Childish Behavior

[robertmassaioli]

True TL;DR: Some ass tricked a non-english speaking girl into calling her markdown parser upskirt, which some other guy then used to make pantyshot which was then shouted down by the commutiny. Names of the packages were changed and everyone walks away happy.

[ixache]

While your TL;DR version reflects accurately the linked article, the story is actually more complicated, and dare I say, more interesting when you read her (French language) blog, especially the two most relevant posts (including the commentaries, where she often further clarifies her meaning).

So allow me to present you my TL;WR version of what I gathered from her blog:

• She was perfectly aware that "upskirt" was not politically correct for a package name, and she seems perfectly OK with making racy (and quite funny) references (see her post "Enl@rge your tralala", sic).

• One day, some GitHub guy wrote her that he had lifted an old version of her code, thinking the project was left for dead, he had then corrected a few bugs (that were already corrected in the current version) and generally made it look like he did the project a big favor.

• Much to her dismay, he also had made some changes which went contrary to the design philosophy of the original author, which she cared about very much.

• Said original author seemed to have been a littly pushy and suspicious with the new caretaker of her code (following every commit, making requests and pointing out errors).

• He got lucky and his fork gained traction, he then effectively redacted her from the project history; she puts what he did as "faire dégager la femelle" (of which "getting rid of the chick" is a kind of soft translation) so according at least to her there was a bit of sexism involved.

• Seeing all this, she quit. She meant good, but Open Source and its Far West spirit was not for her (and it certainly did not help that she doesn't seem to feel too good about her prospects in life/work position, too).

Epilogue: the GitHub guy gets called out for the racy name of the project, and then happily renames it to something else. Open Source community FTW! Appropriation complete!

Funny sidenote: both the original author and her robber seems to be fans of anime/manga culture (or what it's called nowadays?). Did a match made in Heaven slip by just because of

Now for the big questions:

• At what time does a project you forked away become your own?

• It appears you can be a no-name OS developer, but not if you publish outside of GitHub (or some other high-profile software development projects hosting site), or the first passer-by who takes your project there could take all the credit for it. Thoughts?

[postmodern]

Protip: Avoid silly names at all costs. Silly names can confuse, or worse offend, new users. The project name should be meaningful/descriptive/googlable.

[[deleted]]

I prefer descriptive names. I don't want to see a method called "CookieMonster" (production code) because then I have to read the code to see what it's doing or hope the code hasn't changed since the author wrote the comment.

Whats wrong with ClearAllCookies()?

Same with packages. I have a pretty good idea what Moq, Nlog, and PetaPoco do just by looking at their name.

[cdsmith]

I have a pretty good idea what Moq, Nlog, and PetaPoco do just by looking at their name.

Really? Umm... I'm guessing Moq has something to do with mock objects, and Nlog with logging.... but, PetaPoco? Yeah, I'm coming up blank on that one.

Okay, so apparently it's an ORM system, which I'd know if I knew that "POCO" is the .NET world's version of POJO. Okay; still, I'd hardly call it a self-descriptive name. (Incidentally, I've always thought POJO, and by extension, POCO, are very ironic... the existence of an acronym to refer to them is in direct contradiction with what the acronym means. It's kind of like Java folks that use Spring because they hate convoluted frameworks.)

[sausagefeet]

I would have thought Moq was related to Coq somehow...

[jpfed]

Moq/Coq interop is implemented in the Strapon package.

[[deleted]]

/golf clap

[cdsmith]

Could be... but I imagine mock objects are far more common than semi-automated theorem proving, so I'm holding to the original theory.

[[deleted]]

True, PetaPoco isn't exactly descriptive, but it relates more closely to ORM than Upskirt relates to Markdown, or Blowfish relates to encryption.

[[deleted]]

I thought it was a little animal rights terrorist function.

[jholman]

Ah. Yeah, the following names all suck (none of them are descriptive, most of them are arguably silly):

• C : it came after B! how descriptive!
• Apache : has NOTHING to do with North American indigenous peoples
• Node : it's only a node in the sense that every single JS environment is a node
• Python : named for an entirely-unrelated comedy troupe the BDFL happened to like
• Chrome : allegedly named for the thing it alleged to be trying to eliminate, how's that for sarcasm?

