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When Software Offends
ndogg writes "The open source Python projects Pantyshot and Upskirt have caused quite a stir within the Python community, and catalyzed the leaving of one of their developers (a woman whose native language is not English.) The original developer, Frank Smit, has renamed Pantyshot to Misaka, but that too has suspect etymology, as Violet Blue points out."
That's the beautiful thing about freedom, you're free not to use media or software that offends you...
There's plenty of bigots and assholes out there. If you feel it's worth the fight, be my guest. I'm gonna go with the second choice, which is ignoring it. They'll both have the same end result, anyway...
The reports of /.'s death are greatly exaggerated.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
No, you stupid shit, it means that this is just ONE MORE fucking reason for huge multibillion-dollar companies to give Open Source the finger.
Python bindings for a Markdown library. Not very sexy at all.
People will use all kinds of reasons to justify their behaviour. I imagine this name would make all kinds of people want to try out the software as well. Do you think the main purpose of the open source community is to provide tools for megacorporations?
Korma: Good
It’s not that the names were simply sexual in nature: it was that they targeted a women over the very thing that makes them a minority in the Python community in the first place: you could call it a sexual exploit.
So generally speaking, I support the name change, especially if this is true:
She, not being a native English-speaker, had accepted on trust a foreign-language name for her library. According to Holden, the revelation - and the attention to her unknowing complicity - brought about with the name was so uncomfortable for her that she quit working in open source altogether.
But it's still a slippery slope.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
On the flip side, perhaps you ought to be offended, but have been too desensitized.
Would anyone working for/at a real-world business ever use any of that software? I highly doubt that anything that can bring about a sexual harassment suit just from publishing its documentation is worth even a penny.
Indeed, I am curious on this, but not crazy enough to Google the names while on my monitored work network, anyone able to list what the programs actually do?
it's good to know people who are supposedly smarter than myself are so stupid as to 1. Name something important in a childish manner and 2. getting offended by something in a language they don't understand in the first place. Things like this negate my faith in the tech industry, it seems like it's filled with either law suit trolls like Sony or pathetic immature people...it's no wonder why there has been a complete lack of original, innovative, or useful tech in the past 20 years.....
Really, if you're naming things Up Skirt or Panty Shot you need to crawl out from under that rock and get out more.
I love how this is all framed as people being "offended," so that everyone can say "Ooh, look at the little baby, so offended by harsh language." When actually the issue is that the names for these (non-panty-related) software has been picked out by dudes who apparently think that it's hilarious to take pictures up women's skirts without their consent (which is what everyone knows "upskirt" and "pantyshot" mean, on the internet). You don't need to be a native speaker of English to know what they think of women.
No. I'm sorry. No. Theres a difference between having fun with software names and this. It is incredibly misogynistic, and it is perfectly reasonable to be offended by it. The name refers to a non-consensual sexual intrusion, something you might consider light rape.
There's a big difference between this and something adolescent and immaturely sexual, but not horribly offensive like, oh, 'booblib'.
You are free to change the name then.
But i honestly must admit that i never got why you would call your software in any weirdly conotated way. You will just narrow the circle of users. Before i have to explain inside a company where non-geeks also participate in meetings that i use libupskirt i would rename it and use it under the other name.
Or, you know, male programmers, who by far outnumber females, can show some common sense and decency by not driving away the minority of females in this profession? Why would women want to get involved with FOSS with guys who act like they are still living in their parents basement and have all the maturity of an 18 year old.
Seriously, some people need to stop living up to the stereotype of programmers as being socially maladjusted neuro-atypical douchebags.
it's the aspies who give their software hostile and immature names which offend.
What the fuck kind of idiot thinks "upskirt" and "pantyshot" are good names for a computer program?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
You're a moron. It means that developers need to grow up. The only reason to use names like this is for the shock value due to their offensiveness. I think it should go without saying that we need to stop demeaning women for lulz.
How exactly is the person who is offended to blame for being offended? Also, just how far does that reasoning stretch?
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Do what now? How do you go from seeing underwear potentially accidentally to *rape*?!
There is something *seriously* wrong here, but I'm pretty sure it's with you, not the name of the software.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
Jesux proposed to remove '"kills" and "aborts" and "daemons"' and other anti-christian parts from linux and redistribute it. It was a colossal fail (or more likely a hoax), but it gave us all a pretty good laugh at the time. That was what, 12 years ago? I think that was far more offensive.
I8-D
FSCK you!
I8-D
>On the flip side, perhaps you ought to be offended, but have been too desensitized.
Fair point but I would like to think that we've got past being horrified by anything remotely sexual. Let's be honest here, one of the biggest money spinners in the US is porn - people buy it, yet as soon as someone in public says 'panties', they're frowned upon as some sort of devient, usually by the same people who just downloaded MILF episode 3.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
People will use all kinds of reasons to justify their behaviour. I imagine this name would make all kinds of people want to try out the software as well. Do you think the main purpose of the open source community is to provide tools for megacorporations?
I don't see how this naming would make anyone want to try out this software. But what it would do is make it difficult for a person in a business environment to search for and access this package, especially those with strict internet filtering.
There's a difference between Puritanistic horror at anything sexual and being offended by naming a software program after an act of non-consensual peeping.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
>It is incredibly misogynistic, and it is perfectly reasonable to be offended by it.
Oh I think people are way too ready to be offended by anything and everything these days.
The name refers to a non-consensual sexual intrusion, something you might consider light rape.
You think an upskirt (which are usually staged) is akin to rape? Wow.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I don't know the details of this case, but for me these names differ from the (harmless) four-letter words in that they are intrinsically sexistically loaded: based on their use in historic precedent (and hence by their primary association) they are part of a vocabulary that treats women as sex objects. Sexism is far too alive and real to let these slip as an mildly amusing historical references. Using these words as project titles (and hence presumably intending a positive association) is equivalent to naming your new two-class scheduling algorithm the `back-of-the-bus' algorithm: it attempts to associate positive meaning with concepts that stigmatise certain groups of people.
Sorry, but no thank you. Amusing titles are good, but program names whose most obvious meaning appears to be that they support misogyny or racism are too likely to be taken seriously until we've eliminated those problems in RL (which we're quite far away from).
Why would you name a parser like that? I mean, I'm all for freedom of speech, and that has to include potentially offensive speech, but why choose that? It's dumb. And I don't mean just the "potentially offensive" angle, but from a technical standpoint too. Talk about poisoning the Google searches! When people go looking for it, the legitimate software library you worked so hard to code is going to be buried way at the end of a long list of ... other stuff. Simultaneously I'm not keen on how easily offended some people are. It's not that bad. I can think of far worse choices.
Suggestion: rename it to "upkilt". That would solve the problem in true Pythonesque style.
I remember about 7-8 years ago, when someone coded up an emulator for the Neo-Geo Pocket Color. The supposed full name of the product (which none of the developers ever used) was "Rather A Pokemon Emulator?" and the logo was a Pikachu poorly Photoshopped for, shall we say, reasons of endowment. I don't recall if the software was open-source or not, but the naming controversy doesn't sound too different from this.
Free speech allows you to name your project whatever you want, no matter how tasteless. Free association, however, allows people to decide not to use your project based on its name. Open-source even lets someone fork it, changing little if anything but the name, and snag the userbase out from under a puerile manchild.
It might be hypocritical, but we're not here to be the arbiters of social norms. We're here to write code.
