the possible cancellation of the GNU/kFreeBSD port and the possible dropping of support for the SPARC architecture. After so much strife and disruption, can Debian afford to have such a serious bug affect such a critical package so soon before such a major freeze?
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/11/msg00174.html
Joey Hess has apparently left Debian after 18 years, stating that the Debian Constitution is leading Debian in "very unhealthy directions".
Longtime Debian contributor Tollef Fog Heen has announced his resignation from the Debian systemd maintainer team. His announcement states that "the load of the continued attacks is just becoming too much."
He has since written a detailed blog article surrounding the circumstances of his resignation. As he puts it,
I've been a DD for almost 14 years, I should be able to weather any storm, shouldn't I? It turns out that no, the mountain does get worn down by the rain. It's not a single hurtful comment here and there. There's a constant drum about this all being some sort of conspiracy and there are sometimes flares where people wish people involved in systemd would be run over by a bus or just accusations of incompetence.
This is yet another dramatic event affecting the Debian project in recent months. The adoption of systemd has been extremely controversial, even going so far as to result in calls for Debian to be forked. There have been other problems as of late, too, ranging from a serious bug breaking Wine just days before the Jessie freeze deadline, to the possibility of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD being dropped from Debian 8. And it was only just over a week ago that Joey Hess — another longtime Debian contributor — left the project, citing the "very unhealthy directions" that Debian has been led in lately.
Is the internal tension and strife caused by systemd about to tear the Debian project apart? Recent events such as the aforementioned have suggested that this is becoming more and more of a possibility. The repercussions of this drama will no doubt be felt wide and far, given Debian's own popularity, as well it forming the basis of other major Linux distros such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint.
Ian Jackson's general resolution to prevent init system coupling has failed to pass, the majority vote deciding that the resolution is unnecessary. This means that not only will Debian's default init be systemd, but packages will not be required to support other init systems. Presumably, this means that using other init systems on Debian (without using systemd as a base) will not be possible without major workarounds, or possibly at all. It also leaves the future of Debian projects such as kFreeBSD unclear, as systemd is linux specific.
The vote results can be found here
The winners are:
Option 4 "General Resolution is not required"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @09:41PM
The summary is short on details. But I guess it can't help it, the allegations made in the bug report are short on details. Can anyone fill me in on who the author of this software is, and show me some examples of how he or she has allegedly "trolled" Debian? The bug report doesn't provide any evidence of this "trolling".
(Score: 5, Informative) by Bill Evans on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:10PM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:37PM
I don't see the connection between a software author's views/opinions, and the technical merit of software he or she has written.
At what point does somebody's views/opinions become "too controversial"?
Should the Linux kernel packages be removed from Debian because Linus is often outspoken about various issues?
Should any Debian package related to JavaScript be removed because of Eich's views toward marriage?
Should Debian packages maintained by Christians, or involving software written by Christians, be removed because they might offend some Muslims?
Where does it end?
I could understand rejecting this software if there was some problem with the software itself, or even its license.
But the only argument I see against it is totally independent of technological factors like those.
It comes off as immature to me for Debian users to be deprived of a potentially useful package just because some package maintainers are intolerant of the views/opinions that the software's developer holds.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Bill Evans on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:01PM
This program is a single, very poorly written Perl script. (Go ahead, download it and gag with me.)
More importantly, when you run it, it invites you to enter a number between 1 and 12; almost all of those numbers correspond to a game you might wish to play. If, however, you enter "women", you get 27 lines of "Just Say No To Women's Rights" on your screen, cascading merrily to the right and then to the left.
Let's say you're running this at home, and Thanksgiving company is over, and a young teenager playfully types "women" instead of a number, and your father-in-law sees that output on the screen. You don't want to trust any code from someone where you have to peruse the source before welcoming the code into your home, do you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:20PM
No, I obviously don't want to have to check the source to all of the software that I run.
That's why I use Debian!
I expect the Debian maintainers to at least do a cursory check of the software, and alert me to any problems.
The Debian maintainer should have at least mentioned those details in the bug report, rather than just calling the author a "troll" and leaving it at that.
And I'm not convinced that the "this software might offend somebody" argument of yours holds any water.
If that's being used as the standard for whether or not a Debian package is suitable, then the packages for all web browsers should be removed.
A young teenager could playfully type "women" into Chromium's URL bar, or into Iceweasel's search bar, and get presented with material that could get the father-in-law riled up.
I still haven't seen a good technical argument presented as to why this software is unsuitable for inclusion in Debian.
The arbitrary standards you and that other person have suggested so far would mean that hundreds, if not thousands, of other existing Debian packages would be in violation of these arbitrary standards, and thus should be removed immediately.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jimshatt on Monday November 24 2014, @12:56AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday November 24 2014, @01:09AM
I think the point is that whoever is responsible for the decision at Debian should NOT have said "author is a jerk and so we won't package it" -- which sounds petty and and subjective. Instead, it should have been rejected on merits alone and THAT reason posted for the rejection. Sometimes, even if you get to the same result, the way you get there is important. That's the issue here.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Monday November 24 2014, @01:32AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @03:15AM
But like the summary says early on, it has been one incident after another with Debian lately. It was never this bad before. Things have really gone to hell with the entire project after the systemd debacle.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @03:49AM
No, even the systemd "debacle" itself. And gamergate. There is new hatred in tech culture that did not exist before. As an old-timer, the range used to be from professional to juvenile. There was not this hate. Open hatred and personal attacks were not acceptable in the past. When I was young, we not only rode both ways uphill in the snow, we actually called out our peers in our online forums if they used personal attacks over a technical disagreement. People with very different technical preferences managed to have discussions together, even have their software included in the same OS distributions, without having to try to burn each other down and get each other excluded from the industry.
It is really disgusting. People want to end other people's freakin' careers over technical complaints that aren't even real, that they heard about on the internet and heard repeated by some Grand Poobah and so they know it is Gospel and successful software engineers you disagree with are the Devil.
For example, Lennart Poettering is one of the more successful software engineers of our age. His software is used by large numbers of people. The big distros with the highest profile rockstar engineers are choosing to use his software. For real reasons. But if you listen to the peanut gallery, you'd think Poettering is some sort of retarded outlaw in the wilderness who is hated by all. He's not hated by educated people who make a difference in the world. But there is certainly a culture of hate online is communities that purport to be filled with technical professionals. Apparently though, professionals who aren't very professional, or regarded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @05:09AM
If Poettering is so great, why do so many people have so many problems with the software he's written? PulseAudio was a complete disaster for so many people, just like systemd has been. I can't think of any other open source developer whose software has caused so many people so much trouble.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @06:44AM
Your day must have started in the mid 2000s.
There has always been profound dislike to be found displayed in a textual form on mailing lists and usenet.
It is the leftists that wish to imprison those with whom they disagree. In most European countries they
are given this power.
There's another thing at work here, with gamer gate et al; there are no anti-feminist countries in existance
any longer. Virtually no place for men to marry females under the age of western consent. There's no valve or outlet.
There's only what women want. Everywhere.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Hairyfeet on Monday November 24 2014, @04:23PM
Sorry but no, don't try to lump in what corrupt tech reviewers have tried to label as "gamergate" [youtube.com] which just FYI was a snarky post by Alec Baldwin because his former boss Joss Whedon posted that anybody that points out obvious conflicts of interest like Zoe Quinn doxxing a pro female game design group while at the same time raising funds for a "female game jam" with the funds going into her personal account was "anti feminist", because they really aren't the same AT ALL.