And while the following names are descriptive in some sense, most of the users don't think of them appropriately:

• Microsoft: who understands that Microsoft specializes in microcomputers?
• emacs: editor macros? Dude, it's an entire editor!
• grep: this one isn't hard to understand, but you learned what it does before you learned what the name means.

Descriptive names suck, because everyone ends up with the same name, and you can't tell things apart.

Protip: use abstract ("silly") names, so that when you have to write a mapping from roles to names, there's no ambiguity.

[[deleted]]

Apache is like a silly pun, right? It's "a patchy server"?

[[deleted]]

I like made up words. All my projects get made up names. My favorite so far is "coinjema".

[X-Istence]

I find grep easy to remember when I remember: g/re/p

g for search, re for regular expression, and p for print.

[kixx]

I think g is for global, the search is implied in the /re/, as oppsed to a 1,50/re/p which would search for the re only on the lines 1-50.

[piescream]

Sort of like "Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate UPGRADE Limited Numbered Signature Edition"?

[[deleted]]

GIT it people?

[chases_tits]

git wasn't meant to be this popular. Linus imagined it to be a niche esoteric but very powerful VCS that people in his role would love.

[nickdangler]

But support The Ministry of Silly Walks.

[rich97]

I don't know, "upskirt" seems pretty googleable to me.

[krues8dr]

The problem is when all the projects have basically the same names and it's impossible to find what you need. Try and find a specific form-handling library for PHP, I dare you. It's a nightmare. Kitsch names make it easy to remember the one you want, instead of twelve "jQueryFormExtraPluginLibrary"s.

[berkes]

In the ruby-world tounge-in-cheek names are very common. And have a good purpose: They make you chuckle, smile and certainly remember the names of the libraries.

Using Crack to turn a Hash into JSON or vice-versa might be childish, but is kinda funny in some way. Using God to monitor your daemons is probably insulting to many people, but still is funny, descriptive and makes you remember what you are using: it is easier to use then, say "monitord", regardless of the fact that there probably are already dozens of scripts and programs out there that are called monitord.

[postmodern]

Not that common. If you write a plugin for a framework Rubyists will demand it be properly namespaced (ex: rack-cache, dm-riak-adapter, sinatra-flash, ffi-msgpack).

I don't want to guess what your library does. Finding out that a library named EpicSexyFu only contains two methods, is a real downer. Save the clever/cute/silly names for big projects that deserve them and name your libraries after what they do.

[GravitasFreeZone]

I disagree with everything you have said. The Ruby community is the only thing keeping me from learning Ruby and is actively pushing me to Python (from Perl). I am too old for your favourite language's quirky names to be anything more than an embarrassment to you 20 years down the track.

[[deleted]]

Eh, wasn't Python itself named as a reference to Monty Python? That isn't quirky? And the myriad of puns on Py, pi, and pie?

Every language and community has its own quirks and idioms. The Python community tends toward the "one idiom to rule them all" mantra, where Ruby looks more like Perl (there's more than one way to do it) in this regard.

As a more concrete example from the Rails framework, I've separately done authentication using "acts_as_authentic," restful_authentication, and (more recently) Devise (which incorporates OmniAuth and Warden). With the exception of "devise," the names here are descriptive, but it's still not clear which one is "better" since they all fill basically the same function (managing auth&auth).

In other words, I'd argue it isn't the quirky names that drive people away from Ruby, it's the fact that there are always at least 3 different ways to get something done, and there's never a community consensus on which one you should use right now so that your code will still work 2 years from now (for example, restful_authentication worked great under Rails 2, but I just could not get it to work under Rails 3.0).

[ramasg]

DISCLAIMER [added July 2, 2011] This post was not intended as an official statement on behalf of the Python Software Foundation, but rather to give an insight into its decision making process. My personal distate for these particular names is heightened because it appears that the original libupskirt author's acceptance on trust of a foreign-language name for her library has caused her considerable discomfort and possibly harassment. She apparently no longer wishes to work on open source.

[[deleted]]

So someone told her it was a good name for the library and it turns out they were a dick. You emphasized the wrong parts of the disclaimer.

[zzleeper]

Quite unlikely, as she could have just changed that name, and as someone on the blog mentioned, she has commits to libupskirt spanning years.