Naming stuff to be kitschy or to offend other people is childish. You don't have an obligation to anyone to name your software any particular way, but if you behave like a child, you shouldn't be too surprised when adults get offended. If your goal is to write code that gets used, you should pretend to be an adult--at least while you're naming it.
If you make a useful library and intentionally give it a disgusting name, you're a psychological sadist. You don't care what other people think, you just enjoy knowing they squirm every time they have to deal with your library. Grow up. Get a little empathy.
Pretty much agree with that. As I said earlier, people are way too ready to be offended these days,often when they're not. They just feel they ought to.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I don't have a problem with a developer deciding to use names like this for a package, if they want to stick their neck out.
The point here, is apparently that *the developer* wasn't sticking their neck out; someone else did it *for them*. *That*, I have a problem with.
So, y'all people shooting at the name itself? That's a strawman; please look at what's actually offensive here.
No there isn't. Just because YOU don't see this as having fun with names doesn't mean the author didn't. 'Having fun with names' and 'Having fun with names that I approve of' are not the same thing. 'Having fun with names' and 'using names that aren't offensive' are also not the same thing.
Once again, you're wrong. I bet that it wouldn't be hard to find people who would be just as offended at booblib or libboob as libupskirt.
This is actually a pretty good example of what I first said. Your morals say libupskirt bad, libboob ok. Others see no problem with either and still others will find neither acceptable. Here however, you are using your morals as a rule that everyone should follow.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
And?
Swing has multiple meanings, only one of them is even remotely sexual, and even in that capacity it is not something remotely offensive.
To be fair, FCKeditor was named after its author, Frederico Caldeira Knabben, who is from Brazil. Evidently that was his real name and he didn't at first realize the unfortunate similarity of his initials to an English swear word--but even if he had realized this, they were still his real initials, so I think he would still have some right to name it that. In any case, the name of the editor has now been changed to CKEditor.
The something wrong is your understanding of words like "consensual", "accidental", "intentional", and "illegal".
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Flamebait? Really? Wow. I rest my case.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I read the entire article and still have no idea what the upskirt/pantyshot libraries actually do. Seems like a bit of critical info to leave out of the article.
Go on, bitches, call me whatever you want.
You're a Yoda flashlight, that's what you are. :)
Every end has half a stick.
There's plenty of stuff that offends me to some degree or another, but I ignore it and move on because I can't censor someone else without giving them the power to censor me in return. Yes, those names are stupid, juvenile, and annoying. I'll be damned if I want to put anyone in the position of having the power to ban or reject software for those reasons, though. I'd rather be offended and annoyed than silenced.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The name refers to a non-consensual sexual intrusion, something you might consider light rape.
What the hell is "light rape"? Is that something like the George Bluth's "light treasons"?
There's a big difference between this and something adolescent and immaturely sexual, but not horribly offensive like, oh, 'booblib'.
'booblib' might not be terribly offensive to YOU, but I'm sure it's incredibly offensive to quite a few people. The question isn't even, "how do we decide where the line is", but rather "how do we decide who decides where the line is."
Look, I agree with you. It's misogynistic. It's immature. It's not funny in any way. It is your right to be offended by it.
That said, it's still not right to censor it.
For those who may not know, upskirt is the Markdown parser used and developed at GitHub under the name 'RedCarpet.' Both packages--upskirt is a fast C parser for Markdown, and pantyshot is its python wrapper--are immensely useful. Giving them those names, however, makes it difficult to integrate them into a professional software project. I find this to be the same attitude developers seem to have about users in general--library users, in this case. Some developers have a certain disdain for those whom do not conform to their notions of humor, design, aesthetics, etc. That's fine, it's their software project. Just know that you're shooting yourself in the foot. You're literally wasting your work when people avoid your project over something as trivial as a project name. And if you don't want people to use it in the first place, then why make it free in the first place?
In the case of pantyshot, the developer has associated his name to that project. If I were an prospective employer doing a search on his name, I'd seriously question his judgement.
For what it's worth, the first scene of Great Teacher Onizuka anime contains just that -- as seen in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flaWaPP2nto . Series in question are not in any way pornographic, sex is mentioned often but no one actually has sex or shows up naked "on camera". Showing panties on animated girls is about as close to pornography as it gets there.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
If I was using Python in a professional setting, I definitely wouldn't be using libraries that would bring up child porn warnings (according to TFA) in Google search.
Also, it's nice to have a bit of freedom in naming packages, but if it's at the cost of alienating contributors, then it only hurts open source. I personally wouldn't be comfortable contributing to a package called 'libjigaboo' since that alienates and marginalizes me as a person, but I wouldn't make a hissyfit and quit open source because of that either. There's a reason why we can fork projects after all, it's so we don't have to associate with people who are unproductive to work with.
While it would be helpful if more of us had thicker skin, it is more important to be professional, mature, tactful, and accountable for our actions and inactions. Idiots like Frank Smit set open source back by making us all seem like prepubescent boys. Geeks have enough of an image problem without this douchebag making a royal ass out of himself.
with guys who act like they are still living in their parents basement and have all the maturity of an 18 year old.
I strongly suspect you just described the author. And if not physically, mentally.
Seriously, some people need to stop living up to the stereotype of programmers as being socially maladjusted neuro-atypical douchebags.
Just because its a stereotypes doesn't make it less true. The fact of the matter is, a hugely disproportionate number of people who program ARE socially maladjusted neuro-atypical douchebags. Many people in the profession are specifically in the profession because it attracts the socially maladjusted which is then positively re-enforced by poor management and a blind eye to prima donna douchebaggery. This easily describes well over 70% of everyone I've ever worked with and even somewhat describes myself during the first five to eight years of my own career.
The simple truth of the matter is, in programming circles, the vast majority absolutely are maladjusted, anti-social, douchebags with grossly and almost always unjustified yet massively over inflated egos. Its a stereotype for a reason. While non-politically correct, most stereotypes exist specifically because there is a generalized, large grain of truth at their root.
Just because it is on Wikipedia does not make it true or complete. I can assure you that upskirt refers to the composition of a photo or video, not its consensuality. Dare I ask, what do you think a consensually-taken upskirt photo would be called if not also 'upskirt'?
Further, if in the course of some other activity a woman accidentally shows her underwear on camera, that too is called a 'pantyshot' even though the camera was not there for the explicit purpose of capturing the event.
That either of these terms requires lack of consent or the explicit and demonstrable intent to malice is wholly false.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
True story - when I was implementing an internal IRC network for a former employer, I was instructed to add BitchX to our desktop UNIX builds - but rename the binary.
It's just words. And unless you, as a reader/listener validate them, nothing can happen.
Now of course, in a case like with a parent calling his child something bad... then of course, some actual harm is caused. (And as a victim of this, I know for a fact, that it's just as bad if not worse than "physical" harm, as physical harm can be fixed much easier.)
But if you're grown up, and someone calls you a (let's use something that would offend most here) "pathetic childish complete loser who never had sex and never will be, fucks his Yoda fleshligh and will die all alone, crying himself to sleep every night until then", it depends entierly on you.
So because you were non rational as a child it was wrong of your parents to call you names, perhaps even rightfully so, perhaps you were one of those oversensitive ego's, and you needed some hard hitting words. But when a grown up does it to another grown up it is okay in your book? Kinda double standard that.
Then I'm wondering: if this code is not used for, you know, actual panty shots - where is all the consternation coming from? Lots of projects have not-so-clever names that are in no way connected to how they work. If the stink caused over this non-issue was actually enough to make a developer quit the project, then it's a big red flag for everyone to stay the hell away from this toxic community.
