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Debian's Anti-Harassment Team Is Removing A Package Over Its Name (phoronix.com)

quantic_oscillation7 shares a report: The latest notes from the Debian anti-harassment team on Wednesday caught my attention when reading, "We were requested to advice on the appropriateness of a certain package in the Debian archive. Our decision resulted in the package pending removal from the archive." Curiosity got the best of me... What package was deemed too inappropriate for the Debian archive?

When digging further, the package raised to the Debian Anti-Harassment Team was "Weboob." Weboob is short for "Web Outside of Browsers" as it's an open-source collection of software to script and automate the parsing/scraping/gathering-via-API of web data so that it can be consumed by different modules/applications. Weboob.org describes itself as "Weboob is a collection of applications able to interact with websites, without requiring the user to open them in a browser. It also provides well-defined APIs to talk to websites lacking one."

Weboob is Python-based and offers Qt-based user interfaces for accessing these different modules for reading data from different web-sites outside of any conventional web browser. Those interested can learn more about the software at Weboob.org. But, yes, the name is juvenile and likely inappropriate in most professional/corporate environments.

24 of 521 comments (clear)

  1. No. You are juvenile. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The name is not juvenile. The people reading it and giggling are juvenile. It's like the stupid joke in Austin Powers over the Asian name Fuk.

    People need to learn to respond more professionally to things their own juvenile personality deems offensive.

  2. Boobs! by zmooc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    (...) likely inappropriate in most professional/corporate environments (...)

    That may well be but it's also completely irrational. The only thing "wrong" with the name is that people probably associate it with boobs, which is all in their heads. Even worse, they apparently fear boobs. Which is also in their heads.

    So Debian has now banned a package because its combination of letters triggers irrational things in peoples heads. They've gone mad.

    Also, on top of that, there's nothing wrong with boobs. On the contrary: they are what feed our babies and they are the most defining body part of our the class of mammals. They are beautiful and shall be honored, for example by naming software after them.

    Boobs.

    --
    0x or or snor perron?!
    1. Re:Boobs! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How 'bout removing libass - now that's a dirty name if ever there was one.
      There's probably hundreds of library and package names that are innocently
      offensive - I say delete them all - we're better off without them!

      This SJW stuff has gotten completely out of hand.

      CAP === 'actress'

    2. Re:Boobs! by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So Debian has now banned a package because its combination of letters triggers irrational things in peoples heads.

      All words are just arbitrary combinations of letters that convey meanings.

      That doesn't magically make them all appropriate for all environments.

      You know what's not "appropriate" here? Acting like a child who's offended at an acronym.

      People need to grow the fuck up already.

    3. Re:Boobs! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not in their heads, the project itself went out of its way to get boobs into everything. Look at the official list of apps, half of them work "boob" into the title for no reason by dropping the "we".

      It already had to patch out homophobic slurs from the output. Not a comment in the source, the output of the binary.

      The principal here is outlined in this post on the Debian mailing list.

      This whole discussion reminded me of a campaign by the German project
      pinkstinks.de called "Sexy yes, sexism no":

      https://pinkstinks.de/sexy-ode...

      Summary in my words:

      It's fine to show a woman in underwear if you try to sell women's
      underwear (left picture: "Bra 29 EUR").
      It's not ok to show a woman in underwear if you try to sell a chair
      (and the scantily clad woman is just decoration / an object to draw
      attention to the ad) (right picture: "Chair 199 EUR").
      I think that explains the issue of objectification quite well.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Boobs! by Phaid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This whole discussion reminded me of a campaign by the German project
      pinkstinks.de called "Sexy yes, sexism no":

      https://pinkstinks.de/sexy-ode...

      Summary in my words:

      It's fine to show a woman in underwear if you try to sell women's
      underwear (left picture: "Bra 29 EUR").
      It's not ok to show a woman in underwear if you try to sell a chair
      (and the scantily clad woman is just decoration / an object to draw
      attention to the ad) (right picture: "Chair 199 EUR").
      I think that explains the issue of objectification quite well.