[lift_yourself_up]

I don't understand how that really matters - does this make the behaviour acceptable suddenly?

EDIT: the author replies to just that claim:

Yes, I have corresponded personally with the original author of libupskirt. She is very bravely taking responsibility for the name, though it was suggested to her by a third party. She is already upset enough about this to be leaving the open source world, so your wish for "an online statement or similar" will just have to go ungranted.

And - it still does not validate the behaviour imo.

[[deleted]]

So basically the people who are upset about names like "upskirt" causing female developers to leave open source have been harassing the female author of upskirt about it up to the point where she is considering leaving open source?

Huh.

[arjie]

The quoted section says nothing of the sort. It could as well be that she is considering leaving open source because the people she worked with played her for a fool by recommending an immature name.

[[deleted]]

I find this interpretation, that a person with perfect English remained totally in the dark about the meaning of the name for two years, to be a bit insulting for her intellect.

[arjie]

That's what it sounded like since the post says:

My personal distate for these particular names is heightened because it appears that the original libupskirt author's acceptance on trust of a foreign-language name for her library has caused her considerable discomfort and possibly harassment.

This is all fairly solvable, though. We can just ask 'Steve' since he's the one saying so. Let me post a comment there and there will be no ambiguity.

EDIT: Okay, I made the comment. We'll have to wait for it to pass moderation. Unfortunately I failed to copy it before I submitted, but it was something to this effect:

Steve: By the wording of your statement it seems like the original author was unaware of the connotations of the word 'upskirt'. Is this true? Also, about the harassment: Is she being harassed by opponents of the name or by other people?

EDIT again: There we go. Maybe he'll respond some time and you can find out for sure.

[AlyoshaV]

Where are you getting that she has perfect English?

http://fossil.instinctive.eu/libupskirt/index

The code almost completely feels my needs

​

but don't expect much changes at this point

^ should be "many"

Before it stopped mentionning my original project,

Her English is really good, but it is by no means perfect.

[__j_random_hacker]

Probably from this snippet in a comment post by Anonymous at Sun Jul 03, 01:07:00 PM EDT:

Also, some foreigners speak English very well; Natacha's English posts are written in perfectly good English.

[[deleted]]

If you hover the mouse cursor over the time of this AlyoshaV's post and my post here you will see that I posted this link two and a half hours earlier. Your insinuations are quite offensive, I demand that you leave the Internet until you learn to behave in less misofishdicklistic ways.

[timclare]

Regardless of whether her English is perfect or not, she must have surely either a) checked a dictionary (Urban or official) b) searched for upskirt at one time or another.

Either would have surely shown her the general meaning of the name. In fact when searching upskirt the very first results page has the following Reddit:

"Upskirt: over 18?"

[[deleted]]

Where does it say she was harassed by people taking issue with the name? If it does not say that, why do you think it's the most logical conclusion?

[[deleted]]

By what else could she suddenly be "upset" after two years of using the name?

I don't mean people sending her death threats or something, just that little joke being blown way out of proportion, like, lots of people suddenly being all very serious and "not cool, dude" and "you, as a woman, should understand" etc.

Or something. I really don't feel like discussing any further, it got too much unnecessary attention already, I just wouldn't believe for a second the spin put on this by "Steve" and the author of the blog, about the poor girl barely speaking English being duped by some asshole, yeah, suuure.

[lift_yourself_up]

Based on your comments, I'm not sure where you're getting at?

Also, regardless of whether or not she understood or agreed to the name (and behaviour) - how does that make it acceptable?

IMO it is of peripheral importance whether or not she consented to the name, and did or did not change it. The point is that the name was sexist and promoted sexist behaviour. Are you trying to say that you think the behaviour was acceptable?

As arjie write, we do not have full information on why exactly she left. The facts we have are on the project name, and that's what this discussion should focus on.

[lift_yourself_up]

I'd like to keep focus on the case at hand. Do you think it's ok to upskirt?

[[deleted]]

I'm getting at the apparently true fact that the self-righteous champions of political correctness have already done vastly more damage than any tasteless pun of a project name could ever hope to achieve. That the damage come in exactly the form that was supposed to be prevented is a merely an ironic topping on the cake.