You mightn't, but in many states* such an action will land you a felony and get a registered sex offenders list entry. And of course it's a Federal crime to boot.
* Yeah, yeah US-centric, but it's slashdot...
I'm OK with that.
Assuming arguendo that you are in fact offended (rather than more realistically that you're trolling), it's not that you're culpable for being offended, but rather that your sense of being offended over my statement is not something I'm going to strive to avoid.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
It used to be this was much bigger of an issue. Look up mnemonics for resistor color codes for examples. These names are mild in comparison. Boys must understand that a woman who is working on code is not going to look kindly when she is treated primarily as an object to be used to satisfy the boys need for sexual gratification.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Offended or not, if I was a woman in a community of 95%+ men that thought it ok to bring up upskirts or pantyshots, I think I might feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
So humor you might use with your friends with whom you have understandings creates a problem when you use it publicly?
I thought any kind of humor you want to use is always acceptable in all contexts. It never occurred to me that one might want to use diplomacy in a public project that you want wide acceptance of.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
How many definitions have you seen? Wikipedia's definition states non-consensual. 2/3s of urbandictionary's definitions imply non-consensual.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I would have problems with software named "smalldick" or "smartass" -- but not because I would be personally offended by the names, but because I would draw conclusions about the mind of the author, and those conclusions would not exactly increase my confidence in his abilities to do serious software development. Yes, it might be that he's a person who takes responsibility for his software, but I'm pretty sure there's a strong correlation between being able to take responsibility of your software and being able to take responsibility of your language. Unless I had strong indication otherwise, I'd not expect a software called "smalldick" or "smartass" to be well maintained.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
L vs Cats... hmm. Death Note crossover with Felidae? That would be... no. Just no.
Oh, is that what it meant.
Thanks.
Slipping shoelaces ?
Yes, because everybody else names their products simply and descriptively. Names like Windows, Linux, Firefox, Grub, Blender, Bullet, Ogre, Xbox, Google, Twitter, Python, Excel and Azure leave you with no doubt in your mind whatsoever about the function of the product.
May the source be with you.
"Toaru Majutsu no Index" is the name of the anime series referenced by the name Misaka. I beleive they are making a reference to Mikoto Misaka, one of the primary protagonists. Incidentally, I enjoy that series, I've seen that series twice over and I don't remember there being promiscuous amounts of panty shots of the characters. Were there some here and there? Sure, but it's not something I'd deem unsuitable for anyone who's at least high school age. Ironically enough, there's a particular scene where one of Misaka's friends points out that Misaka always wears shorts underneath her skirt. So you can't see Misaka's panties.
Hmm, fair enough then; but I'm coming at this from the perspective of an anime fan rather than a porn hound, and from context in the article (misaka) that's clearly how the person who chose the name is using it as well.
I am trolling
....consider the CUSTOMER.
Understandably, many Aspies despise convention, but if I name something "couchslug's wrinkly ballsack" I should understand that will have a rather limited appeal.
It may alienate a tiny minority of potential customers who don't care to picture my nuts. That I find my nuts quite nice is beside the point.
This concept is terribly difficult for some people to understand.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Naming stuff to be kitschy ... is childish
I actually disagree with this part of your statement, since a lot of kitsch is culturally relevant, and brings a sense of both entertainment from users and can attract legitimate intrigue . However, it's clear these projects were not named to be kitsch especially if the lead developer on one does not understand English, and were either oversights on the project founder's part or somebody trying to be offensive.
A) No, she didn't say they were child pornography. She said that Google gives you that message when you enter certain related search terms.
B) What do you mean, considering who she is? Is it any surprise that somebody who is sex-positive is going to be upset about misogyny and non-consensual sex related acts?
Just because it is on Wikipedia does not make it true or complete. I can assure you that upskirt refers to the composition of a photo or video, not its consensuality. Dare I ask, what do you think a consensually-taken upskirt photo would be called if not also 'upskirt'
You are right. "Upskirt" very often often refers to consensually taken photographs of women who are paid to pretend that the photographer is taking nonconsensual photos up their skirts. These photos are then sold to men who wish or pretend that the photos were truly taken nonconsensually.
Further, if in the course of some other activity a woman accidentally shows her underwear on camera, that too is called a 'pantyshot' even though the camera was not there for the explicit purpose of capturing the event.
Excellent example! And then they humiliate the woman by publishing the photos without her consent.
Are you adequate?
This is what happens when otaku obsession goes too far. The next program would have been TentacleRape or so.
"Maybe the package should just be named after what it *does*, instead of some cutesy name that tells you nothing about the purpose of the software"
But that isn't "cute"!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
In this particular case, the author spoke hardly any English, and apparently an early contributor suggested the name. She didn't find out what it meant until much later, and now she wants nothing to do with open source because of the havoc this malicious contributor started.
...when people in the community, instead of setting a good example, fetishize the act of trolling itself. When high technical contribution is combined with presentations full of pornographic images/metaphors and Twitter streams full of laughter at others' consternation, such childish behavior becomes the New Conformity. It's just as cliquish and pointless as the Old Conformity these rebels without a clue pretend to reject, but whenever aspiring programmers see that opinions presented in one set of clothes get a quicker/more friendly hearing than the same opinions presented in a different set of clothes it's totally predictable how they'll respond. They'll imitate all the off-color and trollish behavior that they see, and some of them will end up stepping over lines that actually matter. It's all good fun until promising projects and startups fail because would-be users and collaborators get turned off by the hipster posing. What kind of sociopath would make a decision where the only possible upside is a few laughs and the potential downside is colleagues losing their jobs? It doesn't matter if you feel your own job is secure, or if you feel that people shouldn't react as they do; anybody who pulls this kind of stunt doesn't deserve a job or funding or anything else but our contempt.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
There's a difference between a consensual performance and a non-consensual act (which many, many upskirts at least pretend to be). Someone familiar with the nuances of both is perfectly placed to comment upon the issue. I fail to see what your attempt at slut-shaming brings to the conversation.
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
...
It's only offensive if you know what it means.
My own program to perform deconvolutions upon image data is developed as 'repornolyser' for it's obvious use. I also have a script called PonyMath that does math involving video compression, as the test file I used was a Friendship is Magic episode. Those are for my own use though.
I think most examples of people claiming to be offended are really either examples of them trolling or covert attacks on the 'offender', whose views they dislike. Unfortunately it's impossible to tell whether the person is really offended, but assuming 50/50 responsibility between the offender and offendee seems reasonable. Even the most 'offensive' act or statement won't offend everyone, hence the offendee always has a role in, hence responsibility for the offense, however small.
Korma: Good
You could give yourself the offensive name and become a millionaire like "Tigole Bitties" at Blizzard Entertainment.
Just because you have an Open Source Project you should always try to keep professional about it. This doesn't mean you cannot have some light hearted humor going around for names. But you need to think if you are in a business meeting and you need to bring up the name, would you feel uncomfortable using the words. Or after the meeting you have been sent to HR for some additional "Sensitivity Training".
Are Americans in general a kinda overboard about these things... Sure but why make a product that you want to share with everyone, then put words in it to make people uncomfortable using it? It just isn't professional.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, I agree. What a ridiculous state of affairs when a website (the blog in the original article) filters out words like 'panties'. Corporations need to get out of the censorship game, it's the job of cunts in government to decide what words are not allowed.
Korma: Good
this is just ONE MORE reason for huge multibillion-dollar companies to give Open Source the finger.
Naw, they've had that reason since the GIMP (maybe before).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do you think the main purpose of the open source community is to provide tools for megacorporations?