      Who the hell are they to tell me what is and is not OK? I'll objectify whatever I want. People like sex, people like sexy things, and rational people have no problem seeing ads that feature attractive people of the opposite gender used to market things to them.

      This entire issue isn't about people getting offended anyway. It's about people pretending to be offended so they can show everyone how upstanding and moral and non-sexist and great they are. It's ridiculous and we all need to stop catering to it.

  3. What a bunch of pansies by r_naked · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is just sad how PC the world has become. If you are offended -- go fuck yourself.

    OMG we have some foul language in our source code -- need a PR now!

    OMG the name of a package has the word boob in it -- MUST REMOVE NOW!

    Fucking ridiculous.

    --
    -- http://anonet.org -- The internet the way it was meant to be. Check it out, you may be surprised.
  4. Harassment? by John+Napkintosh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If anti-harassment is the reason why it was being removed, why was there no mention of who was being harassed and who reported the harassment?

    --

    Long signatures suck.
  5. Dry your tears snowflake. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I mean, it's stupid and silly, but don't you see the latent irony in you crying and breathlessly whining about political correctness like this is a big deal? It's not. Dry your tears snowflake.

    1. Re:Dry your tears snowflake. by SCVonSteroids · · Score: 1, Insightful

      We're sacrificing perfectly good/tested functionality because the wording used to code said functionality is offensive to some.
      Yeah, some people blow this out of proportion, but it is what it is. A blatant exercise in power for nothing more than satisfying a few gits. (Oh wait, that's offensive too! There's a popular tool that goes by that name though... what do?)

      You're right though, anyone complaining about this is a snowflake and should go dry their tears. /s
      Pathetic.

      --
      I tend to rant.
  6. Uhhh, what? by Obfuscant · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Weboob is objectionable? That's funny. One of the large breast cancer charities has a slogan along the lines of "we (heart) boobies". When they are the beneficiaries of one of the local college team's focus at games, they can find students to paint their chests with the letters "b", "o", "i", "e" and "s" (in sufficient quantities of each to spell the objectionable word. Granted, the students are idiots to begin with, but they're useful idiots for the charity).

    If it isn't objectionable when it actually refers to mammary glands on well endowed non- or pre-mastectomy patients, then it isn't objectionable when it refers to the web software.

    This is the same kind of stupidity that plagues things like the closed captioning on one specific TV channel -- MeTV -- for example. Watch with CC turned on and you'll see the actors making "xxxxtails", or playing badminton with "shuttlexxxxs". Or our lovely local newspaper with a blog that won't allow anyone to refer directly to a city councilor whose first name is "Richard" but always goes by his nickname.

    Sheesh. People think the world hates us because we "meddle". Maybe it's because we make such big stupid stinks over such ridiculous first-world problems.

    1. Re:Uhhh, what? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One of the large breast cancer charities has a slogan along the lines of "we (heart) boobies".

      Well, you see, breast cancer is one of the approved causes. When you're one of the approved causes, you can't be offensive. You're just "refreshingly transgressive."

  7. Re:Rename it by magarity · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just change the name to something like Webob . . . . oh wait, that may be worse.

    Add a dash: "Web-Oob"

  8. Now I need a new Distro by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The enemy has clearly managed to get even deeper into Debian.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Now I need a new Distro by avandesande · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the problem with having a 'team' dedicated to this stuff is they have to find something to do so they make work for themselves

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
  9. Goodbye Debian by Dog-Cow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've been running Debian on a hosted virtual machine for the past 15 years or so. I guess it's time to find a new distribution. I don't use Weboob, but I'm not going to support an organization that has given in to terrorists.

  10. Cancer by nightfire-unique · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been a debian user, supporter and developer for over 20 years.

    I'm the first one to shut down losery assholes when they disrespect others, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or any other immutable trait. Further, I absolutely get that women, in particular, face endless bullshit from loser guys who just can't behave.