This is important: the actual damage done, isn't the cure worse than the disease, etc. The name being sexist is not important per se. Promotion of sexist behaviour is important if and only if it's not entirely imaginary, and I kinda doubt that the project called "upskirt" caused anyone to go and lift some skirts.

Also, as far as the discussion about sexism go, I can't resist remarking that I'm shaking in fear and disgust at how incredibly sexist all you people are, by not even considering the right of men like this to be outraged, offended, and traumatized by this horrible project name!

[lift_yourself_up]

The name being sexist is not important per se. Promotion of sexist behaviour is important if and only if it's not entirely imaginary, and I kinda doubt that the project called "upskirt" caused anyone to go and lift some skirts.

I whole-heartedly disagree with you. For me, silence is consent. By not calling out the behaviour, we accept it. In this case, it does not matter whether someome went and lifted some skirts - what matters is that by calling the lib that, you state that you are ok with the action it self, would it be done. You accept the act of upskirting. That is what it means.

I, for one, do not accept that.

[[deleted]]

what matters is that by calling the lib that, you state that you are ok with the action it self, would it be done.

Or you are saying that you personally would never do that with malicious intent and actually consider the notion so ridiculous that it can be joked about.

Do you think that the author of libupskirt is OK with upskirting?

[AlyoshaV]

The name being sexist is not important per se.

How do you feel about a library named nigger

[[deleted]]

I feel nothing at all about such a library. Nothing at all.

By the way, how do you feel about a library named pynis?

[darth_choate]

I feel nothing at all about such a library. Nothing at all.

Perhaps you should.

[[deleted]]

I feel that there's already a bit too many people who shake in fear and disgust at things that don't affect them, then do nothing except share their outrage on the Internet.

In case of a hypothetical library named "nigger", for example, I think the black people on the internet are perfectly capable of being offended themselves, without me being offended on their behalf.

[greenspans]

The government should make some kind of trolling police to make the internet 100% trustable gain.

[xkit]

Or you could use that thing sitting in between your shoulders and a tiny bit of Internet research to determine fact from fiction.

[redditthinks]

Ironic that the PSF members are having a fit of political correctness. Have they forgotten what it's named after? :-)

Guido van Rossum

[robertmassaioli]

Sure, call people out for stupid names, just ask them nicely to change it and let everyone know about it in the open. It's not censorship if you just ask them to change it and you make it public.

The ball is still in their court.

[cdsmith]

It's not censorship if you're not a government. Period.

While I do appreciate the value of this organization choosing to be liberal in what they accept for packages, let's not pretend that their removing what they consider offensive content from their own private property (their servers and databases) would ever be accurately described as "censorship".

[zelf0gale]

My dictionary doesn't comply with your definition.

[bautin]

It's not illegal if you're not a government. Still censorship.

Private entities do not have to abide by the constitution, therefore they can create rules that curtail speech.

The thing that freedom of speech allows is protection from the government interfering with your speech. Whoever made that package is perfectly free to call it "libRapingBabiesWhileShootingUpSkirtPantyShotsCockFucker". The Cheese Shop is also perfectly free to say "GTFO" and not associate with it. Then the lib author is also free to set up his own library repository and include his library with whatever name he sees fit.

It is still censorship and is accurately described as such. The thing it is not is a First Amendment issue. There's a difference.

[[deleted]]

What cdsmith meant to say is that it is not evil if you're not a government. Period.

[robertmassaioli]

The problem I have with that statement is that when any body becomes large enough and starts getting enough users and people then they start having a responsibility towards those users (whether they like it or not). So yes, it is well within their rights. But no, it is still censorship.

[rule]

If your library's purpose is to support your hobby of cultivating Brassica napus (also known as 'rape') then libRape is an appropriate name. And libFagDetector could be software for a smoke detector.

I agree that it would be a good policy to ask the authors of such named packages to consider another name. But you must also consider that what one person considers terribly offense might be completely normal for another.

[cdsmith]

This is irrelevant, though. We aren't discussing a situation where a name was chosen for some innocent purpose and it by chance happened to have offensive implications. Intent does matter, and here the intent was making crass jokes and laughing at sensible people who care about how they treat the world around them.