What about Mom and Pop Shops? (1-25 employees)
What about small businesses? (25-100 employees)
What about medium sized businesses? (100-1000 employees)
What about Large businesses? (1000-10000 employees)
How about Not For Profit?
How about Government?
How about Military?
How about Education?
I could see all these groups being politically offended using such tools with names like that. The only group with a Naming Scheme like that would be the lone hacker in their parents basement.
Most use of computing (especially software development) is done by organizations often to manage For-Profit or Cost Saving activities, by people who are paid to do the work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's not really a great insight to point out that someone generally will dislike views that they find offensive.
Putting "responsibility" on the person who is offended by a statement implies that the offended has an obligation to avoid being offended, regardless of the nature of the offense. A framework which holds the offender as solely responsible for the offense, and then determining whether the offense is something about which one should be concerned, keeps culpability on the actor and then turns to the relevant question: whether we feel that the offense is something for which we want to judge the offender.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
I disagree completely, the name is way more important than the functionality or accuracy of code. We are all talking about this no mark utility because of the name. We would otherwise never even know or care it existed. The brand is everything.
Korma: Good
This is simply a crazy misinformed post by an idiot.
Smit re-named Pantyshot/Upskirt after a Japanese name. Not just any name, but popularly belonging to an Anime (adult comics) character
Anime is NOT adult comics. Anime is simply Japanese animation. Anime are moving pictures. Comics are the things that don't normally move and often printed on dead trees.
There's nothing "adult" to anime just like there's nothing "adult" to videos.
There's nothing "adult" to the character either. The character certainly does have strong "upskirt" and "pantyshot" references, but honestly it's not much of a "pantyshot" than a "boxershot", a running gag when the character's friend(s?) pull a prank on her by an upskirt and disappointingly realizes she wears "boxers" instead of sexy panties.
FYI, this is the typical "upskirt" in that "adult anime" we're talking about: http://25.media.tumblr.com/eO5rDDFIRmiprfxkBtraxpq6o1_500.jpg
You may say this is offensive, I understand people get offended over many things. But it's simply wrong and FUD to claim that this character has any "adult" connotations.
Like Momoko, who could be Momoko the Japanese porn star (AV Idol)
I do watch Japanese porn regularly (sorry) , and I've never heard of anybody half famous that goes with the name Momoko. A quick google indicates that a "Momoko Tani" is a "Japanese Idol" that wears suggestive clothings (usually scanty swimsuits/bikinis), but not anything that you could call "porn".
Search for Misaka and upskirt, and you'll get a Chilling Effects message from Google about the removal of alleged child porn from their search results.
Just donâ(TM)t âoeinterpretâ Momoko along with the term upskirt on Google or you'll get the same Chilling Effects child pornography warning.
Perhaps it's not the weird Japanese names that's causing Google to give you all those Chilling Effects, but maybe "upskirt"? I've turned off any "safe filters" in Google, and probably my jurisdiction is less anal about child porn (but I haven't seen any of child porn in those searches), so I can't check whether "Jessica upskirt" (or whatever) gives you the same warning, but I suspect it would.
---
I don't disagree that there are better choices of names than "upskirt" and "pantyshot", but seriously there's really no need to spread FUD and lies.
The misinformation above may be lies, or they may be misunderstandings by the author of TFA. If really the latter, she really has no standing writing this piece of misinformed piece of crap.
Don't quote me on this.
"Search for Misaka and upskirt, and you’ll get a Chilling Effects message from Google about the removal of alleged child porn from their search results."
I tested that little declaration. I searched for variations on all the "offensive" terms used in TFA. Not once did I get that "Chilling Effects" crap. More, I followed several links, which loaded images of little cartoon girls with exposed panties. Apparently, Google isn't as fanatical about "the removal of alleged child porn" as Violet is.
That said - I can't understand Anime. Childish dialogue in a cartoon setting just don't do anything for me.
As for looking up WOMEN'S skirts, I'm all for that, as long as the woman in question doesn't want to beat me to death for it. Tricking a woman into working on a project with a name like that? Nahhh. Everyone concerned with the project owed to that woman to clearly explain what the crude terms meant. I'm not terribly sympathetic with people who have language barriers, but this is just to much. Guys should think about how they would feel if they were working in Japan, on a project whose name translated to "We'reallqueerhereindeveloperland".
Long story short, Smit and company were being juvenile dicks, some uptight old broad called them out, Smit renamed his software in an equally juvenile dickish manner, and the uptight old broad really has her panties in a wad. In the process, Smit probably lost an important person in his development team when she realized just how juvenile the team is. How important she is, I really don't know, but she should never have been part of the "joke".
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
There was a case here in So Cal where the terms "master" and "slave" as used with disk drives was deemed offensive in government office circles. There were actually people putting stickers over the offending words on boxes lest any hypersensitive, useless, addle-brained miseryshit see anything that hurts their pwecious wittle feelings.
I'm not sure this is true. People are probably much better off being who they are, and if they are the kind of person who thinks this is what they want to do they should be that. Who are you to say they need to stop anything for the sake of mythical imagined women you hope would be programmers if it wasn't for all the jerks? If women don't want to code much they don't have to, and if men don't want to choose all grown up names for their utilities who is to say they should?
Korma: Good
Right.
For their next trick, the Python community is probably going to honor Rapelay with a project in the name of that (in)famous "teen rape sim". Remember: do not get offended, get out more.
If that succeeds they might start moving into other "get out more" subjects like "barbe-jew" or "Niggapocalypse". My, there are suddenly many people crawling out from under rocks...?
And then people stop using Python. Because the taint is not worth it any more.
Stabbing you to death and punching you hard in the stomach are also different things. Would you accept people did the latter to you?
Shitbags like you give men a bad name. Go fuck yourself, it's not like any women want to - willingly.
Oh, and remember not to take offense at this post. :) :D
If you are offended by something, it's not illegal, and it's not in public view, then all you have to do is go elsewhere. It's that simple.
I find the name offensive. Not because of its connotation, but because it is a insipid attempt to use shock value to get publicity, which by this article, it has. It is no different from products that start with X, or shows like Jackass. It speaks of a grossly juvenile behavior on the part of the developers, that I have no desire to deal with. But you know what? I'm not going to complain, I'm not going to contact them and tell them how disgusting they are, or that they should be ashamed of that name. I'm simply not going to use it.
The person being offended is to blame, because they are a busy-body with nothing better to do than complain about something that does not affect them one iota.
I think we need to distinguish between censorship and "light censorship." We're not censoring information. We're not infringing on someone's right to be heard, or to express themselves. In this case, we're requesting that an author pick a less-demeaning name for a software package. (IMO, the fact that he goes and picks a name associated with child upskirt shots, then says "Nyah, can't prove anything!" just goes to show how childish he really is.)
I understand that the party-line around here is "Censorship = Bad," but honestly, you need a more nuanced understanding of it than that. While I support your constitutional right to free speech, certainly you can see that a post consisting of the word "COCKS" copy-pasted over and over again doesn't belong on a message board, and that the moderators probably should delete it. This isn't about silencing the minority "cocks" opinion, it's about holding a community to a higher set of standards than the bare-minimum that are constitutionally allowed.
But what it would do is make it difficult for a person in a business environment to search for and access this package, especially those with strict internet filtering.
That's the business's problem, not the software's author's.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Well, yeah. This isn't really about the word "upskirt," so much as how the community wants to conduct itself. Does it want to be a mature/professional environment where everyone can feel comfortable, or does it want to be a bastion of free speech, where you can name your project whatever you want, just because you can.