Several supposedly independent "game journalists" got caught red handed with their hands in the cookie jar, not only pushing developers they had personal and financial relationships with but actually getting together in a secret private Google group to decide what got pushed, what got buried, and what agenda they should push. Then when this came out suddenly "its about feminism" with over a dozen sites coming out with the exact same article at the same time labeling gamers as "dead" and trying to make it all about Anita Sarkeesian, a known con artist [youtube.com] who has been caught in so many outright lies about the games she is supposedly "exposing" that she should by all rights have the same amount of credibility as Jack Thompson.
At the end of the day the reason the press latched onto the "gamergate" tag is because its exactly that...a tag. Something that they can use to discredit the legitimate criticism of their shady dealings because anybody can use that, all it takes is any random jackass (even a member of the gaming press themselves) typing " I hate (insert race or sex) #gamergate" and they can say "See? Its not about us, its about gamers hating (insert group)!" when in reality they were caught red handed [youtube.com] colluding and stuffing their pockets.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday November 24 2014, @04:49PM
sorry to reply to myself but we REALLY need the ability to do minor edits, its ADAM not Alec, too damned many Baldwins to keep up with LOL.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by linuxrocks123 on Monday November 24 2014, @05:33PM
I agree some people on the Internet are very nasty, though maybe I'm not old enough to see the "recency" you speak of. I think the Greater Internet F*wad Theory has been true for quite some time.
Regarding Lennart Poettering: he's just an ass. Regardless of the technical merits of his software, he's such an ass that he is, in fact, a "poisonous upstream" the same way Schilling was. Like Schilling, he won't listen to bug reports, and he thinks he's a god. He co-opted someone else's talk on audio systems after heckling the presenter with "questions" that were more comments, including calling Phonon "kind of dead" (which it's not). His whole team is like that, too; remember the "debug on the kernel command line" crap?
People who come up with crap ideas to solve nonproblems are usually just ignored. Debian users who would like to ignore Lennart are not able to. That makes him disliked. And the guy's an ass, which makes him more disliked.
And, this isn't something that happens to most OSS developers. You don't have entire threads hating Andrew Morton, or Greg Kroah-Hartman, or even Theo de Raadt, who is extremely unpersonable. Hans Reiser (before he became a murderer) you had a few, because he had the same sort of arrogance Lennart has, but even then people respected the quality of his work, and, well, you didn't HAVE to use ReiserFS.
By contrast, Lennart does work anyone could do (but doesn't, because it's not useful work), thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread because he solved 5 nonproblems while creating 6 real ones, and is in a position where many people can't just roll their eyes and ignore him if they want to. That is a recipe for pissing people off. And they are.
It's not the community. It's the software, and the toxic personality behind it.
(Score: 1) by forkazoo on Tuesday November 25 2014, @12:05AM
Beyond a certain point, ignoring the author becomes legitimate. When the abuse is constant, repeated, pointless, and persistent then spending time justify each time you ignore him is just wasting time playing his game. Minimal engagement is the correct path because it gives him the least return on his trolling, which helps avoid discouraging similar trolls. Look at how toxic Bill Cosby has become lately. It's not because the Cosby Show itself is offensive in a rational context-free vacuum. But context matters. The man himself has just become too big of an issue to deal with. If Debian were to include this troll's software (even if he had written something worthwhile) it would have been a legitimate cause for an uproar. Many people would be upset at legitimizing such an absurdly offensive misogynist by distributing his software, and giving him a platform and means of styling himself as a programmer rather than a shit stain.
Given that his work includes nonsense like this:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2005/06/msg00235.html [debian.org]
I'm fine with rejecting him out of hand on all future occasions as well. I'd do much the same.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25 2014, @12:41PM
Hopefully someday the world will reverse and people like you will be seen as the shitstains again.
Perhaps Putin's Russia is working on that? (God speed to them if so)
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday November 24 2014, @05:43AM
Are we discussing systemd or #gamergate?
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Monday November 24 2014, @09:57AM
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday November 24 2014, @05:49PM
I was being facetious but there seems to be no shortage of people who write low quality software, engage in dubious antics and have their work distributed to the exclusion of others. In this case, Debian rejected functional software in an unprofessional manner, contrary to the Debian Code Of Conduct, possibly due to an Easter Egg which propagates the author's beliefs. And these beliefs have already been disseminated on a Debian mailing list which appears to have been created for the purpose of positive discrimination.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:21PM
Maybe the summary should have included this bit of information, since it seems quite relevant.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:26PM
The submitter probably wasn't aware of this, because the Debian bug report completely failed to mention it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Monday November 24 2014, @04:23AM
Summary also left out that the request to add the software to Debian is from a domain that's handled by mailinator (an anonymous mailer), so even the attempt to get it added was probably a troll. (It's even listed in their blog post [blogspot.com] about alternate domains.) I doubt the summary would have included any of this info, though, because it wouldn't fit the Debian-hostile narrative. Searching online shows that an AC attempted to submit the same thing to Slashdot, too. It's just someone with an agenda, possibly even the same guy that made the software and attempted to get it added to Debian.
Something else I've noticed: every time one of these AC-submitted Debian-hostile posts comes up there's a slew of similarly-toned AC comments defending the submission and arguing with everybody that comments. I think this guy's got a hell of an axe to grind, is insanely bored, or is just insane. Maybe some combination of the three.
A better discussion would be about how terrible the code is. I listed a few things in another comment [soylentnews.org], but there's probably stuff I missed because I was just jumping to random points and looking at the horribleness.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @12:53PM
Debian has screwed up a lot lately, and it has been reported here and on other sites, so somehow this means there's some huge conspiracy? Huh?
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday November 24 2014, @03:48PM
for some strange reason your post made me laugh!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @10:45PM
It made me laugh, too. Marand's conspiracy theories are silly.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:39PM
oh dear...you fell right into his trap by replying. He's probably the author if you had not figured...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:46PM
I'm seeing a lot of interesting discussion in this thread. It's a good back-and-forth exchange of ideas. And then you come along with your absurd conspiracy theories. Maybe you should just let people discuss this as they see fit. Nobody has fallen into a "trap" by discussing the incident the submission is about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @07:00AM
And the trap is sprung!
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday November 24 2014, @03:16AM
Most of Fire Marshal Bill's fire safety scenarios are more plausible than this.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday November 24 2014, @04:01PM
Uhhhhh....sorry, flag on the field, 10 yard penalty for bullshit. I mean seriously nobody would EVAR think to type "women" into a box that is clearly labeled "input a number between 1 and 12" so at best one can consider that to be some sort of "Easter Egg" type thing where the ONLY people who would possibly ever see it would be the ones that already know its there, like the old Atari Adventure Easter Egg which I bet not a single one of you who were old enough to have played Adventure when you was a kid ever "accidently" tripped over!
At the end of the day either you are biased or you are not, really not any middle ground here. If they are deciding what programs to take based on politics then they are biased, blocking his software because you don't like his politics and not on the technical merits IS being biased and NO different than blocking someone's software because they support LGBT people having equal rights. Bias is bias, be it left or right, and you either are or you are not, really not any debate on this.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by Bill Evans on Monday November 24 2014, @08:24PM
Clearly you've never raised a teenage boy.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:44PM
At what point does somebody's views/opinions become "too controversial"?
When upstream gets kicked off mailing lists and for better or worse a lot of Debian "business" is transacted on mailing lists so "relations" (in a non-carnal sense) with upstream are going to be a bit difficult. I'd like to work with you on bug reports but you've been banned from our email server for misbehavior, so ...