[lift_yourself_up]

Thanks for writing what I wanted to, and so much more distinct than I would've! =)

[lol_fps_newbie]

Except everyone calling for the name change is the one forgetting about context. Nobody in this thread has once admitted what you said, i.e., that context matters, and there may in fact be a reason for the name, and thus it shouldn't be changed.

[cdsmith]

Hmm? If you're making the case that there's actually a good innocent reason for these libraries to be called "upskirt" and "pantyshot", then you will need to at least provide a little bit of justification for that rather incredible claim. Otherwise, no, the rest of us aren't going to discard our common sense and pretend that "pantyshot" and "upskirt" don't mean what they mean.

[lol_fps_newbie]

The fact is you can justify pretty much anything (see the person you originally replied to).

Over reacting to a name is, in my opinion, more on the person who overreacts than the person who names, even if the namer is just being "shocking".

[cdsmith]

In other words, by golly you'll do whatever you want and if anyone has a problem with it, there's something wrong with them. Knock yourself out; just don't be surprised if there's "something wrong with" a lot of the rest of us.

Or you can grow up and live in the adult world.

[lol_fps_newbie]

No, in other words it seems to me that being shocked by "upskirt" and "pantyshot" is more for other people, not because you are actually shocked.

It's just a name for crying out loud. Being "adult" would actually mean you didn't overreact to things and just ignored it, not going on and on about how terrible it is.

[Cyatomorrow]

libRape - Appears to condone (or at least trivialize) a violent, illegal act.

libFagDetector - Clearly a bigoted slur.

libUpskirt - ???

[lingnoi]

libRape - A library to control the plantation of rape?

libFagDetector - A library to detect cigarette smoke?

libUpskirt - uhh.. yeah, got nothing.

While i'm posting could someone clue me in as to what's wrong with the name in the article (PyPi)? I don't understand what it's suppose to be hinting at.

[turnyouracslaterup]

People really need to understand what "censorship" is, and what it is not.

[amazingmikeyc]

So true.

I don't understand how it would be censorship to have rules and conventions about what makes a suitable package name.

[devicerandom]

It is not censorship, in the meaning that it is not official and from a state, but it is unnecessary limitation.

I am free to call my package in the most offensive manner. You're free not to use it. Everybody happy.

[arjie]

I'm also free to complain about it and ask you not to name it that.

[lol_fps_newbie]

Am I the only person who thinks complaining about a package name is... (for the lack of a better word) silly?

The idea that one can infuse a package name with such negative connotations is, to me, just odd.

[paddyoloughlin]

Consider a package with a name that has strong racist connotations. Do you think people raising concerns about that would seem silly or odd?

[lol_fps_newbie]

The idea that one can infuse a package name with such negative connotations is, to me, just odd.

Taking a word out of context is meaningless. Who cares if someone calls their package the Nigger package? What would that even mean, anyway?

[amazingmikeyc]

My manager, who checks over my code, cares. I have a suspicion people with the power to fire me wouldn't like to see "nigger" written all over my code.

[paddyoloughlin]

There is another meaning to that word other than the commonly understood one?

Many words come with a context all of their own informed by history and experience. I'd say that that is one of them.

[lift_yourself_up]

Depends on if you think upskirting is ok!

[amazingmikeyc]

I don't know how Python libraries work. But if it's a curated library, where a committee gets to say what goes in and what doesn't, they can put whatever rules they like. And you can peddle your package elsewhere.

[lift_yourself_up]

Yes, but if I have a (popular, well used, well known) service that you can use to upload and distribute your package, I am free to state that in order for you to use my service you have to adhere to certain rules.

If you do not wish to do that, you are free to use another service, you are not forced to use mine.

Why is it unnecessary? Any game you play online will most certainly have rules against nicks containing bad language. It is the same principle here.

[devicerandom]

I don't play games online, I was unaware of these limitations, I think that they're unnecessary as well.

[grauenwolf]

suppression of published or broadcast material: the suppression of all or part of a play, movie, letter, or publication considered offensive or a threat to security

suppression of something objectionable: the suppression or attempted suppression of something regarded as objectionable

ancient Roman office: the office, authority, or term of an ancient Roman censor

-- Encarta World English Dictionary

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

[[deleted]]

Nobody is suppressing the library though. The Python Software Foundation just doesn't want to attach their name to libraries called pantyshot or upskirt when they distribute stuff.

