Who controls glibc?
Who controls glibc?
Posted May 18, 2018 7:15 UTC (Fri) by karkhaz (subscriber, #99844)In reply to: Who controls glibc? by HelloWorld
Parent article: Who controls glibc?
Nobody suggested either of the above consequences happen to rms. Although I recall various other incidents that I suppose you're referring to, where a developer was pilloried for making offensive comments, this is not one of them. The only "punishment" here is the removal of the joke from the manual.
> by purging this kind of silly little thing you're establishing an atmosphere that will prevent people from making jokes
In this case, I don't see much evidence that anybody is calling for censorship of abortion jokes anywhere outside the technical reference. This was a patch to remove the joke from the manual, not a mandate to prevent rms from making these jokes on his own spare time.
> The point is: if somebody can't handle this sort of joke
The strongest argument I've heard from removing this from the manual isn't that some people cannot "handle" the joke, that it is offensive, or anything of the sort. Rather, it's a totally inappropriate comment to have in a technical manual.
(Somewhat contrived) analogy: suppose that in the documentation for posix_spawn, rms had written a snarky cartouche about his favourite restaurant for eating caviar. Totally uncontroversial, nobody gets offended. But the comment ought to be removed on exactly the same grounds as the abortion one: it doesn't belong in a technical manual, and the vast majority of readers didn't ask to be belaboured with rms's sense of humor.
Posted May 18, 2018 9:35 UTC (Fri)
by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted May 18, 2018 23:10 UTC (Fri)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (2 responses)
I don't have a problem with jokes in a technical manual but I prefer it if the jokes are actually funny.
Posted May 19, 2018 9:17 UTC (Sat)
by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted May 19, 2018 10:26 UTC (Sat)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link]
OK, let me rephrase that. I have no problem with jokes in a technical manual as long as the jokes are actually funny and are about the technical subject matter at hand.
This would exclude jokes about US abortion laws, however hilarious, in the glibc manual because the connection – via the word “abort” – is pretty tenuous at best and may not even work in translation (both because the target language may not use the same vocabulary, and because the legal situation around abortion may be different so the “joke” is not funny at all). It would also exclude political propaganda camouflaging as lame jokes in general. The reason for this is that when you're trying to be entertaining in a technical manual, it is best to do that in a way that, as far as possible, all readers of the manual will find enjoyable, not just the ones who happen to agree with your politics.
Who controls glibc?
I disagree with that notion. I don't see anything wrong with having a joke in a technical manual.
Who controls glibc?
Who controls glibc?
Who controls glibc?