Also there is a factual issue with the interaction... This is just three dudes unofficially talking in the BTS. A BTS ticket should be created when a package is begun to be packaged to eliminate the possibility of duplicated effort. Although with leaf packages the effort tends toward the minimal so its not much loss LOL. This is a request bug. Technically its somewhat anti-social to prevent some theoretical devs from socializing about packaging this software but its not I suppose an overly major sin.
So then "some maintainer" might package it up and submit it, and then the FTPmasters will decide to accept or reject, accept means its on the mirror network with everything else, reject means ... you figure it out. For the reasons in the first paragraph this is unlikely to be the usual detailed and non-controversial legalistic stuff. With normal upstreams, basically ftpmasters make sure a package is legal to distribute (DFSG, documented licenses, etc) and does it meet a minimal quality standard (like does this Fing thing even compile, is it lintian clean, does it follow a version of Policy more recent than 2009, pretty legalistic stuff). There is some other categorization stuff like the overrides file for priority and category. Anyway FTPmasters "really" decide what is in or out of Debian not some dudes in the BTS.
(If you think I'm posting as an official Debian function, or you think I'm on the publicity team, that would be pretty strong evidence of insanity. None the less my summary above is my best attempt reasonable accurate short summary of the truth. I actually checked the most recent ftpmaster team delegation I could find to make sure these dudes aren't in it, thats the area I'm most likely to F up. Saying that I have made the official Debian pronouncement on this topic would be making the exact same mistake as the original claim, which is kind of self-referentially funny)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Tork on Monday November 24 2014, @03:55AM
Should any Debian package related to JavaScript be removed because of Eich's views toward marriage?
If use of said Javascript was actively generating money that was directly being used to discriminate against some of the users and developers of Debian , then the answer is 'yes'. Bear in mind that the issue with Eich wasn't anywhere near as simple as "he had a bumper sticker on his car". It was what he did, not what he 'thought'. Otherwise you have a good point.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @07:25AM
Eich did nothing wrong.
You people, now the gatekeepers, need to be deposed.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 24 2014, @03:28PM
What he did years previously.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by metamonkey on Monday November 24 2014, @04:26PM
Depends on what his views are now. When I was teenager in the 90s I thought gay marriage was stupid and gays were gross. Then I grew up.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 1) by DeathElk on Monday November 24 2014, @02:09AM
Holy crap, what a knob. I would't want to work with a prick like that either.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:11PM
https://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2009/10/msg00011.html [debian.org]
https://encyclopediadramatica.se/MikeeUSA [encyclopediadramatica.se]
http://geekfeminism.org/2009/10/08/psa-mikeeusas-hate-speech-and-harassment/ [geekfeminism.org]
It seems this guy. Now, I am not even reading these links because the guy uses codeplex to host the source. That's enough for me to raise the antennas.
Thirdly, a perl console game needs an official debian package? Even if it was written by larry wall I'd give it a low priority.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @12:56AM
Thirdly, a perl console game needs an official debian package? Even if it was written by larry wall I'd give it a low priority.
Yes, because Perl is terrible!
He should rewrite it in Go or Ruby so the hipsters will be more accepting.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Monday November 24 2014, @06:00PM
Or he should rewrite it in an actual language like C. *ducks behind neckbeard and irony proof wall*
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday November 23 2014, @09:43PM
We are talking about a maintainer who refused to package a friggin' ascii-art slot machine game upon request from a known Debian troll. It's not like they've refused to package OpenSSL, Bash or the Linux kernel.
Sometimes the added value of something is so low that an ad-hominem is good enough to call for or against it. I for one am glad the Debian team is not wasting time on this game. They have more important things to worry about really...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:03PM
How is it "Debian bashing"? Are you suggesting that the problems listed didn't actually happen, when it's clear that they have?
Can you give us more info about who this alleged "troll" is? The bug report doesn't give any evidence. It just engages in petty, unsubstantiated name calling.
And what's wrong with Debian supporting games? There are already lots of packages for games [debian.org] already. Lots of them have "ASCII" or "console" in their descriptions.
I'm saddened to see all of this happening. I've used Debian for many years, and I've been proud to be a Debian user for most of them. But lately just so much has gone on that seems, well, dirty. This bug report is a good example of that. I think the summary is right when it says that maybe this behavior isn't in line with the code of conduct. It isn't assuming good faith, that's for sure!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Bot on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:24PM
The code of conduct doesn't ask debian devs to be as forgiving as Saint Francis high on coke, which is the threshold of forgiveness in this particular case.
Not because the guy is an antifeminist. Because it is clearly trolling. If I were a debian volunteer I would not touch the code with a 10 foot pole, I'd have lots of better things to do.
Well done, debian. FOR A CHANGE :D
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:30PM
I don't think Debian should be playing childish games like this, replete with name-calling. They're a Linux distro, for crying out loud. If there's software available, and it might be useful to even just one Debian user, I think they should do the right thing and offer a package for it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:33PM
Full Definition of NAME-CALLING: the use of offensive names especially to win an argument or to induce rejection or condemnation (as of a person or project) without objective consideration of the facts.
Have you objectively considered the facts? care to share your analysis?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:42PM
I see one Debian maintainer labeling somebody else a "troll" (which is meant in an insulting and derogatory manner, obviously; that is, it's "name calling"), without giving any evidence to back this up.
I also don't see any discussion of technical issues with this software.
I think it's reasonable to expect a higher standard than that from Debian and the people involved with the project.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:16PM
From the 3 minutes of research required, I can confirm the software/shitware author is a troll and a jackass.
Debian has better things to do, if you want his crappy perl scripts go get them yourself.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:37PM
You didn't confirm SHIT. You made a value judgement, just as Debian did. In both cases, I don't specifically disapprove of the value judgement. Just be honest about what it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @07:06AM
I found his source code and looked through it you teat.
Vi search commands are handy, especially if you know what to look for.
Too bad, so sad, troll!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday November 24 2014, @12:28PM
The logical consequence of your line of reasoning (calling troll a troll is obvious name calling) is that name calling occurs every time. It's an interesting conclusion because its corollary is that you should STFU about everything, to avoid name calling. Will you be consistent?
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @12:55PM
Why are you trying to derail good discussion with name calling?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:29PM
Any Debian package needs maintenance time. The time this package would take for maintenance would be taken away from the maintenance time for other packages. So there should certainly be a usefulness filter for inclusion into the official Debian distribution. After all, it's not as if you couldn't install a program just because it's not in the official distribution. You can add third-party repositories, or you can download a .deb from the internet and install it directly. It's not like Apple's App Store where if Apple doesn't let you in, you can't get your code onto the device.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:35PM
Maintaining the packages relating to systemd takes maintainer time and effort. Many, many Debian users have said they do not want systemd present on their Debian systems. Using your rationale, each and every package relating to systemd should be removed from Debian, because they take maintainer time away from working on the packages that Debian users do want, and that's clearly unacceptable.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday November 24 2014, @12:35PM
I think that your philosophy would make debian vulnerable to denial of service (plain DoS, not even DDoS) by the first 12 years old troll.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by forkazoo on Tuesday November 25 2014, @12:08AM
It won't be useful to anybody. It's practically a CS101 intro course homework project, whose only distinctive feature is that it prints offensive things about women.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25 2014, @03:10AM
It's a game. By definition it is not useful.
Debian packages tons of games, many of them text based like this.
This one even has a stockmarket to gamble in.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Arik on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:14PM
Now that seems like an interesting caveat. Are we to take it that this person has been categorized as a 'troll' because he has dissented from SJMW dogma in regard to gender?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:23PM
It would appear so!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday November 24 2014, @01:18AM
What does the "M" stand for. And yes, I did RTFG but nothing made sense in this context.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday November 24 2014, @01:40AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by pogostix on Monday November 24 2014, @02:00AM
This comment is so pleasing to my eyes. Must be the font.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @03:11AM
How the heck is the parent comment off-topic? Debian's beef with the programmer of this software in question apparently revolves around feminism.
