It's time to stop [LWN.net]

It's time to stop

Posted May 9, 2018 8:34 UTC (Wed) by lordcheeto (guest, #124253)
In reply to: It's time to stop by spacemachine
Parent article: Who controls glibc?

Calling it sneaky is uncalled-for. This was the removal of a few lines of a non-technical, outdated joke comment that hasn't been touched in 26 years. 2 days passed between when the patch was submitted and when it was installed, with no serious objections. That was plenty of time for a change of this narrow magnitude. There was no reason for Zach to believe that this seemingly innocuous removal would cause such a schism.

It's time to stop

Posted May 25, 2018 19:43 UTC (Fri) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (3 responses)

"outdated joke"

not at all.. the Global Gag Rule has been re-instated January 23, 2017.

It's time to stop

Posted May 27, 2018 1:15 UTC (Sun) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (2 responses)

This is something that US presidents do as a matter of course as one of the first things after they've been inaugurated. They can do it by executive order without having to involve Congress, so it's an easy PR win with their voters. Reagan came up with it in the first place in 1984, then Bill Clinton rescinded it in 1993 and George W. Bush put it back on the books in 2001 until Obama got rid of it again in 2009. It is safe to assume that whichever Democrat takes over from Trump in (hopefully) 2021 will immediately throw it out once more, etc., ad infinitum.

In any case, the “joke” can't really be referring to the “global gag rule” because the “global gag rule” has nothing to do with domestic censorship (because 1st amendment) – it says that the USA will only fund NGOs in other countries if they aver that they do not “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning”. Originally this applied only to family-planning funds; Trump's twist is that now it also extends to other types of health assistance, including HIV assistance.

It's time to stop

Posted Jun 9, 2018 1:39 UTC (Sat) by JanC_ (subscriber, #34940) [Link] (1 responses)

The fact that it gets rescinded & reinstated so often is another reason why it's better removed, I guess, otherwise the release manager (who might not be from the US) has to check the current status of US law before every release…

It's time to stop

Posted Jun 9, 2018 10:39 UTC (Sat) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

That would only be an actual issue if the FSF was (a) headquartered outside the USA and (b) receiving funds from the US government for its family-planning or other medical work. Since neither of these premises apply, the “global gag rule” has no bearing on the glibc manual.