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Richard Stallman Demands Return Of Abortion Joke To libc Documentation (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes The Register:
Late last month, open-source contributor Raymond Nicholson proposed a change to the manual for glibc, the GNU implementation of the C programming language's standard library, to remove "the abortion joke," which accompanied the explanation of libc's abort() function... The joke, which has been around since the 1990s and is referred to as a censorship joke by those supporting its inclusion, reads as follows:
25.7.4 Aborting a Program... Future Change Warning: Proposed Federal censorship regulations may prohibit us from giving you information about the possibility of calling this function. We would be required to say that this is not an acceptable way of terminating a program.
On April 30, the proposed change was made, removing the passage from the documentation. That didn't sit well with a number of people involved in the glibc project, including the joke's author, none other than Free Software Foundation president and firebrand Richard Stallman, who argued that the removal of the joke qualified as censorship... Carlos O'Donnell, a senior software engineer at Red Hat, recommended avoiding jokes altogether, a position supported by many of those weighing in on the issue. Among those voicing opinions, a majority appears to favor removal.
But in a post to the project mailing list, Stallman wrote "Please do not remove it. GNU is not a purely technical project, so the fact that this is not strictly and grimly technical is not a reason to remove this." He added later that "I exercise my authority over glibc very rarely -- and when I have done so, I have talked with the official maintainers. So rarely that some of you thought that you are entirely autonomous. But that is not the case. On this particular question, I made a decision long ago and stated it where all of you could see it."
The Register reports that "On Monday, the joke was restored by project contributor Alexandre Oliva, having taken Stallman's demand as approval to do so."
25.7.4 Aborting a Program... Future Change Warning: Proposed Federal censorship regulations may prohibit us from giving you information about the possibility of calling this function. We would be required to say that this is not an acceptable way of terminating a program.
On April 30, the proposed change was made, removing the passage from the documentation. That didn't sit well with a number of people involved in the glibc project, including the joke's author, none other than Free Software Foundation president and firebrand Richard Stallman, who argued that the removal of the joke qualified as censorship... Carlos O'Donnell, a senior software engineer at Red Hat, recommended avoiding jokes altogether, a position supported by many of those weighing in on the issue. Among those voicing opinions, a majority appears to favor removal.
But in a post to the project mailing list, Stallman wrote "Please do not remove it. GNU is not a purely technical project, so the fact that this is not strictly and grimly technical is not a reason to remove this." He added later that "I exercise my authority over glibc very rarely -- and when I have done so, I have talked with the official maintainers. So rarely that some of you thought that you are entirely autonomous. But that is not the case. On this particular question, I made a decision long ago and stated it where all of you could see it."
The Register reports that "On Monday, the joke was restored by project contributor Alexandre Oliva, having taken Stallman's demand as approval to do so."
I, personally, thought to the joke was funny enough, albeit off-color. Black humor is still humor, and I personally recommend its persistence if only as a defense against the professionally offended. That being said, I can sympathize a bit with folks who are legitimately offended by something like this (primarily because death as a whole is a subject that requires concern/consideration when talking about it in certain contexts), in contrast to those who are essentially allowing themselves to be offended on behalf of some other entity/group. As a final note, if someone has read this comment, and assumed that they are a target of my labeling as a professional offense taker, some soul-searching is recommended, as that was basically my intention.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Will this be added only to versions .1,.2,.3 or will it be allowed all the way upto version .9 of the documentation?
**Life is too short to be serious**
After all, OSS documentation itself is one big joke.
I would rather politics be discussed elsewhere and let's also remember that these docs are read all over the world, including users who may not understand the humour
It didn't make me laugh, but I have to admit that I find it a clever way to comment on a political issue: not abortion itself, but rather the way anti-abortion proponents try to exert control on abortion clinics by forcing them to talk-down to their patients as if they were ignorant children.
One thing that pulls me through my day (and life for that matter) is humor. It belong everywhere, even at some funerals. It lightens life. As a programmer, I have many comments that would amount to jokes. Hell, for many of my stored procedures, the first parameter is called @fiscal_year and right at the top when I'm explaining the parameters, the comment for that one says "Duh!"