You look at this and say, "I would never want to work in a community where people are so easily offended," while I'm sure others look at this incident and say, "I would never want to work in a community which prides itself on it's childish lack of empathy." How this case is resolved is going to determine which type of community they want to be.
Thanks for the tip.
I'm off to go learn Python, now, just so I can create some stuff named as follows:
Rape
PrisonRape
DateRape
Throatfuck
Puker
GHB
Papabear
Cameltoe
I appreciate your help in this matter. I had no idea that people could be so easily offended by arbitrary words, but I'll be keen to choose the most offensive names I can in the future. (It's open source, so I don't give a fuck if you like the name or not -- it's a software project that anyone else is free to ignore, not a marketing class.)
Kid-proof tablet..
There's NO solution to this. Sooner or later everything is offensive to someone, just ask the creators of South Park. What are you going to name something then? X9So4TeW? And I'm sure someone's going to be offended by that as well. Heck, some people don't even like certain characters in the alphabet.
The internet and unix have all been created/expanded upon over the years by college students with warped senses of humor: Unwanted email is called "Spam", "Python" itself comes from Monty Python, File Transfers used to be done with "Kermit", and the list goes on.
Christians were offended that Unix uses "deamons", so, do we have to rename those to "Angeals"?
The point is: You can't give something a non-offensive name, because the name is in the eye of the beholder, and they will interpret a meaning to it that even the original author didn't intend.
Admittedly, in this case, the author was deliberately being screwy, but, that's the way computer geeks work, as shown above. If you don't like it, don't use his library.
But if Linus Torvalds had named his kernal "ElmosOnFire", would that have stopped any of us from using it? I don't think so.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I'm not saying they should avoid being offended. I'm saying being offended is an active process (even if at least partly), and the person who is offended (by some words) is just as much an actor as the offender. We all can decide whether to be offended by words or not, depending on context and on our own interpretation of the 'offender's' intent. The capacity to offend is not entirely under the control of the offender, and requires a corresponding action (the action of 'taking offense') by the offendee.
Korma: Good
Maybe his tool is aimed at lone-wolf basement dwelling hackers, and his utility is well-named, as they've all heard of it now, and wouldn't have otherwise.
Korma: Good
There is a huge difference between a pantyshot and an upskirt. ALL accidental or intended (by the female) exposures of a panty being worn are pantyshots. This can be anything from the female just being dressed in undies, a short skirt and the camera (in movies/anime) being in the right place, to the reliable old gust of wind which by the way rarely happens in real life with plated skirts because they are to heavy. There are even skirts with weights sewn into the edge to keep them down... bloody cheats.
Upskirt is a shot made without the females consent from below her skirt aimed at her panty in such a way that the wearer can expect some privacy. People do it by either placing a camera in hidden location or even by tying a camera or mirrow to their shoes.
The picture you show is NOT an upskirt, it is a pantyshot, part of fanservice. There is nothing hidden about, neither the viewer or any characters in the clip are being voyeuristic and the female is aware of what she is showing, this is after all why she is wearing the boxershort.
If you want people to know the difference between anime (animation) and hentai (perverted/adult animation) then you need to know the difference between pantyshots and upskirt.
Gravure videos are filled with pantyshots but upskirt is reserved for the seedier porn.
Nobody is going to arrest you in japan for seeing a woman's panties when her skirt is blow up by the wind. Try getting an upskirt shot and prepare to do some hard time.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No there isn't. Just because YOU don't see this as having fun with names doesn't mean the author didn't. 'Having fun with names' and 'Having fun with names that I approve of' are not the same thing. 'Having fun with names' and 'using names that aren't offensive' are also not the same thing.
Thing is, I have the right to have an opinion of people based on their actions. And my strong believe is that whoever came up with these names is a tosser, and if I met them, I would treat them as such. You don't want to be associated with them, you certainly wouldn't offer them a job, and you wouldn't trust any software written by a tosser.
If we're going to rename software packages with sexually suggestive names, can we finally get a better name than GIMP.
If your goal is to build a community to develop software, doing things which drive people from the community tend to be counterproductive.
True but, thanks to OS licenses, there is a perfect solution which the community can take without having to resort to censorship: fork and rename the project. Then, when presumably the community all downloads and uses the more appropriately named project it will send a very strong message to the jerk who wrote the original package that the community as a whole does not tolerate such behaviour.
All this modern push for more and more rules and regulations is not always needed. If the community really believes that this sort of behaviour is not acceptable then let them act to show it. That is a FAR more powerful message than having a rule against it since the offender knows that the entire community thinks he is behaving inappropriately. If a rule is passed then s/he can just dismiss it as "those in power not liking them" - far harder to do that if just about everyone out there feels the same.
I mean the fraction that is familiar with what perverts think of when they see the word Gimp.
The rest of the world couldn't care less and moves on.
In the mean time Canonical has a neat package in their repositories called Pornview; "PornView is an image and movie viewer/manager with thumbnail previews."
This does not hurt anyone except the Pharisees.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
In this case, we're requesting that an author pick a less-demeaning name for a software package
I know, and I don't have a problem with the way they're handling this. In fact, I think they're handling it exactly right. I think the point of this discussion is whether they should be doing something MORE. In my opinion, they shouldn't.
(IMO, the fact that he goes and picks a name associated with child upskirt shots, then says "Nyah, can't prove anything!" just goes to show how childish he really is.)
Yeah, I thought about that, but I couldn't determine intent. I think it is likely that he's just being childish like you said, but there is a possibility that he's actually making the insightful point that words are words, and people can choose to be offended or not. You certainly could choose to interpret 'Misaka' as something innocent, despite the fact that the author didn't intend it to be innocent.
I understand that the party-line around here is "Censorship = Bad," but honestly, you need a more nuanced understanding of it than that. While I support your constitutional right to free speech, certainly you can see that a post consisting of the word "COCKS" copy-pasted over and over again doesn't belong on a message board, and that the moderators probably should delete it. This isn't about silencing the minority "cocks" opinion, it's about holding a community to a higher set of standards than the bare-minimum that are constitutionally allowed.
I think the slashdot moderation system is a good way to handle that. Community standards means that the post will get modded down and nobody needs to see it. If someone does, however, want to hear from the "cocks" lobby, they're free to browse at -1. Slashdot is not entirely perfect, though: I dislike the lameness filter and the limits to how often you can post in a discussion.
I feel that I also should clarify that I personally support free speech, not just the constitutional right to free speech. I think it goes beyond, "government will not infringe upon it." I believe it is a virtue. I believe I have the right to not listen to the message if it offends me, but I think it says something important about our community when we can agree to merely ignores those that offend us, instead of taking steps to silence them.
Sure, if they punched me in a way that didn't interact with me physically. (because the action this was named after involves no contact either)
It's their message board.
In the same way an author of a software project can name it whatever he wants, and if people don't like it they are more than welcome to say so, and perhaps go work elsewhere
Yet another storm at the bottom of a chamberpot has emerged.
Let's take this a little further. There's nothing inherently offensive about any act. Therefore 'offending' is not something you can do. The people actually taking an action in this situation are those who are taking offense.
Phrasing it in the usual way makes it sound like the onus is on individuals not to do anything offensive. In reality, if you take offense at something it's entirely your own choice.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Because it's their mind that is being offended. I can't be held responsible for what's in your head. You however can control your reactions to things.