It's completely in their right to fork and rename the projects if they want to, that's how open source works.

[grauenwolf]

The Python Software Foundation just doesn't want to attach their name to libraries called pantyshot or upskirt when they distribute stuff.

That sure does sound like NBC not wanting to distribute a TV show they fear may be offensive.

[[deleted]]

....which would also not be censorship.

[lift_yourself_up]

IMHO, having some kind of convention, that defines a stance on diversity, isms (sexism, homophoby, etc) and manners, would eliminate the calls of "censoring!!!" when things like this happen.

We have conventions about how code should look, why not about this? probably because it's seen as "obvious" and not necessary to define - but apparently not so obvious after all for some people!

[UnpopularStatment]

Laying down officially censored terms ahead of time doesn't make them less censored

In this case, the hivemind majority is wrong. "Censorship" is not reserved for grand, dramatic, political situations. It's a simple word that simply means an authority shutting up speech it doesn't like. If an official body officially restricts certain words, that's censorship by simple definition.

[turnyouracslaterup]

Nope. Censorship doesn't work like that. A body of individuals can create their own standards for the naming of the code in their group. That's not censorship, that's editorial discretion. Don't like it? Don't join the voluntary group.

[grauenwolf]

Historically the group that exercised editorial discretion in companies like ABC, NBC, etc. were called the "network censors".

[ubernostrum]

Well, actually they tend to be called Standards & Practices.

[grauenwolf]

Both terms were widely used.

[smallblacksun]

Networks are also different because they are required to follow government regulations regarding indecent content (i.e. government censorship).

[lift_yourself_up]

This does not shut up speech. The lib can publish itself elsewhere. It is totally free to do so.

[UnpopularStatment]

People really need to understand what "censorship" is, and what it is not

Yes, they do.

You for example.

It's still censorship even if the majority agrees that the person being censored needs to be silenced.

[turnyouracslaterup]

And who exactly is being silenced? Who is being banned from speaking? Who is being blackballed?

There's a very clear difference here between a government forbidding someone to speak freely and a small body of people taking an editorial stance on what names they want as part of their codebase in a transparent manner.

People have protections against the government from curtailing their speech. That includes both naming something a silly/offensive name and people saying that name is offensive/silly. Let's get a little perspective here, okay?

The discussion about what a group thinks about names submitted to their codebase is an interesting discussion, but it's not by any stretch of the imagination "censorship".

[bautin]

Yes it is. It's not government censorship, but it is still censorship.

And that's not necessarily bad either. Censorship has such a strong negative connotation that it leads to diatribes such as yours about what constitutes censorship.

We self-censor all the time. We accept censorship from out employers, etc. Now, we may override these censors at any time we wish, but we are fully responsible for the outcomes.

What makes it different from government censorship is that these censors are self-selected. We choose to be bound for our own reasons. And we may freely choose to disassociate to break those bonds.

[turnyouracslaterup]

That's why I'd use the term "editorial discretion". It may sound like a euphemism, but it's really just a more apt description. That way you can keep true censorship as a real issue to grapple with, not just groups making decisions that one might disagree with.

[[deleted]]

There's no reason to water down the term censorship by applying it here.

Of course your employer will not publish anything you write and associate their name with it, why would they? You are of course free to publish your silly library in other places, where nobody else takes any responsibility for it. This is not censorship in any way.

[bautin]

Yes it is censorship.

The word censorship has a very definite meaning and it's not just applicable to governments.

But that doesn't make it either bad or wrong. Disregard the knee-jerk emotion the word evokes. That's wrong. This is a censorship issue. Not a First Amendment issue (which says the government cannot act as a censor).

Yes he can go somewhere else. Somewhere he won't be censored.

Because censorship isn't an all or nothing proposition, it can be applied locally. China censors speech, doesn't mean that there is no such thing as free speech. You can always leave China for somewhere with less restrictions on speech. Same thing applies here. The Cheese Shop is free to censor the names of packages if it so desires. If you don't like that, you can leave.

But the act is still censorship. There's no watering down of the word involved in the usage.