    But the political correctness thing in general (and this in particular) is like cancer. Once it starts, it spreads, until eventually it kills the host.

    Remember, folks: offense is taken, not given.

    --
    A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
  11. Re:Rename it by Spy+Handler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it should've been named WOOB from the beginning anyways. It's an acronym, right? Acronyms are supposed to take the first letter of each word in the name. Web Out Of Brower. WOOB.

    WEB-OOB was a stretch and I don't like it when people stretch things to make clever-sounding acronyms. Yeah I will never join the US military, their acronyms will drive me insane. BTW this is not even about SJW, I have no social agenda to justice-ize. I don't care if you have boobs or tits or whatever in your source code.

  12. Re:No. You are juvenile. by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The name is not juvenile. The people reading it and giggling are juvenile. It's like the stupid joke in Austin Powers over the Asian name Fuk.

    People need to learn to respond more professionally to things their own juvenile personality deems offensive.

    Apparently it goes beyond the name and other parts of it include juvenile humor. It's something the developers will regret later. I know I'm kinda embarrassed nowadays about all the tables, columns and functions I've used "Ass" as short hand for words like "Assignment", "Association" etc,etc. I have a "Request Ass" table out there in one database and whereas it made me laugh 7 years ago- now it makes me cringe.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  13. Re:Rename it by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    JFC.....really?

    I guess this is new from the "Are You Fucking Kidding Me Department".....?

    Geez, now we're having to police acroyms, because someone might read something into one and be snowflake offended?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  14. Re:Wut? by Calydor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It is right there in the summary: WEB Out Of Browser. WEBOOB.

    Is being at work the reason you can't read the summary, either?

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  15. Ask them for suggestions by MrKaos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Geez, now we're having to police acroyms, because someone might read something into one and be snowflake offended?

    It's a way of getting people to waste their time and energy trying to come up with other options that don't offend them. The answer with people like this is to put it back on them. If you don't like the acronym "Weboob" come up with one that doesn't offend you and still describes what the project does. Their goal is to frustrate you until you finally tell them to where to go, at which point they can turn around and say you're unwilling to co-operate.

    Have no doubt requests like this are a sign of mental illness in the same way Rorschach tests are used to identify anti-social people who only see sexual images in the random patterns. Instead their, quite abused, minds see only sexual connotations in the acronyms in an attempt to be morally superior to those who created the acronym.

    The mistake is to allow oneself to be drawn into expending mental energy on their behalf. Simply accept their criticism and ask them to come back with a minimum of five suggestions for you to choose from as an alternative name. Chances are they won't come back, however if they do then simply pick the name you prefer and move on. Under no circumstances should they be engaged in a way that causes you to waste time thinking on their behalf. That is allowing yourself to succumb to their form of psychological abuse.

    Feeding into this mentality by attempting to come up with an acronym that won't offend someone who wants to be offended is enabling the behavior and, quite frankly, is as offensive as the original request because it validates and propagates the abuse.

    This is what narcissism looks like, it's a loser's mentality. Don't feed it.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:Ask them for suggestions by Tom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's a really sad situation, really. These people desperately need help, but they would refuse any help offered, and turn it around along the lines of "don't be patronizing to me!" or - a new favorite - a gross misuse of the word "mansplaining".

      Sometimes, you just want to have a good friend who is a shrink and wordlessly leave his business card.

      What saddens me the most, however, is how this constant barrage of oversensitive bullshit helps to bury real issues. I regularily say this in discussions about "rape culture" - when you start to call people looking at you the wrong way "rape", then you discredit and diminish the term that should be reserved for a serious an traumatizing crime.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  16. Re: Rename it by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Haven't we already gone through this with fortune-off, hot-babe and whatever-else? Just create a separate debian offensive repository and move everything that offends people in there. Eventually, it'll be the only repository with any packages and we can rename it to main or something.