This reasoning stretches to its logical conclusion.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Unless you want to give your software an anti-establishment flavour and market to the geekspace who will wrap it up in a script called something like clean_parse.script and chuckle to themselves quietly at their secret joke of getting such an interestingly named component into a corporate machine, in which case it's a pretty smart move getting his object known throughout geekspace among people who might try it when they otherwise wouldn't even have heard of it.
Korma: Good
covert attacks on the 'offender', whose views they dislike
What exactly is covert about that? That's the definition of being offended. It means "I don't like your views and want to shut you up". Nothing more, nothing less.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
But what it would do is make it difficult for a person in a business environment to search for and access this package, especially those with strict internet filtering.
That's the business's problem, not the software's author's.
Not if the author is losing sales because of the software's name. Sounds like a much bigger problem for the author to me.
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
Or maybe a tolerant community that can live with people as we find them, tolerant, intolerant, childish, professional, or whatever. Does the functionality matter more or the image? Do the corporations matter more or the community? Perhaps this is testing the waters as to whether open source is big enough to stand on its own, or is pwned by corporations.
Korma: Good
The difference between libboob and libupskirt is the difference between going 55 in a 45 zone and going 80.
libboob might be relatively inoffensive but if you want to roll it out in a professional environment, you're going to have some questions to answer.
Trust me. I had no end of questions when our team implemented the FCKeditor...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
No that's only offensive for a fraction of the 200 million Americans that speak English. I mean the fraction that is familiar with what perverts think of when they see the word Gimp.
Before Pulp Fiction, "gimp" was still offensive: it's a slur against anyone handicapped. I'm sure http://www.ada.gov/ uses their GIMP all the time for marketing. See what I did there?
Being upset by names that aren't even directed you is childish as well. I don't see why I should take sides in a childish spat.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
It seems to me that being offended is a reactive process, rather than an active one. While one can suppress that response (sometimes), that still implies a causal chain in which the offense is a reflex of the offensive stimulus, rather than an active decision to be offended.
Indeed, your discussion of an individual "deciding" whether or not to be offended seems more in line with my discussion above. The actual process of that decision is more likely first the subjective experience of being offended, following by differing degrees of self-analysis to determine whether the offended individual wants to suppress that feeling.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
No I disagree. Being offended implies that an offence was committed against one. Claiming to have been the victim of an offence is often used as a covert attack. The covert part is pretending that someone has attacked you when in reality you are attacking them.
Korma: Good
Tell that to the Eliza app my friend wrote that called me a string of racial and sexual slurs.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I disagree, big companies would not allow the use of controversially named packages to begin with.
If you want your software to sell to as many people as possible you do not put something named pantyshot in it.
And personally I would never use it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The subjective feeling of being offended is not caused by the person issuing the 'offensive' words necessarily though, but in large measure by things in the backgrund, and to an extent, under control of the person taking offence. The causal chain flows outwards from the two people involved, and combines to generate the instance of offense.
Korma: Good
You better not have posted this using mozilla derived browser. Libpr0n must be the end of the world for you.
Also, try to avoid any of these softwares.
Reading comprehension: Fail.
Try again. Hints: What did I mean with "not because I would be personally offended by the names"? What does "Unless I had strong indication otherwise" mean? Oh, and "libpr0n" is not the name of the browser, it's the name of a library it uses (and BTW a library I've never heard before). If I were deciding on using a library for my own program (to do whatever this libpr0n does), and came across "libpr0n", I'd not put too much trust in it, and probably would choose something different. Of course if I then was told that Mozilla uses it, I might reconsider my choice. And no, that library is not the end of would to me. And if you head read and understood the post you replied to, you would have known it.
Oh, and about your "list of software not to use": That software has comments (or commented-out debugging output) using the word "fuck" (apart from a few lists of "bad words"). If you don't know the difference between a comment and a program name, I feel very sorry for you. (Oh, and there are a few instances of explicit lists of bad words, for whatever purpose; you would expect "fuck" to be in there).
Well, one exception is the file "fucku.c" - but that's not a serious software anyway.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
n many states* such an action will land you a felony and get a registered sex offenders list entry
So will pissing behind a tree, depending on how bunched up the DA's panties are.
The same way a mugging victim is to blame for being mugged.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
If only there were some characteristic by which one might be aware of and sensitive to the thoughts, feelings, and expectations of others, then one could predict the reasonable effects of one's actions on others.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Very well. You are a malodorous, overweight, chronic underachiever, and a product of three generations of grossest incest who kidnaps, rapes, and murders small infants, in-between attending Nazi rallies, watching snuff films, and working in the financial industry.
May the Maths Be with you!
Also, if its a problem of adoptions, fork it and let the badly named one die for want of users and contributors.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
This seems like sophistry: one can always identify "but-for" causes for an observable phenomenon, since events are largely influenced by causal factors only tangentially related to the phenomenon. To say that those tangential factors are "responsible" may be vacuously true, but it doesn't really mean much of anything.
If one accepts the premise that the state of being offended is a response to external stimuli as described above, it doesn't make much sense to view the offended as equally culpable for the offense as the offenders who caused the stimuli in the first place. It makes even less sense if one accepts that there are instances where it is reasonable for a person to feel offended and act accordingly.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Judging by Google, it's taken over the phrase. Perhaps this is a good way to get rid of sexually suggestive or offensive terms - name popular open-source projects after them.
Just because I know someone has a stick up their ass doesn't make me responsible for the stick making them uncomfortable. They put the stick there, and they can remove it. Getting offended is a choice and I have no sympathy for those who make it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Since it's an open-source project, the only sane resolution is to fork it. Upskirt/Pantyshot for the frank crowd, and Pantsuit/Burqa for the prudes.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Hey. That last bit was rude and extremely inappropriate. Think of the children.
TCAP-Abort
You proposed the ass-stick analogy, so let's stick with it.
If you know someone else has a stick up their ass, and you go and intentionally wiggle it about, how are you not responsible for that person's resulting discomfort?
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
TOO BAD.
What do you mean?
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
The difference between libboob and libupskirt is the difference between going 55 in a 45 zone and going 80.
Your car analogy needs work.
I don't accept that being offended is just a response to external stimuli. In the moment it is mostly a response to internal stimuli, or at least to external stimuli which the offended has internalised throughout his life. The 'offending' remark is a trigger, but the bomb already existed in the mind of the offended person and it's their responsibility how they manage their own baggage. If you accept we have free will, then we are free to decide whether to respond to the trigger by setting off the bomb. I'm reminded of the societies around the world which regard a woman showing her hair in public as offensive. If someone from one of those societies sees a woman with her hair blowing in the wind, they may be offended, but it doesn't seem right to say the woman is entirely responsible for the offence. Now if she deliberately set out to offend then she has more culpability, but it is still the responsibility of the offended person to decide how they respond to their own feelings I think. In this case the guy seems like a troll setting out to use sensation to market his product and make a political point of sorts, or a joke. Pretty offensive I suppose, but I acknowledge my own role in deciding to find that offensive. Interesting discussion though, thanks
Korma: Good
Still their choice. They don't have to wave their stick around in people's faces.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I think we mostly agree here, that offense is used as an attack. You seem to think that there's some form of offense that isn't a passive-aggressive attack. I don't think there is. Perhaps some examples would help?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Thing is, I have the right to have an opinion of people based on their actions. And my strong believe is that whoever came up with these names is a tosser, and if I met them, I would treat them as such. You don't want to be associated with them, you certainly wouldn't offer them a job, and you wouldn't trust any software written by a tosser.
My friends can be crude, and I'm still associated with them. Nor do I hide that fact.