Can somebody please do the right thing and fix the modding of the parent comment? It's absolutely on-topic!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:51PM
If I were a debian volunteer
An aspect not discussed is in a universe of github and pull reqs and distributed dev, the volunteer process in Debian is a weird cross between the early 90s and dark ages nobility. I'm saying its a little complicated. And RFPs are mostly going to get pulled from some poor unfortunate noob looking for fun. Can you imagine some poor bastard trying to maintain his first package stumbling into this, unknowningly just trying to help out, and impacting the ... social baggage it pulls in? It would be like a fly hitting a windshield at 50 mph. That poor bastard. Honestly, I'd just be sad for a noob like that.
That alone is reason to scrap it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday November 23 2014, @09:53PM
To try and screw Linux through the Caldera debacle, a decade ago.
The dirty tricks departments in commercial technology vendors are a sophisticated as any "false flag, psyop" conspiracy speculation about national governments and foreign policy. Plausible deniablity is the second string of defense, behind their first position: "You've got to be joking! The very idea is patently absurd!".
MS spent hundreds of millions over years - buying and investing in selective rivals, sponsoring marketing efforts that re-channeled money into legal attacks. They would spend money just to deny certain vendors access to markets, even those that MS themselves had no possibility or interest in capitalizing themselves. "Just to put a stick in their spokes"
So? When I see what's happened to Debian and Mozilla? I know what real corporate double dealing and subversive efforts look like. I have little or no doubt that there are also government actors in aligned and independent efforts. RedHat was co-opted a few years back - after SuSE. Then the next target to use RedHat hegemony of commercial Linux development against was naturally Debian. Debian has been almost synonymous with GNU, and upstream of any viable distribution that asserted corporate software independence.
Like the corrosive hollowing-out of your Republics, with their democratic foundations and institutions - those acting in actual good-faith never really stood a chance. For Debian, Apahche and Mozilla? It was all just a matter of time...
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday November 23 2014, @09:57PM
So when the Gates Foundation wants to "help promote a vision for education and healthcare that leads to a better future" you should best re-read the parts from Homer, where Odysseus suggest building a large, wooden horse at the gates of Troy...
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:26PM
I find it really strange how quickly Debian has gone from the best open source distro around to one of the worst so quickly. I'd used Debian for 15 years, using the most cutting edge version that I could most of that time. I very, very rarely ran into problems. They were so good at what they did that even their unstable version was more stable than I found the supposedly 'stable' versions of so many other distros to be. Then systemd was integrated, and an update caused my system not to boot for the first time ever. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how many other people had experienced similar problems. And I couldn't believe at how Debian still forged ahead with systemd, even after it became obvious that it was a bad idea. I don't know if there's a 'conspiracy' or what, but I do know that I just can't use Debian any longer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by rleigh on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:56PM
It's unbelievable even for many Debian developers such as myself. However, as I'm sure you're aware of if you've been reading the mailing lists and news sites I think it's fair to say that it's essentially impossible to have any constructive discussion on the issue. Back when this started to be pushed, maybe three years or so back I did bring up the downsides, as did others. It doesn't bring me any pleasure to have been right about many of these things. But I stopped participating in the discussion about 18 months back, and ended unsubscribing from the lists about 9 months back. There's only so much of this you can take before your motivation is completely sapped, and when the discussion is entirely unproductive it's not like your contribution to the discussion will result in any positive change.
The ironic part is that if systemd had stuck to just simply replacing init, and integrating well with existing systems rather than trying to take over the world, it wouldn't have been controversial at all. After all, it's quite clear that while sysvinit is venerable and well tested, it isn't perfect and there are improvements to be made. For example, initscripts could have been replaced with openrc; start-stop-daemon could have got cgroups support. These could have all been done with zero impact; we already transitioned to dependency-based parallelised initscripts without too much trouble. If systemd had replaced this and no more, it would have been just fine.
The "failing to boot" bugs are IMO the absolute worst part. Any failure to boot should be a critical bug, and previously would have been a critical bug. Now the systemd people and their associated fans argue that failing to boot when an fstab entry can't be mounted is in fact not only desirable but essential, to prevent the system running without the configuration being "correct". Maybe from a certain perfectionist standpoint that's OK. But in the real world most people I suspect would rather their system booted successfully with a warning rather than not booting at all. It's not perfect, but then the world isn't a perfect place and doing the best you can in the fact of non-ideal conditions might be in fact preferable. Even this can't be discussed rationally; I've been told that not failing hard is unconditionally wrong, but what's so awful about different people having different perspectives and priorities? While the initscripts might have provided certain default policies we never dictated such fundamental stuff; if you wanted to do things differently, go right ahead and do so with our blessing, and the number of tweakable defaults shows how accommodating maintainers were to differing requirements. Another bad failure is when the system fails to start because it gets stuck, due to the massively overcomplicated dependencies and/or races and bugs. In the old world, insserv/startpar would order things according to the LSB headers. But if the metadata was inconsistent it would tell you before adjusting things, and if it was wrong at boot time at worst you'd have some services fail to start, but it would still attempt to start as much as possible. The system would still boot and bring itself up to a usable state unless things were seriously wrong in rcS. But we always tested those prior to every upload (I personally would test in a VM in various configurations, then on amd64 bare metal and on powerpc bare metal, and also on kFreeBSD).
Regards,
Roger
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday November 24 2014, @03:52AM
It's sad. I think we may very well be seeing the end of Linux as a viable OS. I really can't help thinking there's external elements trying to kill it.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Monday November 24 2014, @12:01AM
Pretty much any organization is vulnerable to a hostile takeover by toxic elements with an axe to grind. It has happened to numerous countries. Often this seems rapid but is only the result of years of dogged infiltration.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @05:11AM
How the hell is the parent "redundant"? It was one of the earliest comments here! It can't be redundant, because it was the first to express these ideas!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:00PM
Looked into it, The wine bug was rightly classified grave but for a formal reason. Substantially it was a matter of updating the location of a file. Yet, it has been mentioned at least twice here. Go figure.
Here and everywhere else in the net, the systemd diatribe spawns ex debian aficionados that threaten going to freebsd.
Why ex debian, of all distros, why freebsd of all OSes? Remarkable coincidence or what? well it doesn't really matter, I myself have already uninstalled debian to try out alternatives, but why is everybody considering it already dead, as some kind of wish? Even with 1/4 of manpower it would be one of the big distros.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:06PM
I don't see how that bug should have happened. Didn't the package maintainer run the script, and realize that it just plain didn't work any more, before pushing it out to the community?
I think that Wine bug is even more serious that you make it out to be, because it didn't just affect that script. It prevented any software from being executed using Wine. We aren't talking about a few obscure apps here: we're talking about thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Windows apps that could no longer be run on Linux. That's a very serious bug to have happen.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday November 24 2014, @11:06AM
It is a grave bug because the question whether it prevents running the software is yes, while much more difficult to pin down bugs like racee conditions would be classified not grave. This bug is not proof of carelessness either cause the maintainer might have run the test suite without discovering the problem, in a chroot. If all the bugs in debian were as serious as this jessie would be released tomorrow afternoon and it would be the best OS plus apps stack ever released in the history of mankind even if you hated systemd. The ssh key debacle was incomparably worse.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @12:59PM
If the testing procedure was so flawed that such an obvious bug wasn't detected, then I think it is a sign of carelessness.
