Re: [rain1 at airmail dot cc] Delete abortion joke

[Richard Stallman <rms at gnu dot org>]

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  > As a glibc steward, and the butt of what might be termed as "abusive humor"
  > in this project in the past,

Can you explain how it relates to this point?  My joke makes fun of
a US gag rule; it does not "abuse" anyone.

  > If this were told in a comedy club, it could be defended. In the glibc
  > manual (an inappropriate venue) it can't be. 

The GNU Project has a broader standard of what is appropriate.
Jokes that relate to the material at hand are appropriate.

This joke is even more appropriate nowadays because of Republican plans
to broaden the gag rule.

  > I've been
  > a strong advocate of inclusiveness

"Inclusiveness" usual means rejection of bigotry against groups of
people, and in that sense we support it.  However, we must not stretch
it to mean political neutrality and silence so as to avoid ever disagreeing
with anyone.  We do not endorse or follow that narrowmindedness.

				       in glibc over the years and don't want
  > to alienate any contributor by making an unnecessary (to the project)
  > political statement.

The GNU Project defends basic rights on the internet, so criticizing
censorship is good anywhere.

We would not want to make a statement in a manual that would drive away
a large fraction of our community.  However, we know from observation
that it doesn't do that.  You're worried about hypothetical people
that seem to be very rare.

My decision is to keep the joke.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See https://stallman.org/skype.html.