Nobody's ever complained about humor peppered in the comments. Never in the output, but comments are fair game.
Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
Get over yourself. You guys need to learn to "get over it" and learn that you have no right to NOT be offended. The "professional" thing is no to release software that is riddled with security holes. I'm still waiting for the "professional" software houses to start doing that.
The workplace is for work, not for crude humor or for politics.
Some of us are old enough to remember a time when Free Software wasn't just about work - when it was something that people did because it was fun.
Some people consider this a joke? I think I can see the real problem here - it's not even funny.
I'm solidly pro-life and I see the humor in it even though it's making fun of laws I would support. I'm not saying it's funny, but I see how some would find it amusing so it has merit and should stay for historical reasons.
I also don't consider personal offense valid criteria for censorship of any kind. Being offended to demand censoring something has become a cottage industry of late. Such foolishness needs to stop.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You've just eliminated 50% of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and 95% of American comedy.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Of all the people made "uncomfortable" by this joke I'd be chief among them and I'm advocating that we leave it alone. Where I may find reason to be offended, this does not give me the right to demand it be removed. Why? Because something I say or do may offend you and I expect to be afforded the same tolerance. Being offended doesn't actually hurt you, especially if the offending thing is in the comments...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I prefer no idiocy at all. Reading this kind of jokes in the libc documentation could be confusing for many non-english speakers and really is out of place.
I'm not talking about people sensibility or SJW anything, just trying to have the documentation do what it's supposed to do in the most efficient way.
That was fun for some times and persons, I smiled reading it, but really it seems childish .. and even more from RMS to now oppose the removal.
But it's a pretty good reason for deleting it from technical documentation.
You could also write the word "spam" at the bottom of every single function's documentation, and that wouldn't be funny either. It also wouldn't be censorship if someone removed it.
I usually agree with RMS but this is one of those "who the fuck cares?" things.
Then it gets worse:
OMG, we're having a contest to see who can be the most stupid. I'm almost back to joining RMS in "demanding" it be put back again. "Triggered?" really? Holy shit.
Fuck anyone and everyone who pretends they're unable to handle reading a certain word. The "joke" needs to be put back in, just to piss on the drama queens.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
There are other jokes/easter-eggs in Glibc's documentation. I get a kick out of them every time I run across one.
Should we also go through and strip all of those out? What if I decide that EIEIO is insulting to farmers? Who decides what's a trigger-warning and what isn't?
Should we remove HTTP error 418?
The UNIX/Linux hacker subculture of the 80s and 90s produced a ton of interesting technology, and arguably shaped the internet into what it is today.
I don't want my operating system to be a sterile, soulless entity. I like the in-jokes, the fact that 'fortune' exists, and the recursive acronyms. People have poured their vitality into making tools that are free for the world - the least we can do is let them express a sense of humor if they choose.
UNIX cultureLinux/UNIX is born from a really unique, amazing kind of culture, which
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
Long story short: sometimes cute little jokes have unintended consequences.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
May I suggest that they simply fork libc...
You're welcome to suggest it. I suggest anyone considering such a thing reject the proposal, or only continue using and developing on the un-forked version.
Contributors to open source projects (ESPECIALY the seminal projects and the pioneers like Stallman) are giving us their work. But it's not for free. They still expect to be paid - but in things far more valuable than money.
Removing this joke is stealing part of Stallman's pay for his work. And it's a piece of his pay that he values enough to raise a stink about it.
For thousands of years the prescription of essentially every moral code has been "pay the worker what you promised". Example: "... the labourer is worthy of his hire." (Luke 10:7, King James Version).
Let's not succumb to the censor's tactic of punishing people who don't totally conform to the current group-think prescription by stealing their stuff - starting with those things they value the most, and with those most connected to denying them free speech.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You should learn to think. That link just lists a bunch of lawsuits against PP. None of the stuff on that page has been verified by any authority, as far as I can tell.
I don't respond to AC's.