Not only was the bug itself careless, but the fact that it wasn't caught is careless, too.
Everything about that bug screams "failure", "low standards", and obviously "carelessness".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:09PM
I don't think there's any conspiracy here about people moving from Debian to FreeBSD.
Debian was one of the last good and modern Linux distros to not use systemd. Now that it's infected, where else are Linux users supposed to go? Slackware? Gentoo? They may be okay for some former Debian users, but Slackware is pretty behind the times, and Gentoo is a pain in the ass to use.
FreeBSD is the natural alternative. It's the most general purpose of the BSDs, and offers many of the benefits that Debian offers, plus some. It's still provides a pretty familiar environment for somebody experienced with Linux, but it also offers a really good packaging and ports system, plus great reliability, great security, and many other things.
(Score: 2, Informative) by rleigh on Monday November 24 2014, @12:24AM
I'm one of the people who has been moving slowly over to FreeBSD. I'm mostly entirely migrated at this point.
Why FreeBSD? It's the most usable of the BSDs and it seemed like the best choice when I was evaluating things around this time last year. It's fine on the servers, and it's also fine on the desktop (I'm typing this on a PC-BSD 10.1 install while working on some code).
Why not Linux? I'm planning for how things might play out over the next few years, not just what's OK just now. The systemd people are doing their level best to thoroughly entrench themselves in the base of all Linux systems. At best, people are going to be forced to implement systemd-compatible APIs in order to carry on functioning well, and that by design will tie you to systemd, forcing you to play catchup with their continual churn. We last saw this type of behaviour from Microsoft. But we have a "stability promise" they say (with their fingers crossed since they've broken their promise already more than once). Which Linux distributions would be a viable replacement? At the moment I can only think of one: Gentoo. I have a lot of respect for the openrc and eudev developers, and I hope they can stand up against the pressure to cave in. But the systemd people can and are pressuring them. And there are limits to how much you can do when you're a small group of volunteers who have to keep on top of all the changes in the system around them. That was one of the arguments for pushing systemd into Debian, albeit not one I agree with. If I was installing a new Linux system today I'd probably go with Gentoo or Debian stable while it lasts.
Regards,
Roger
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday November 24 2014, @01:15PM
You make sense but the trend I am witnessing is distros waking up to the hypothesis that systemd+dbus is a moving target meant to keep moving and not be trivial to replace, so that who controls systemd development can get ahead of everybody else in implementing stuff, much akin to google and android.
So void linux jumped ship for runit, manjaro is jumping ship for openrc. And all of this is before systemd is completely entrenched (until debian stable dies, but oldstable is still alive, so...)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:01PM
Really SN ?
----
* Package name : gpcslots2
Version : 0.4.5b
Upstream Author : MikeeUSA
* URL : https://gpcslots2.codeplex.com/releases/view/138295 [codeplex.com]
* License : (GPL)
Programming Lang: (Perl)
Description : text console casino for *nix
(gpcslots2 is a text console casino for *nix. It uses ascii
art to represent the slot machines and the table games.
It is fully featured as a slot machine game to the extent
that it even supports the "3d" dual lcd displays found
on modern slot machine displays (--dual) by seperating
out the text output. It is one of the only known
text console slot machine games for linux, the other
being its predecessor.)
--
so some "Upstream Author : MikeeUSA" with an email of "foo at bar.org" trolls the debian devs and this is considered news worthy? WTF i thought this wasn't slashdot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @10:12PM
There are lots of other games [debian.org] available from Debian. Lots of them mention "ASCII" or "console" in their descriptions. If it's worth offering them, then why isn't it worth offering this one? The bug thread makes it clear that the only reason it isn't included is because of some grudge that some Debian maintainers apparently have against some unnamed person, or something petty like that.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:17PM
Sounds like the troll has earned this one. Marked as closed: won't fix. : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:23PM
Imagine the game had a hidden feature like filling your screen with racists remarks.
Would you still want it in the distro?
FYI replace racist with sexists and it's what you're trying to defend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:31PM
I don't think it should be up to the distro maintainers to make judgments like that. If the software isn't harmful from a technological standpoint (that is, it doesn't damage the computer system in some way), and it merely expresses ideas that some may find offensive, then a package for it should obviously be included. And the package's description would obviously describe what the software does, so users can make an informed decision about whether or not they want to install it. But at least users would have the option. That's the point of a distro: making it convenient for users to install software. It should not be about filtering software based on ideas the software may express.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Monday November 24 2014, @12:09AM
If the game violates the charter in some specific way, let the bureaucrats note that fact with specificity, not namecall the author a "troll" without any explanation.
Or if they just don't want to spend the slight effort on packaging the software because it's not significant enough, let them say that.
I figure it's likely it DOES violate the charter, but in case it doesn't, let them FIX THE CHARTER. I'm sorry, but just acting all high and mighty and not deigning to give a meaningful reason for denial doesn't wash.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @02:40AM
oh ffs.... sudo apt-get remove packagethatoffendsme
2 seconds later I no longer deal with it and it consumes 0 space from my harddrive.
Are you that thin skinned?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @08:48AM
Let's play Devil's Advocate then shall we?
Debian let's the package in, some feminist hears about it and rallys their SJW crowd into action.
Linux is then labeled the misogynist troll OS, good job!
Yeah, I'd tell the guy to fuck off just to avoid that shitstorm too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25 2014, @03:08AM
The feminists have allready taken over every linux distro.
So what are you talking about.
They launched their attack years ago and were successful
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:00PM
Worse, they are frequently assertions disguised as questions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:38PM
They're probably meant to try to start some discussion. You're free to ignore them, though, like you've obviously done in this case.
I think this summary's question is a good one. No, I don't think Debian can take more of these idiotic incidents. They're driving away users left and right.
Driving away users has been disastrous for Firefox. It has been disastrous for GNOME. It has been disastrous for XFree86. It will be disastrous for Debian, too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:13PM
Debian developer also threatened author with lengthy imprisonment, denied existence of author's contributions
Previously a debian developer, , claimed that the author of gpcslots had never
contributed anything to opensource, was corrected, replyed to the corrections,
and then deleted the corrections and left up his false claims.
Author has contributed gigabytes of media to opensource, years of programming
work, and has been involved in numerous projects.
http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201411/2014110901-gr-vote-on-init-coupling.html [vitavonni.de]
Another debian developer, Josselin Mouette, (while bragging that he, JM, had successfuly
campaigned to ban prostitution in france, have Johns arrested, and had run
mafias out of the country) told the author that he was going to have him
arrested by the FBI (van'd) because the author suggested there was no sin
in marrying young girls (and cited a bible verse in support of that).
http://np237.livejournal.com/34959.html [livejournal.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by moondrake on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:36PM
This post, and some of the other recent ones on Debian were all posted by an AC with an axe to grind. I suspect it is the same AC that in numerous post complains about lots of things Debian.
SN is not a debian community site and he/she should go elsewhere.
I am all for anonymous posting, but I'd hate to see Soylent become a forum for people like the author of this GPC-Slot thingy [lwn.net]
Question for the dev-team: Can we get an IP identifier for ACs that submit stories? At least visible to the editors so they can prevent abuse.
For the record: I never used debian (like rpm too much) and am generally against many of the systemd design decisions. I still think this post is and bug is a troll-made trap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @11:43PM
These submissions are very relevant. They always result in a lot of comments, too. Lots of people here use Debian (or a Debian-derived distro like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and so on), Debian has gone through a rough patch lately, and it is impacting a lot of us. Seeing how these submissions generate a lot of discussion, sometimes over 100 comments, I think they are what the community here wants.