I value a good sense of humor, and I would certainly offer them a job if I was in position to. I'd rather have somebody willing to laugh then some super-serious neckbeard.
Lastly, you do realize that anybody writing purposely malicious code names their products in such a way that it invites people to download and use it, right? If that is the case, you'd be more likely to find untrustworthy code in something like "MegaPyhtonLib." That's just my gut feeling, but it doesn't matter because neither of us have data to back it up.
The point of this all is that your personal beliefs are indeed yours to develop. But the line is drawn when you start assigning them to others, which I think is what you and the person who filed the original complaint are doing. Its the whole reason we (we = the collective Slashdot community, which you may not subscribe to) dislike censorship in the first place- it somebody pushing their beliefs on our own personal beliefs.
Do I understand you correctly then, that you believe that there is nothing morally wrong in you directly and intentionally causing discomfort or harm to others if there is something those others could do to stop you?
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Can we get it banned from the inter tubes, please?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
What about the harm they are causing me? These constant cries for censorship cause me no small amount of anguish. Why is my discomfort less important than theirs?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Sorry, too late... there're a whole bunch of folks who have gimp fetishes... fact is there's fetish for just about anything. What kind of software would you associate with "scat play with pregnant teenage leather mamas in high heels"? I'm kinda thinking Windows security myself.
Although even fans complain about idiotic naming: "I buy my eggs at the cheese shop."
Isn't "gimp" a slur against the physically challenged?
You're using some twisted logic.
Does functionality matter more the image? What a red herring. The functionality has never been in question here.
Do corporations matter more or the community? Well, now you're injecting another strawman, that it's only the corporations that would care about this. Simply not true (well, true that they probably do, but others do too). Personally, I don't want to be googling for things that look like porn, either on my own machines (and tied to my personal search history) nor in a professional work environment. TFA discusses that; by googling the new name of this particular package and another by the same author, he has hit the Google child porn stop twice. Okay, so that's not entirely fair - he was searching for the illicit meaning behind the names - but a couple test queries show that the names themselves are so twisted to one meaning, particularly Misaka, that just searching Misaka comes up with all kinds of anime sites. If you couldn't be arsed to RTFA, Misaka is an anime character, usually depicted 11 years old, and frequently in up-skirt scenes. Even if you don't care about the names, packages like these can have real consequences for users and people searching for them, not knowing what they are getting in to.
How you manage to twist this into an open source vs. the corporations, I have no idea.
OT: How do I moderate? Pretty new user here, and I'm letting mod points go to waste because I don't know how to use them :/
I vote based on politicians' actions, unless contrary to my preconceptions. Often wrong, never uncertain. #iamthe99%
This is the kind of thing that can make women feel uncomfortable. It's tough for men to understand typically, but it's belittling. The reaction a woman often gets when they complain about these things is very dismissive, which makes the whole thing much worse.
I think the bottom line is that in an open source project, you want to attract talent. Be disrespectful of females, and you lose access to a lot of potential talent. It's a bad move even if you don't understand why it's offensive.
Yes, it's possible that someone can be offended by requests not to offend others: a kind of second-ordered offense, if you will. However, such second-order offense is a result of an individual's self-defense against an offender, and under the framework I've discussed here and elsewhere is therefore justifiable.
Also, we're not talking censorship here, since no one's talking about government intervening to restrict the original offensive speech. We're not even talking about private censorship, because TFA doesn't even call on the community managers to ban the offensive speech. Rather, TFA is engaging in the classic anti-censorship response to harmful speech: more speech.
Finally, you didn't answer my question. Your prior posts take the position that there is nothing morally wrong with intentionally causing harm or discomfort to others (or perhaps even that you are morally entitled to do so) when there is an action those others could take that could protect them from you. Does your dodge indicate that you are backing away from that position?
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
The article reminds me of this comic.
This is why men need a sphere our our own. All realms open to women are eventually forced to conform to womens' preferences. Women control "the home" (Wife Acceptance Factor.) They control what we do and say in the workplace (sexual harassment laws.) They control the media (can't have TV characters that are too attractive for fear of threatening jane sixpack.) They control the marketplace (they're the sole shopper for nearly all households.)
All men have left are sports and porn. Everything else has been feminized to hell and back.
Every time we establish a MAN FRIENDLY zone, women demand entry and proceed to fuck it all up.
One of their primary tactics, and sadly something that has been picked up by the male feminists, is to label behaviors they don't approve of as immature, childish, or offensive in an attempt to shame men into acting the way they want. The true definition of a "man child" is a guy do does a bunch of things women don't approve of and none of the things they want him to.
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
I could see an argument for the existence of offense caused by deliberate attacks on another person's humanity - biologically rooted offense in response to bodily mutilation and offense caused by seeing another human being tortured or demeaned.
Korma: Good
Come up with one and fork the project.
I'll have to admit, however, that gimp is not a term I've heard or read in the last decade in any context other than the Gnu Image Manipulation Program. Still, it might well be a good marketing move. If someone would bother to do it. And could come up with a better name. (I would hope they could keep the icon, but I wouldn't count on it, so plan on needing to come up with an equally attractive icon, too.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The blog post got several things wrong about the anime character "Misaka" (actually Misaka Mikoto) from To aro Majutsu no Index/To aru Kagaku no Railgun.
Firstly, she's about 15, not 11. In no way could you look at her and think she's 11. There is a clone of her who's biologically about 8 (Last Order) - maybe they mixed them up.
Secondly, the whole upskirt bit in Railgun is having a laugh at pantyshots. Mikoto wears shorts under her skirt, so she's actually immune to upskirt and panty flashes, much to the disappointment of her roommate Kuroko.
There is another character in Railgun who is constantly suffering panty flashes thanks to a friend, but it's not Misaka Mikoto.
The blog also characterises Anime as "adult comics" when as we all (should) know, it's all animation (child-oriented or adult-oriented) in Japan.
This is the kind of thing that can make women feel uncomfortable. It's tough for men to understand typically, but it's belittling. The reaction a woman often gets when they complain about these things is very dismissive, which makes the whole thing much worse.
It's the kind of thing that will make almost any woman very angry, and will make any decent men think that you are a jerk. If you think it's tough for men to understand, then you haven't reached the "man" stage in your life yet.
Excellent example! And then they humiliate the woman by publishing the photos without her consent.
Humiliating? Sure. Evil? Perhaps. Comparable to rape? Certainly not.
Of course it can be compared to rape. There is a clear continuum of disregard, contempt and abuse of women's right to control who sees and touches which parts of their bodies. Rape is one of the worst offenses in that continuum—usually by far.
But other things that fall in that area are rape apology ("she was asking for it"), posting your ex's sexting photos to 4chan, taking nonconsensual upskirt photos, watching porn that depicts nonconsensual upskirting, watching porn that depicts women misogynistically (which is about, um, 95% of porn), buying tabloids because they feature accidental upskirt photos of celebrities, etc.
Are you adequate?
ii liboobs-1-5 2.32.0-0ubuntu1 GObject based interface to system-tools-backends - shared library
:^)
Close?
Sexually suggestive? I always though a gimp or gimpy was an endearing term for a lame person or amputee...
"We call her 'Gimpy' because the bitch is a gimp. She's still thoroughly breedable despite the accident; The dog's genetics are certified."
or "Sparky", it is has to be English.
BTW, amusing that the author of the article complains about "Misaka" and pantyshots, when in the original series, Misaka is wearing SHORTS under her skirt...