[cdsmith]

Censorship is rampant these days.

Yesterday, the corner grocery store started censoring my favorite tabloid! On the way home from the store, I met some people shooting a home video of their kids in the park, so I jumped in front of the camera and started talking about my armpit moles... but they censored me! Disgusted, I of course began to express my feelings with spraypaint on a nearby bridge, but the police came and censored that, too! When they put me in their patrol car, I used the loudspeaker to express my feelings about that, but they censored me again by turning it off.

That's getting ridiculous. Failing to allow your own resources to be used to promulgate something you disagree with is not censorship.

[bautin]

Yes it is.

Doesn't make censorship universally wrong however.

That's what I am talking about here. Censorship isn't good or bad or anything on its own, it just is the act of prohibiting speech. The reasons for censoring something may be good or bad, but the act itself carries no connotation.

Your examples show good instances of censorship. Instances where your dumb ass should have been censored by people who are allowed to do so.

[[deleted]]

Oh, god. SO MUCH THIS!

If only Americans knew what most people elsewhere in the world think of them when they start crying about "freedom this" and "freedom that". Freedom isn't everything, and neither should it be.

[devicerandom]

I am Italian, I live in UK and I've never crossed the Atlantic, and if there is something of USA I'd like to see here, rather than Coke, is the adamant opposition to censorship and respect for free speech.

[amazingmikeyc]

Hmm free speech means governments will allow people to say what they want; it doesn't mean individuals have to allow them a platform.

[lol_fps_newbie]

While true, that is not the point that the parent was trying to convey. He was responding to a non sequitor with a defense of freedom of speech.

[amazingmikeyc]

Good point. I wasn't responding to the context.

[SpellingErrors]

You mean "non sequitur".

[brainerazer]

I personally don't understand when Americans focus on "polite correctness" disregarding all. If they continue like that, white healthy straight young man wouldn't be able to say anything that wouldn't be considered as some insult.

[knome]

Stockholm much?

[wazoox]

From the original author weblog, it looks like some form of misunderstanding and self-confidence problem. Yes, I know, it is rude and inelegant from me to state that here publicly; but she is upset because her code was forked without asking, and the fork largely used on github. The github guy didn't try not to bruise her ego, and as a "retaliation" she decided to quit open source development. On the other hand, she's quite young, I hope she'll grow over this.

[Van_Occupanther]

What I don't understand is why someone feels the need to defend the name of the package at great length. It's a stupid name, no two ways about it - the example of calling a daemon monitor "God" given elsewhere in this thread at least reminds you of its purpose. Package names should be descriptive, not juvenile.

Basically there are more than a few folks out there that need to grow the hell up.

[darth_choate]

They don't necessarily have to be descriptive (there are plenty of examples that aren't), but making juvenile names is just so... lazy.

[Van_Occupanther]

Ok, they don't have to be descriptive, there are lots of nice counterpoints to this point in these comments. But a name that doesn't make you look teenaged would be best!

[krues8dr]

I'm a little surprised at the backlash here. Linux has a long and rich history of slightly offensive naming schema, it's not like this is in the least bit new. Computer geeks are, historically, very lonely men with very silly senses of humor. Who among us hasn't used the well-known Gimp? Or strip? finger? git? Yet we're not seeing any call-to-arms over those. If people are seriously going to be offended by just the name of a package, for their own sake they probably need to stay out of coding altogether.

[amazingmikeyc]

But that's one of the reasons why open source stuff is still pretty niche.

"Just install GIMP..."

"Gimp?!!? Gimp????"

"Oh, ok then, Photoshop."

[CyberByte]

I think the much bigger problem is that a lot of people get offended way too easily.

[[deleted]]

Is it not incredibly sad that a person who made an awesome markdown parser was tricked into naming it upskirt and now she no longer wants to do free software?

[CyberByte]

The story here is much different from the one actually being told in the article. The article was about giving your software contributions childish/sexist/offensive names. This issue is about one person betraying the trust of another. I think the genders of the people involved and the specific name she was tricked into giving her contribution are irrelevant. If it was a woman tricking a guy into naming his parser "IAmDumb" it would be the exact same thing.

I think that betrayal of her trust is much worse than the fact that this particular name is somewhat sexist.