Even if it is the same person submitting news about Debian, what's wrong with that? The submissions always have very relevant links, often to content hosted on debian.org itself! I don't think that the messenger matters, since it's the message itself that's important.
Instead of bitching and moaning about this, maybe you should submit some positive news about Debian. This may be hard to find, though, because nothing very positive has been coming out of Debian lately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @01:49AM
> Can we get an IP identifier for ACs that submit stories? At least visible to the editors so they can prevent abuse.
It won't make a whit of difference. I am not the aforementioned AC with a hard-on for debian, but I have access to over 2000 different IP addresses to post from and it costs me less than $40/year. Someone as fixated as that AC is won't have any problems getting all the IP addresses he needs to circumvent any IP-based tracking.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Marand on Monday November 24 2014, @02:19AM
This post, and some of the other recent ones on Debian were all posted by an AC with an axe to grind. I suspect it is the same AC that in numerous post complains about lots of things Debian.
SN is not a debian community site and he/she should go elsewhere.
I had the same thought when I read the summary. It has similarities in writing style, tone, and heavy negative slant when compared to some of the other submissions and many of the AC comments. I'm referring to the ones that provide the same laundry list of grievances and links, which lack neutrality and just look like axe-grinding by someone with an agenda. It's clickbait or propaganda style writing, and one of the things that pissed me off at Slashdot.
Submissions like this one, or that wine-bug one, look like the work of someone whose goal is to discredit Debian in any way possible. The wine one was especially bad. Bug found in a testing repository, bug reported, bug fixed; better alert the presses about how it's one more in a long line of failures by Debian staff!
Judging by the slant of the submission, and the obscurity of what it's about, this is probably the same guy that had his code rejected and has been trolling Debian people. It's being presented as just some poor coder being rejected for being disliked, but the code itself has stuff like ASCII spam of "Just Say No To Women's Rights" as a response to certain user input, and the packaging request is being sent from a mailinator address (@sogetthis.com), which is an anonymous throw-away email provider. The program, packaging request, and SN submission are all likely the same person. This whole thing is rubbish and someone fell for it.
Bonus points: he even embedded deCSS into the code as an "easter egg". This guy's a crackpot on a level comparable to APK.
---
Also, if anybody else is brave enough to check the source, prepare for pain. It's a 24,639 line Perl script, in a single file , with some absolutely horrible coding style. If anyone else finds anything hilarious, let me know. Here are a few good things I found skimming through:
* 24,639 lines in a single file, instead of using modules to split out each separate game and common bits to all
* Lots of copy-pasting of the same code for separate parts. What's code-reuse, guys?
* Eleven different if statements just to format money display based on how many digits are in the currency total, instead of a sprintf() and a couple variable changes. This happens for every numeric display.
* Everything seems to be global variables. No attempts at limiting variable scope ('local' or 'my' keywords) outside of code attributed to someone else.
* He has a similar aversion to using arrays, namespaces, and hashes.
* Does weird weird crap like print "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" (with a lot more \n than that) instead of using Perl operators (e.g. print "\n" x 7 to do same thing). Wouldn't stand out if it were an isolated problem, but lots of similar issues throughout.
* Prints an ASCII-art '7' by using 14 separate anonymous subroutines, each printing a single line of text.
* Has at least three separate sets of subs like above for dollar signs, and some others for other things.
* The slot machine code has separate subroutines for each location on the machine with the same boilerplate if/elsif statements in each, but calling a different set of 14 subs to print different ASCII pictures. So, 182 different subroutines just to display the output of the slots.
* Despite his love of subroutines, things like the "title screen" are hard-coded into multiple places instead of put into their own sub.
I don't even want to keep looking any more. This should be kept out of Debian just on principle of being some of the worst code I've ever had to see. He didn't even have the decency to write the kind of proper, incomprehensible Perl that you can grudgingly applaud; this shit is nearly 25,000 lines of baby's first spaghetti code and would be at home in an old version of BASIC.
It almost looks like he tried to make it as long and unclear as possible in the hopes that nobody would dare look at the code and catch the 'easter eggs', but they're done in a way that stands out, so he's probably just that bad and I'm just trying to rationalise away the terrible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @03:45AM
So WHY not write any of those perfectly fine arguments you came up with in 10 seconds, instead of writing troll?
the packaging request is being sent from a mailinator address (@sogetthis.com), which is an anonymous throw-away email provider.
A simple "We don't consider package request from anonymous email addresses" would've been fine for this particular request.
If the submitter is a troll, he'll have to try harder next time.
the code itself has stuff like ASCII spam of "Just Say No To Women's Rights" as a response to certain user input
This could be another simple response, ala "Why is this in a slot machine app?".
And then there are all the actual code issues you pointed out. All valid arguments. All ignored in favor of "troll".
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday November 24 2014, @04:38AM
So WHY not write any of those perfectly fine arguments you came up with in 10 seconds, instead of writing troll?
If you want an answer to that, you'd do better by asking the people that were involved. There were two (the one that made the comment, and the one that closed the bug as WONTFIX), and I doubt either one reads SN.
I almost ignored the whole thing because it's clearly part of the same anti-Debian crusade as some of the other submissions (including attempts to submit the same things to Slashdot), but the code itself was hilarious, so I changed my mind and decided it'd be funny to wade into the muck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @06:59AM
Debian doesn't need any help discrediting itself. The RedHat cloners have gotten their way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @07:09AM
You looked at the code and looked at the person and dislike the game.
And some people skipped all that and just played the game and liked it:
https://inconsolation.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/gpcslots2-in-a-different-direction-altogther/ [wordpress.com]
Wonder what' they're doing wrong?
(They even liked that it was in one convienent file.)
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday November 24 2014, @08:40AM
You looked at the code and looked at the person and dislike the game.
And some people skipped all that and just played the game and liked it:
https://inconsolation.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/gpcslots2-in-a-different-direction-altogther/ [wordpress.com]
Wonder what' they're doing wrong?
(They even liked that it was in one convienent file.)
Nothing I said indicates whether I like or dislike the game, and it's curious that you'd take my comments on the code quality as such. That reaction, and the defensive nature of your reply, is the sort of response a content creator makes when attempting to deflect criticism of their creation.
It's also interesting that you had that link ready to use to defuse criticism. It seems to be relatively unknown, recent, and only has a couple non-author comments, both by Mikee (as proven by the commenter uploading gpcslots1), who mentioned Debian's refusal to distribute along with an interesting ESR blog post about censorship. (A blog post that I'd never seen but which helps confirm my original "crackpot" analysis of Mikee)
Combining that info, the reaction to my previous post, the anti-Debian and hateful comments, the axe-grinding submissions, and the rapid turnaround (anonymous inclusion request, rejection a day later, submission to Slashdot's firehose and SN within two days of that), it's starting to look like SN has attracted a wild MikeeUSA.
Well, Mikee, welcome to SN; if you're planning on staying, you should just make an account and be honest about it. I don't care if you're here, but I do hope the admins do a better job of vetting your submissions in the future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @01:02PM
Oh, Marand. You're always babbling on about "conspiracies". LOL!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 24 2014, @01:59PM
Sigh..., he can't even attribute things correctly:
print colored(' This number was found to be a probable prime by Charles M. Hannum and proven ',"$boldblack on_$bgcblack"); print"\n";
print colored(' prime by Phil Carmody ',"$boldblack on_$bgcblack"); print"\n";
And of course it goes without saying that I don't want to be associated with a jerk like that :-(
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by seandiggity on Monday November 24 2014, @12:08AM
I'm really starting to question the quality of both SN and Pipedot lately. This is practically copied from http://pipedot.org/story/2014-11-21/opensource-game-rejected-from-debian-for-authors-social-beliefs [pipedot.org] and is a completely trivial issue, not a big controversy that calls Debian's integrity into question and/or is a display of Debian's political bias.