I agree. I think these people are far too easily offended. Telling a joke about something isn't the same as doing it.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I don't know about him, but I've never been offended by such things. But, in this case, I'd say desensitization would be good for these people.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
and it is perfectly reasonable to be offended by it
According to whose definition of "reasonable"? Not mine.
The name refers to a non-consensual sexual intrusion, something you might consider light rape.
And something which the software doesn't do. In other words, the software isn't causing it to happen.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Would you accept people did the latter to you?
Does it matter? He might have just been claiming that one was worse (in his opinion).
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"how do we decide where the line is"
Let's ask the magical moral fairy whose morals are all absolutely correct and override everyone else's opinions. Since I'm the only one who can talk to it, I guess I'll do the asking...
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
certainly you can see that a post consisting of the word "COCKS" copy-pasted over and over again doesn't belong on a message board, and that the moderators probably should delete it.
That depends on who you ask. But are you sure many people here would defend such a post? Or are they just against censorship when it is either done forcibly by the government, or when it's done by large, powerful corporations?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
They're words. Instead of the children being taught that they should be offended by certain ones, I think they should be taught not to be. There's no reason that you have to be offended. Of course, I also think that randomly calling people names (even when in an argument) is rather useless.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
but I'm pretty sure there's a strong correlation between being able to take responsibility of your software and being able to take responsibility of your language.
And how do you know this? Who are you to say what is and isn't "responsible" language when anyone can be offended by anything?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
You're a moron. It means that developers need to grow up. The only reason to use names like this is for the shock value due to their offensiveness. I think it should go without saying that we need to stop demeaning women for lulz.
Do you remember when you were a child in school? There were kids who liked to pick on others, call them names, do everything possible to humiliate them in front of the others. Part of growing up is no longer feeling the need to be the center of attention by trying to hurt people you perceive cannot hurt you back. It's cruel, it's childish, and it's sad when someone reaches adulthood without learning enough to no longer get any pleasure from that activity.
You remember the kids who were the subject of the above insults? Some would cry, some would retreat and try to avoid crossing paths with the bullies at all costs, others would put on a brave face, but would still be bothered by it. Another part of growing up is learning to not give a shit when an immature bully tries to hurt you. Turns out that words can't hurt you if you don't let them. It's sad when people reach adulthood without learning that lesson.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Exactly; then, there's the Chevy Nova, which means "no go" in Spanish countries. Or Coca-cola, which I learned as a child meant "bite a wax tadpole" in Chinese (it was rather amusing to us as kids). I guess numbering your products is the best bet!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
on the description of the second name. Though I might point out, the new name based on a chick that has to wear boxers under her skirts to keep from being disrespected is an obvious intended insult. You're free to name your work anything you wish. The rest of the world is free to refuse to have anything to do with a "community" so immature, rude, and unprofessional as to use and support such a name, and to drive members of that community out who refuse to be a party to such obvious lack of comprehension of basic social utility. If you want business to use your product, a minimum degree of respect is called for. Open source is great, but the "the customer can go to hell" attitude is not what works in the real world, and being insulting to women may seem cute in your little social circle-jerk, but the rest of us just think you're a butt.
BitchX uses the Revised BSD License. I could download the code, rename it "HappyFunTimeIRCClient" and everything would be in order with the copyright.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
I always thought the same thing about Coca-cola, but I asked a Chinese friend about it, and he said it's not the case. He actually thought it was quite a clever marketing scheme, since it translated to something like, "Good flavor in the mouth".
Okay, given that "Chinese" is a rather vague term, it's possible that it means "Bite the wax tadpole" (I read a version which used "the" instead of "a", but close enough) in some region. Sadly, it doesn't seem like the horrible marketing decision that I once thought it was. Too bad, because that story is funnier.
"Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." -Indiana Jones
but I'm pretty sure there's a strong correlation between being able to take responsibility of your software and being able to take responsibility of your language.
And how do you know this? Who are you to say what is and isn't "responsible" language when anyone can be offended by anything?
If you don't know how to know this, I cannot help you. While it may be true that anyone can be offended by anything, there are things which are likely to offend people, and there are things which are not likely to offend people. And it doesn't matter what I say. I use my knowledge to make my decisions. If you feel offended by my decision to use or not to use a certain software, that's your problem (and you are of course allowed to write software which I am not going to use, for whatever reason; it's just not a very smart move to use a name for software that you know will offend many people, for no good reason.
Since it's me who makes the decision which software I use, I can base my decision on whatever I want, including the name of the software. Who are you to tell me what criteria I should use to my choice of software I use?
You may question my reasoning. But you are not in a position to tell me how to decide on my software use. Period.
I don't deny anyone to use a software called "smalldick" or deny anyone the right to call his software "smalldick" but I reserve my right to not use that software myself, and I reserve my right to tell anyone that I don't consider it a good idea to use such a name. If you still insist on using that name, fine, but don't tell me I haven't warned you. And don't complain if I don't use that software.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Why not Goodthinkful?
There's nothing inherently offensive about any act. Therefore 'offending' is not something you can do.
Similarly there's no inherent meaning to any words. They're just sounds, or bunches of letters. And yet we can still communicate... and exchange information. And ask for things. And praise, and criticise. And offend. Just because a meaning is assigned by people doesn't mean it's not real.
Phrasing it in the usual way makes it sound like the onus is on individuals not to do anything offensive.
If you shoot someone with a gun, that will cause them some harm. The onus is on you not to cause that harm—unless there's a good reason to do so, such as stopping them killing you. The same goes with being offensive: sometimes it's necessary, but usually it can be avoided without unduly impinging on your life—and the onus is on you to do so.
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
Oooohhh, so close there Mr. Troll, but so very very far away. Let's try again. How about "Fuck you, we are the users."
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
If you don't know how to know this, I cannot help you.
Well, you could begin by telling me how you know that. If you don't want to use software with a "strange" name, I don't care, but I just wanted to know what made you "pretty sure."
there are things which are likely to offend people, and there are things which are not likely to offend people.
I see. As long as you're not claiming that the majority is correct simply because they are the majority.
for no good reason.
What may be a "good" reason to you may not be a "good" reason to another person (and vice versa). Other than that, I see your point.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Open my ears and listen to what people say. Open my eyes and read what people write. Yes, it's that simple.
What would "correct" mean in that context? Is there a "correctly being offended" and an "incorrectly being offended"?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Open my ears and listen to what people say. Open my eyes and read what people write. Yes, it's that simple.
Well, I haven't seen very much software with odd names such as this, so I wouldn't know whether or not the software is good or the software makers are "responsible."
What would "correct" mean in that context? Is there a "correctly being offended" and an "incorrectly being offended"?
No. And that was my point. I was saying that just because the majority thinks something is offensive, that does not somehow make it "factually" offensive (or that it is wrong).
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Also note that if you turn off the Ajaxy stuff (as much as possible, some of it can no longer be tuned off) then you must scroll to the bottom of the (very long) page and click on something that says "moderate now." Or something like that.
I haven't successfully moderated in months -- the DHTML version of the site is too painful to use, and I always forget to scroll to the bottom and commit my moderations.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
I never thought that anyone would take the name GIMP badly, reading this thread was the first time I have seen it criticized and said that people joke about it. My native language is not english but I read and write a lot in english, especially on tech sites... :)
Personally I think GIMP is kinda cute and all together a fine name... I never associated it with word 'gimp' in my head even though calling it gimp in speech too
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
I wish they'd change the message at the bottom of each article to say 'Not Working', to get the facts straight.
*Still* negative function...