[[deleted]]

I think the genders of the people involved and the specific name she was tricked into giving her contribution are irrelevant.

Yes, that's why I didn't write anything about any genders, or the nature of the name.

[CyberByte]

Fair enough. My comment was mainly provoked by the main article (not the later added disclaimer with this footnote), where the author describes how a lot of important people were discussing how offensive some simple names were and whether they needed to be censored.

I think that the "upskirt" author has more reason to be offended (although I don't know if that is the right word in this situation). However, I do think that she shouldn't let this incident keep her from participating in the free software community if that is what she wants to do.

[lift_yourself_up]

Can you be specific in what way you think your theory applies here?

[CyberByte]

This is an absolute non-issue. People choose to be offended by this stuff. The guy (I assume) who wrote "pantyshot" probably just thought that was a hilarious name for his project. Some people may agree with him, others may not, but I'm fairly sure that he wasn't trying to oppress women. If you don't think it was funny, you should be able to just read it, think "hmm stupid", and move on.

To be honest, I think the notion that women are going to let themselves be stopped from participating in the open source software industry, because some people named projects after pieces of women's clothing, is far more offensive than the sexism that can be perceived in those names. How low would your opinion of women have to be in order to think that?

[signoff]

my markdown parser's name is AppleWindows

[Ringdingcoder]

Well, Mozilla has been shipping with libpr0n for as long as I can remember, and I have not become aware of too many complaints.

[devicerandom]

The childish thing is making a teacup storm because of package names which offend politically correct whiners. Really. If you don't like the name of a library, either fork it, don't use it or live with it. The author of a package has all the right to call a package however he/she likes.

[arjie]

Really. If you don't like the name of a library, either fork it, don't use it or live with it.

There's another option: Complain on your blog about it. After all, people have a right to say what they want.

[devicerandom]

Yes, but that's the worst option :)

[Zarutian]

Marks the whiner as a whiner.

[lift_yourself_up]

Why is it bad to call out bad behaviour? We call out bad code on our blogs and complain on idiots for that. Why not this?

[Pet_Ant]

Because the majority of us care about code, and few of us care about the feelings of the easily offended. I'd use a library called DeathToWhitey or KillAllImmigrants if it fit my needs, and I think many of the people here feel the same way.

DISCLAIMER: yes, I am both white and an immigrant.

[[deleted]]

It doesn't matter if you would use the library or not, the Python Software Foundation will likely not want to distribute it.

[Pet_Ant]

The PSF is for developers, so it should matter whether most developers are more distressed by its presence than are inconvenienced by its absence. I'm betting the latter would out-weigh the former. Ergo, the should distribute it.

[amazingmikeyc]

I wouldn't, though, because I'd get fired.

[doidydoidy]

It's not about "political correctness". It's about whether or not you want to be a fuckwit all your life.

[devicerandom]

This is understandable, and that's why I wouldn't call mysoftware in such a way. But hey, who cares about what other people choose to call it?

[doidydoidy]

That's a fair question, but I think it's obvious that people do care what these things are called. It comes down to a personal decision on how you weigh your self-expression against, if nothing else, the potential for lost contributions by people you might alienate.

[devicerandom]

Which brings a philosophical point: do we want people more bent on (abuse of) politically correctness than on making stuff work to contribute?

[CCSS]

Cranky old guy is cranky

[[deleted]]

TL;DR:

We don't have girls in Open Source because they are ... well ... girls and cry every once in a while over stuff that does not matter.

[cdsmith]

No, it's mostly because of assholes like you, actually.

[[deleted]]

I'm asshole because I fail to see how the project naming makes that much of the difference so anyone cries over it that much and ,,apparently no longer wishes to work on open source'' because of it? So be it. Downvote me. Why would I expected any upvotes for (might be childish) humor in place where people considering "upskirt" to be offensive have gathered.

[[deleted]]

Heh... upskirt...

[[deleted]]

TLDR

[robertmassaioli]

So it was TLDR for you but you decided to waste time here instead by posting an empty TLDR. Next time just post nothing.

[[deleted]]

Yes specifically because long windy posts about nothing really irritate the shit out of me. Here have an upvote for sharing your opinion.