The notable addition to the summary at SN is the question involving the Debian Code of Conduct. Before you ask who falls afoul of the the Code of Conduct, how about you do your homework? The creator of the rejected package (a slot machine game also authored by him) says things like this on Debian mailing lists:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2005/06/msg00235.html [debian.org]
If the title of that message isn't enough, read the whole thing. To compound the situation, the game has easter eggs in it which include anti-woman rants and inflammatory ASCII art. Is that "be respectful"? The game itself is disrespectful of women, if the author's actions weren't enough.
A few questions worth considering for SN and Pipedot members/fans:
1. is this newsworthy?
2. do either of these stories have accurate summaries?
3. does this have anything to do with systemd or "Debian culture", as is implied?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @06:55AM
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes. (Debian Culture)
Looks like you matched up all 3 symbols. Good job!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @07:37AM
It's almost 10 years since that message to debian-women.
What have the debian-women produced in those 9 years?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @01:40AM
This character is ruining SN already.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday November 24 2014, @10:06AM
I can understand you not liking this particular story - the earlier ones from the same submitter were rejected because they were far more inflammatory. However, this one did pose some serious questions and, amongst all the dross of the modded down comments, there are some interesting views on how this matter could have been handled better by Debian. I fail to see how, as the 'character' involved, I am single-handedly destroying SN with this one story rather than the 1000+ others that I have edited. I'm willing to enter into a discussion about this if you wish, as long as it does not result in a bun fight like some other comments in this thread have ended up.
For the record, I agree with Debian's decision, I think the submitter is a troll. His views towards women are his own business but they do not belong either here or in software that is being packaged for a repository. The inclusion of Easter Eggs is also unprofessional and unacceptable.
I'm sorry that this story did not meet your approval - but it has received quite a significant response from others. You are, of course, free not to read any story if you do not think it is on a subject that interests you. While we are open to input from ACs - which I whole-heartedly support - there is bound to be the occasional story that is submitted by the person concerned in the summary. I cannot prove this to be the case in this instance, but the writing style and the arguments offered in rebuttal of any criticism here do suggest that this is, in fact, what has happened here.
janrinok
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Monday November 24 2014, @11:45AM
Its not your fault, and I for one am glad you replied and read through the thread (this is the best thing an editor can do). I have nothing but respect for the people who spend their time to keep this website going.
However, I feel you read the replies wrong. It is not that we are interested (any non AC poster that posted above can mention his or her disagreement to this statement below). Over 90% of the post here are a discussion between a few subscribed people and the same AC. Even people who see through him get tricked into a discussion. I think most of us would prefer to discuss something more worthwhile than gpc-slots. Its a typical trollfest.
Using sites such as SN for a hate war is becoming more common. It is quite hard to prevent, Especially if they are as persistent as MikeeUSA seems to be. Its smaller sites and forums that are more vulnerable to this kind of attack, and I have personally seen it get out of hand.
The good thing that can come from this is a discussion about how to deal with this type of post. Personally, I would request for cautiousness in accepting stories from ACs that seem inflammatory, as you may be "used". Secondly, although not perfect, slashcode could put an unique hash on an ip (perhaps only visible for editors). Of course this can be defeated as pointed out above. But anything that slows people like this down is worthwhile.
But I would prefer that the staff discuss this internally and sets guidelines how to deal with this, not all of which needs necessary to be known publically (simply to make it more difficult to defeat said policy).
Interesting slightly relevant tidbit: I once wrote a small script that "fingerprinted" forum messages using bzip2. Similar data compresses better, so given a large sample of writing of someone I could say with reasonable accuracy whether a certain post was written by the same person or not. I was able to unmask a troll with a double account. With some practice, you can however defeat this easily, so its not a real solution either (besides, most SN posts are a bit too short for it).
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday November 24 2014, @01:06PM
Thanks. I found the 'esr' link interesting too. MikeeUSA has been around for quite a while it seems and he is unpopular in most of the places that he and I are both likely to frequent. Hence his choice of AC when submitting what I believe to be his own story. I will look out for him in the future and will happily view any subsequent submissions that might be from him in an entirely different light.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @01:08PM
It's beginning to feel a lot like Slashdot over here!
Nutters such as yourself are incorrectly claiming that all ACs are the same person.
Then you claim that there are "hate wars" and "conspiracies" going on, when there obviously aren't.
And now there's this nonsense about your comment "fingerprinting" script using bzip2 compression ratios?!
Hilarious!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @04:48PM
Shut up MikeeUSA, no one gives a damn!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @10:53PM
My bzip2 comment fingerprinting script has positively identified you as MikeeUSA. So you need to shut up, based on your own request to yourself.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Monday November 24 2014, @12:19PM
and (sorry for double post), this provides an interesting read on the AC that I hope is convincing enough that at least some discussion about this is warranted:
http://pipedot.org/story/2014-11-21/opensource-game-rejected-from-debian-for-authors-social-beliefs [pipedot.org]
turns out he is quite famous:)
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Monday November 24 2014, @12:21PM
argh, managed to paste the wrong link. Anyway, here is what ESR had to say about this person:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310 [ibiblio.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @01:04PM
There's nothing wrong with this submission. In fact, it's a very good submission.
There's nothing wrong with your decision to put it on the front page. In fact, it was a very good decision.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 24 2014, @03:36PM
The inclusion of Easter Eggs is also unprofessional and unacceptable.
Easter eggs in general, or just hateful ones that the package maintainers don't know about?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Monday November 24 2014, @11:35PM
Easter eggs in general, or just hateful ones that the package maintainers don't know about?
I'd say that easter eggs as universally unprofessional, and that's what makes them appealing, both to the author and the users that like them. They're usually a good-natured way for a developer to put a bit of personality into a piece of software that's otherwise all business; a way for the author to leave their mark. Having a popup that appears with a small picture of your kitten and a thank-you for using the software when you input the Konami code isn't professional at all, but it's not hurting the software. A few people might complain that it increases the size of the binary slightly, but most won't care.
They become unacceptable when they start doing things like going "FUCK YOU!", "ALL MEN SHOULD DIE", "NO RIGHTS FOR WOMEN", "EAT DICKS, HIPSTER", etc. Their purpose is no longer a bit of fun and personality; they become a vehicle for the author's agenda and/or a way to piss people off. Maybe a bit of a "haha I got you to install offensive software" in there too.
One could argue that neither belongs in a distro, but the latter type definitely doesn't.
In the case of gpcslots2, there's at least two easter eggs that I've seen. One is deliberately inflammatory, and I'm not sure how to categorise the other. He decided to embed deCSS in some form, which might not preclude inclusion but might require Debian to provide some sort of disclaimer relating to it. Gven the nature of dealing with the author, it's easy to see why no Debian maintainer would want to be responsible for trying to get the easter eggs cleaned up acceptably. Even if the obvious ones are removed, the code is a gigantic mess and the author is provably unhinged. It would be a nightmare to try digging through every version to check for problems, and folly to rely on the author's goodwill based on years of bad behaviour.
Not that it matters. There's no requirement that Debian package everything, and it's just a Perl script, so anybody that wants to can download and run it with no trouble.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25 2014, @03:05AM
Stating your opinion is bad behavior if that opinion is opposed to "social justice". Yep.
There is nothing wrong with the code. It does what it was designed to do without fault or error.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday November 25 2014, @03:24AM
Stating your opinion is bad behavior if that opinion is opposed to "social justice". Yep.
There is nothing wrong with the code. It does what it was designed to do without fault or error.
That isn't what I said at all, mikee, and you know it. Nothing I've said here has been about "social justice".
Also there's plenty wrong with the code, and no amount of defending it is going to make it less terrible. Maybe you should spend less time trying to convince us it's not shit and more time cleaning it up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25 2014, @12:37PM
It does exactly what it was designed to do, nothing more, nothing less.
Try it out before knocking it.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 25 2014, @03:55PM
Except for the bigoted easter egg, sure. By definition an easter egg is "something more."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:04AM
Nope, that was in there from the start. Part of the design.
Free Software was written by hobbyists until a few years ago.
This piece of software has its beginning in the time before the corporate take-over of
the "lets make our own software for free in our own time" movement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:06AM
There is nothing bigoted about it.
Women should not have rights, Men should be able to marry girl children.
Read the Bible. If you disagree and you work to make the world a
"better place" where such things are not so, then well hopefully
Russia does what it's been threatening to do lately.
(You know, the resurgent Orthodox Russia)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @06:17PM
I agree with your comments above and don't think there is anything wrong with this story. Don't blame yourself, you can't please all the people all the time. It's easy enough to edit a few stories but doing it day in and day out for months or years it becomes work real fast and it takes dedication to continue to do it. For the 1000+ other stories that you have edited I'd like to say thank you for your work and the work of the other editors.
(Score: 2) by efitton on Monday November 24 2014, @06:59PM
Janrinok, thank you for the time it must take to be an editor. Overall I am very pleased to be a reader and a sometimes commentator here at SN.
That said, I am glad I read the comments on this article but only because otherwise I would have a negative impression of Debian. I don't always read the comments; for this "article" that is a problem. If you aren't going to make edits to the submission: this one needs huge caveats as it sits on the front page. And frankly if I'd seen those caveats I would have skipped reading this article and read comments on something different. We were trolled. So no, I do not like having this particular story on Soylent News. Best case we engaged a troll; worse case people have an unfair slant on Debian.
Now I don't think there is a crisis. I don't think we're becoming slashdot. I don't think you are responsible for the end of Western Civilization. My suggestion as a reader though is next time don't feed the troll.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @09:52PM
I am the GP AC. I accused you of "ruining SN" because some of your post selections smell of troll baiting a la slashdot's "samzenpus", but your explanation for this post is appreciated. Take my criticism for what it is worth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @10:55PM
You're not the GGP AC. You're MikeeUSA. My bzip2 comment fingerprint script has identified you as such, and it can't possibly be wrong!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25 2014, @12:27AM
Why do you agree with debian's decision.
If someone asked you to chose which of these banks you would like to do business with:
1) Chase
2) Wells Fargo
3) Vatican
4) Bank of England
5) Valartis
6) LGT
7) Raiffeisen
8) DBS
9) UOB
10) OCBC
11) SPDB
And your answer was "muh dick". Should they say "ah yes, wells fargo it is"?
Why should it be any different if you instead say "some bitch", or an analogue thereof?
(Or in this case "The bank I wish to do business with is "feminists" or "woman", I reject all your preselected options")
Since when has opensource been professional?
It is (or it was, perhaps there was a takeover of some sort) people doing things for free as a hobby in their spare time.
The fact of the matter is the program in question does what it was programmed to do:
It allows you to virtually gamble in a text console. It even includes a stockmarket.
It doesn't crash and doesn't have any known vulnerabilities.
Debian rejected it because the author's opinions are in opposition to SJWs opinions. That's it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday November 25 2014, @08:32AM
It may do what it is programmed to do - or so you think. However, what has been programmed is not what I expect in a slot game. Why include the rant against women in the program? Is it an integral part of the game? I suggest 'No'. Why does it have easter eggs at all? Is it what the title or description of the game says the program contains? Again, I suggest 'No'. So my first response is that the game is not what it purports to be. Therefore I side with Debian on their decision not to include it.
Having had several people give their views on the quality of the code - people whose views I respect, because I have seen at first hand what they are capable of here on this site - the code in the program is of very poor quality. It is likely, therefore, to include bugs. They will not do what I, nor you, expect the game to do. Again, I tend to agree with Debian's decision that it is not worth the effort of packaging and distributing it. At best, it will reflect poorly on their other software and, at worst, it may well have hidden functions about which the user will have no inkling. Debian's decision is looking like it is the correct one.
Finally, we have a saying in the military - don't shit on your own doorstep! So after years of trolling Debian, of rants here and elsewhere regarding the actions of the Debian team, and (in my own personal view) of unacceptable and unwarranted insults to individuals who are supporting Debian, the program writer now wants them to support his poor efforts at programming? My response would be somewhat stronger than Debian's has been - but it would have contained the same message - 'No'. He has brought this upon himself.
Debian was wrong to simply annotate the game submission as 'unwanted - wontfix' - they should have had the decency to describe, as I have done, why the software is simply not good enough for inclusion. The end result would have been the same but it would have taken a little more effort on the part of Debian to achieve it. If the author has any sense at all, he will learn from this and try to improve his programming skills. Perl is a powerful language but it is being used as if by a child. Yes, it might meet the author's standards, but he will never be a programmer of any repute if that is the level of ability that he displays in all his other efforts.
But the worst mistake, in my view, is that he brought his petty views and complaints to this site. Those of his ilk have had their chance with me - and they have blown it! I, unlike Debian, have responded so that you know why I hold these views. I also suspect that you and the author are one and the same. By all means reply if you must - but neither you nor he will receive any further explanations from me.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25 2014, @12:28PM
Debian is not correct.
They weren't correct when they removed the "hotgirls" package.
They weren't correct when they booted Ted Walther out.
And they aren't correct now.
What they are is scum.
Also, fuck systemd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25 2014, @12:30PM
"Why does it have easter eggs at all?"
Because opensource is NOT about professionalism.
It's a hobby and it's for fun.
Clearly you weren't around even 10 years ago here.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday November 25 2014, @02:50PM
From my SN page:
I first got involved in software in 1979 and have followed Unix, Windows, and Linux from whenever each was available. Big business requires professionalism from Linux - and it gets it. The fact that this particular piece of software is well below that standard does not mean that all FOSS should strive to be of the same low standard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:02AM
Nor does it mean that all software written by hobbyists should cater to big businesses you fuck.
Go and FUCK yourself.
Oh, and go and do it for free, in a professional manner, heeding codes of conduct and standards.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:02AM
My, my - you don't like losing an argument, do you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @01:03PM
The argument wasn't lost. You appealed to commercialism in a discussion about free software.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25 2014, @12:32PM
Something extremely statically typed, much like an old basic program, is less likely to have
bugs than something written "cleverly". You can see exactly how the logic will unfold once
it hits the iron because it uses hardly any language features not found in lower level
languages like ASM (the exception being not having to mess with a stack...)
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday November 24 2014, @11:54PM
Joey Hess and others on the "winning" side of the systemd debate quit anyway. This was because the "new" 2008 constitution encouraged politicking over the old way ie. consensus. If both sides of an argument know that consensus is the required endpoint things tend towards being a little more civil, and encourages a more genuine discussion. The new constitution enables speedier decisions via votes, but at the expense of social cohesion. This is wrong for a project like Debian. Developers can now push their vision by simply "getting the numbers". This is dissolving the community as it is repeatedly bisected by issues which aren't properly "resolved". It was the old bias towards genuine communication/consensus which made Debian a top (although more conservative) distro in the first place.